Illustrating Wilson's Tales of the Borders: Creating the Final Illustrations

I’ve shared previously how the Experiment & Explore phase of this project had pushed my ink work further than I'd taken it before, and how I'd finished one illustration from each of my three chosen Tales. This post is about what happened next — the longer, sometimes harder, but ultimately rewarding process of working through the remaining illustrations to (almost!) complete the full series.

From process to production

Creating those first three illustrations — one each for Launcelot Errington and his Nephew Mark, Patrick Hume and the Governor of Berwick, and Grizel Cochrane — was an immersive experience. Each one involved working through the full process: moodboards, character development, thumbnail sketches, layout drawings, and finally the finished ink and wash artwork. It was slow, and deliberately so. All that thinking and decision-making felt essential.

What I hadn't quite anticipated was how that would feel when it came to making the next six…

The challenge of keeping momentum

Somewhere in the middle of the project, I noticed a shift. The process that had felt so generative at the start began to feel, at times, more like following a formula. The big creative questions had already been answered — the visual language was established, the characters were defined, the approach was set. All I had to do was make the illustrations. And yet, that felt harder than I expected.

I think there's something that I genuinely love about the early, exploratory stages of any project — the phase where everything is still open and you're learning and discovering at every turn. Sustaining momentum through the production phase, when the work is more about execution than exploration, is a different kind of discipline, and honestly one I've had to work at. Knowing this about myself feels like a useful thing to have discovered!

What I found along the way

Despite the occasional dip in energy, there have been real highlights. I've been genuinely surprised by how much more confident I've become in drawing people. Characters who would have felt daunting to attempt at the start of this project now feel manageable — even enjoyable. Given that most of my illustration work up to this point has focused on wildlife and architecture, this feels like a meaningful step forward and one I'm hoping to bring into future commission work.

I've also found real joy in the ink washes. There's a beautiful unpredictability to working with diluted ink on wet paper — the way it bleeds and blooms and settles in ways you can't entirely control. Some of my favourite passages in these illustrations are the backgrounds, where I've leaned into that quality and let the medium do its own thing. It's a reminder that not everything needs to be decided in advance.

One of the things I'd been quietly curious about was whether it was possible to create something with the feel of Victorian illustration — that sense of drama and contrast, the theatrical use of light and shadow — using just pen and ink, rather than wood engraving or etching. I think the answer is yes, and finding that out has been genuinely satisfying. Choosing moments from the Tales that were inherently dramatic helped: scenes with strong narrative tension lend themselves naturally to a treatment built on contrast.

Where I'm up to now

I currently have seven illustrations completed — three for the Errington tale, three for Hume and the Governor of Berwick, and one for Grizel Cochrane — and I'm about to begin the final two pieces to complete the series. I'm looking forward to finishing on the Grizel Cochrane illustrations, which feel like they still have some interesting territory to explore.

Illustrating Wilson’s Tales - the Exhibition

Once complete, the full series will be shown as part of a temporary exhibition celebrating Illustrating Wilson's Tales hosted by Berwick Library from Saturday 28th March until Saturday 25th April.

Celebrating illustration

The exhibition is the culmination of the whole project that I've been working on inspired by Wilson's Tales of the Borders, so in addition to my original artworks it will showcase the pieces created by my workshops participants, as well as some items from the Wilson's Tales Project collection. The exhibition will also see the launch of the new self-guided walking trail around Berwick, with stops at places associated with John Mackay Wilson, as well as some of the Berwick-based tales.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to pick up a free copy of the self-guided walking trail leaflet (which I designed for the Project) in order to explore Wilson's Berwick for themselves. These leaflets will continue to be available from Berwick Library after the exhibition closes, as well as from the Berwick Visitor Centre and a number of other outlets in the town..

The Wilson’s Tales Project are in the process of designing a digital version of the trail - see www.wilsonstales.co.uk/walk-with-wilson/