House of Commons Charity Christmas Cards

In July I was asked to create a series of Christmas images set in and around Parliament buildings, to be sold in the Houses of Parliament shop. I love making London-themed illustrations so this was a bit of a dream project for me. I had also just emerged from a very long picture book project, so I was really excited to get to work on something completely different!

I started by researching the various locations that might make good settings for each design, and after realising that the online reference images were fairly limited, I decided to make the most of my proximity to London, and spend the afternoon walking around Westminster. This allowed me to immerse myself in the project, and to gather a nice range of reference photos to work from. It also gave me a sense of where different buildings around Westminster were in relation to each other, which allowed me to get 4 clearly defined scenes in my mind.

I also visited the Houses of Parliament shop so that I could get a sense of the type of items and stationery that were being sold. It was so handy to see their current card ranges to give myself a bit of context and ensure that I would offer something different to their existing products.

Wandering around the area in the crowds really got me into the right frame of mind, and I got caught up in the infectious energy of the tourists visiting! I wanted to translate some of that energy into some of the designs too. I imagined the image above to be Christmas eve, when people were making last minute preparations. 

Here's one of the photos I took, and the sketch. I found that digitally colouring all of my designs first was really helpful as I was able to make sure the collection worked as a whole first. I didn't want night time scenes to be overly dominant as I have a weakness for a snowy moonlight backdrop! The Elizabeth Tower features in a lot of designs, and the clock showed the time of day. I was conscious of having a nice mix of late afternoon, night and day scenes. 

In all of the designs, lighting and snowfall were important tricks that I played around with a lot to create atmosphere. The client also wanted little clues and symbols of the speaker to be included in each scene, which was a really fun challenge. For example, if you look carefully at the illustration above, the Speaker's state coach can be seen travelling across Westminster Bridge.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle requested that his pets would be hidden throughout the scenes! The Chamber illustration is the image that celebrates them the most, and was a really fun challenge. I was a little daunted by this design because I'm much more experienced in creating snowy outdoor scenes, and this one felt more out of my comfort zone. I knew that the illustration needed a level of accuracy and detail to be instantly recognisable as the commons chamber, but was concerned that it could very easily become quite rigid and heavy. 

Above are some progress shots as I worked on the final art. The lighting and decorative elements proved to be essential in creating a festive atmosphere, along with keeping to a deep, rich colour palette. Magic and abundance were the ideas I kept coming back to as I added in the details.

Finally, the client requested an extra design with a more religious theme, so I illustrated St Margaret's Parish Church of the House of Commons. I spent a while on the rough sketches here, trying out both a landscape and portrait format. It was decided that including the Elizabeth tower in the view worked best. Can you spot the Speaker’s cats here?

As is so often the way with freelancing, August unexpectedly turned out to be one of the busiest months of the year for me. This meant  I had to work efficiently, so each of the final artworks took me 1.5 days. I think the digital colour roughs really helped me as I could throw myself straight into the painting knowing what I wanted everything to look like. 

If you’d like to buy any of the designs, please click here and you’ll find links to each of them! x