How the the magic of fairy tales inspired this children's book illustrator

Manelle Oliphant is an artist and children's book author and illustrator from Salt Lake City. Her love of art and stories began with the books and shows she enjoyed as a child, from the Chronicles of Narnia to the Faerie Tale Theatre. Since earning a degree in illustration, she has worked on many children’s books.

While she uses some digital tools for her work, her main love is working with watercolour paints, which give her work its unique and dreamy look. We caught up with her to learn about her inspirations and how her work has evolved. If you're inspired, see our pick to the best watercolour paints and our guide to watercolour tecniques.

What was your main source of inspiration?

So much of my inspiration comes from stories. Old fairy tales have often inspired me and given me ideas to play with. Lately, I’ve been working to improve my watercolour painting, so I’ve also been creating many landscapes, which helps me focus on technique. Seeing what other artists have done also gives me a lot of ideas.

As a young artist, were there fictional worlds that gave you a desire to create your own?

There was a TV show that my parents would record onto VHS tapes called Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, and a lot of my love for fairy tales came from watching it. I enjoyed seeing how they could tell the story of Cinderella in one way, and Disney could do it in a whole different way.

As I got a little older, I’d go to the library and check out beautifully illustrated books of fairy tales. Trina Schart Hyman and P.J. Lynch both worked in watercolour and created such magical artwork, and I wanted to be like them

Are there any challenges working traditionally over digitally?

There are always challenges to working in traditional media rather than digital, and there have been times I was told that I wasn’t hired because my work was traditional. I stick with traditional media because I love how it feels. It also helps me commit. When I draw digitally, I tend to mess about more, and my line quality isn’t as nice as when drawing on paper.

But I actually use both traditional and digital tools in my process, even in my watercolours. It’s much easier to refine sketches and clean them up using Procreate, even if I started the sketch on paper. Once I have a sketch I like, I print on watercolour paper, which gives me some confidence because if I mess up, I can print another and start again

How has the industry changed for the better since you started?

When I graduated from school, everyone considered self-published or independently published books rubbish – and they usually were. It was hard to self-publish and people often did it if they didn’t know how publishing worked or didn’t do the work to make their book good.

However, over the last 10 years the internet has made independent publishing more accepted. And while it’s true that there are still a lot of crappy books published, I love that this opens up opportunities for amazing books that maybe don’t fit into the mainstream publishing world to get in the hands of readers.

Do you tend to stick to a single medium, or mix and match?

Image credit: Manelle Oliphant

Image credit: Manelle Oliphant

Watercolour is my favourite medium, but ink drawing comes in a close second, and I also enjoy digital painting. I like to switch it up depending on the project. Some stories are better told with ink, or just feel right painted digitally. And sometimes I change things up just to try something different.

Do you have any passion projects?

I do have a fun long-term project I’m working on. I also like to write and am working on a novel for ages 9-12, all about hunting unicorns. The main character is a girl who must hunt them to help feed her family.

The plan is for a heavily illustrated book with medieval inspired art. I have an agent, and we’re almost ready to send the book out on submission. It’s fun to see the story and art coming together.

You can see more of Manelle’s work at talesfantastic.com.

For more inspiration see Silent Hill 2's creative director Mateusz Lenart's tutorial for how to draw like a 19th century master. Also see our round ups of comic art resources and line art exercises.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions available.