Illustrator Katie Scott shares the intricate working process behind her new book on evolution

In her new book Story of Life: Evolution , Katie Scott took on the very reasonable task of illustrating the evolution of life on earth from 3.75 billion years ago. Covering all those years in eight pages, she’s been kind enough to share some of the work-in-progress drawings that make up the bright and intricate picture book.

Speaking on the process, she said: “In a visual sense it was liberating because I could make the illustrations pretty imaginative. We had an expert on board to check everything was correct, in terms of what we know from the fossil record and number of toes; but with things like colour and pattern I went kind of wild.” Her drawings in the book depict the plant life, insects, sea creatures, birds and dinosaurs of our earth’s past and the book is published by Big Picture Press.