The scene
From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1950), Chapter 1. The youngest of four children pushes through the fur coats at the back of an old wardrobe and steps out into a snowy wood at night. She walks toward a light, and it is a lamp-post. Then a faun comes hurrying by with an umbrella white with snow and an armful of parcels, and is so startled to see her that he drops them. It is the first step into Narnia, and I wanted it to feel the way it does to read it: hushed, cold, and full of wonder rather than fear. An inspired-by print: nothing in it is taken from any film.
The style
A Japanese snow woodblock print: flat colour, crisp keyed outlines, a soft night sky deepening to blue, and snow falling as small white flakes over everything. The whole wood is cold blue and white except the lamp, the only warm light in it, which is exactly how that wood feels when you first step into it.
The inspiration
The look comes from Japanese snow woodblock prints of the 1830s, the printmakers who made quiet snowy nights their own. I borrowed that printing look only: the flat snow, the gradated sky, the falling flakes. The village, houses and travellers of my reference aren't here.
How it's made
I design each scene and refine it until it feels right. It's a print of a digital artwork made in the style of a woodblock print, not a hand-cut woodblock or an original or antique print. A typeset caption under the picture names the book, the moment and the style that inspired it. Each one carries my printed "Chapter & Scene" signature in the margin.