Sophie Finds The Mandrake

Here´s an illustration that I am insanely proud of! Last winter one of my projects was to do illustrations based on Diana Wynne Jones´s book "Howl´s moving castle". It is a lovely book and I remember reading it as a child and now I had to read it again. I´m afraid I was a bit too haste so I´ll probably need to re-read it again in Finnish at some point. Anyway the story is about a young lady called Sophie Hatter who gets turned into an old woman and she ends up working for a wizard named Howl. 

There is Ghibli animation made of it but I haven´t seen it yet (it´s on my list). I just found out that Christian Bale is Howl´s English voice...why I can not imagine anyone else doing his voice. What it comes to illustrating not seeing an adaptation usually works as an advantage because then you are not conclusively thinking about a film.  

Anyway...
this is a scene from the book where Sophie finds a mandrake. It took place in an alcove so I spent quite some time on Pinterest looking garden-like alcoves (welcome to day in the life of an illustrator). 

Watercolor and mixed media illustration. You can find prints and all kinds of other goodies from my store. 
My wizard Howl became a mixture of Jack Skellington and Lucius Malfoy. In the book he could change his looks. 

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Here are some close-up details. 
As some of you may know I just recently graduated. Now I got a degree on children´s book illustration!
It was hard work but I did enjoy it. 

If you know anyone who is looking for an illustrator or if you are looking for an illustrator and like my style don´t hesitate to contact me. I am also taking commissions. I hope to add a commission price here to my page within next couple of weeks. Should have done it already but I am freaking busy.