Ned Fairlie

Six swatches and a lot of layers

I work in a converted barn outside Bakewell, in the Peak District, a short walk from the Monsal Trail and the Headstone Viaduct, which is either very fitting or a bit much, depending on who is asking. I draw on an iMac with a Wacom tablet, and on a laptop when I am away from the desk. Everything starts as a thumbnail the size of a stamp. If the picture works that small, with only its biggest shapes, it will work as a poster.

Then a limited palette, usually six colours set up front as swatches so the whole picture agrees with itself, flat shapes built up one layer at a time, and a long time spent taking things out. The prints still come off a printer here and go out rolled in tubes.

Overhead on the desk: printed swatch cards for the viaduct palette, a proof print with a colour bar and a loupe, a sketchbook of viaduct thumbnails, the Wacom pen and tablet, and a mug of tea. Six prints drying on a line above a grey plan chest, with rolls of paper and posting tubes.

How I work

  1. 01

    A thumbnail

    It starts the size of a stamp, drawn by hand on the tablet. If the biggest shapes work that small, the picture is worth going on with.

  2. 02

    Quick drafts

    I try the composition and the light with an image model, a few different ways. Those drafts are a sketchbook, not the finished picture.

  3. 03

    Rebuild

    The shapes are rebuilt in Illustrator and simplified, fewer and bigger each time. Most of the work is here, and most of it is taking things out.

  4. 04

    Palette and grain

    A handful of swatches so everything agrees, and a little grain so it sits like a print.

  5. 05

    Layers

    Last, the picture is separated into layers, so it can move on a screen or go to the printer.

Every job is still made to the brief, for one person or one book.

On the iMac, four rough image-model drafts of the Night Ferry on the left and the finished picture with its palette on the right, and a hang-loose hand at the edge of the frame.
Four quick drafts, and the picture they turned into
The studio desk late at night, shutters closed and a desk lamp on: the iMac asleep, the laptop open on the Night Ferry with its swatches.
Late, with the shutters closed
The iMac in the barn with Anna Karenina half built in Illustrator: sky and snow finished, the station, lamp and train still blue outline paths.
Anna Karenina, halfway: the sky and snow built, the station still in outline