Behind the Art: Inside Nature Knows with Chloe Jasmine Harris
Sydney-based illustrator Chloe Jasmine Harris shares how she layers watercolour textures and uses digital collage to create the intricate natural world of Nature Knows, with a special video clip showing her process in action.
Chloe Jasmine Harris is the illustrator for Nature Knows, written by Yvette Farmer. Chloe is a Sydney-based illustrator whose work bridges digital and traditional techniques. Drawing on her background in painting and printmaking, she incorporates handmade marks, painterly textures, and playful layering and collage into her illustrations, which she assembles digitally. Chloe is particularly fond of mossy rainforests, hidden caves and the ocean after a storm. Here she shares more about her process for creating this beautiful book:
Some of the most beautiful things about nature are all the little details you can see when you look a little closer. When painting this book, I focused on including many small details. See if you can spot swirly patterns on some of the gum tree trunks, lines of ants making patterns and lizards and birds sitting in the foliage or on rocks. I paint lots of sheets of paper with watercolour and other types of paint. Sometimes I paint with rough, scratchy brushes, sometimes I paint with soft, smooth brushes. I then use a scanner to put these textures onto the computer. Then I cut them out and use them in my illustrations. It's kind of like collaging, but on the computer!
