Wyna

Exercise 6 Working for children

In this exercise, I will create two illustrations.  I will choose two children target groups from a given list and then select a word to illustrate.  The word can be chosen from a list.  I will then pick an animal of my choice for each illustration.  In both illustrations, the animal should engage in an activity that communicates the selected word.  I should be conscious of creating a world in which the character operates.  

First, I brainstormed the target groups by collecting book illustrations for each group.  The groups are as follows:

  • Pre-reader
  • Pre-school (3-5)
  • Early reader (5-7)
  • Established reader (7-9)
  • Older age groups
Figure 1 Pre-reader book “Goodnight Moon”
Figure 2 Pre-reader book “The Runaway Bunny”
Figure 3 Pre-school book “Who took the farmer’s hat?’
Figure 4 Early reader book “Harry the dirty dog”
Figure 5 Established reader book “The Fire Cat”
Figure 6 Older age book “Little Bear”

Selecting Pre-reader and Established reader, I brainstormed the word Sad.  I have chosen Sad for both groups as I thought it would be nice to compare the different illustrations.

Figure 7 Brainstorming mind maps

Pre-reader

I was thinking about situations that will make a pre-reader sad, and it will usually be the smallest things.  They live very much in the moment.  Separation anxiety, falling and getting hurt, not wanting to eat their vegetables, feeling hungry and not getting their way, amongst many others, will make them sad.  

I considered animals like a pig or a bee for the pre-reader child.  Those two creatures have attractive features that can add a lot of character to the illustration.  The theme for the illustration can be one of the following.

  • Have to go to school
  • I can’t get that toy
  • Have to eat my vegetables
  • Falling off my tricycle
  • Leaving the party

I have decided to go for the “Have to eat my vegetables” theme, thinking of a piglet sitting around a table and a mother dishing vegetables. 

Established reader

The established reader will have different situations making them sad, for example, feeling excluded, bad grades, children at school being mean, “no one understands me”, or “not being taken seriously”.

I considered using a peachick, chick or a butterfly for this illustration.  In the illustration, the character can be compared to the adult version to emphasise that this animal is a pre-teen.  The theme of the illustration can be one of the following.

  • Bad grades
  • Feeling ugly and excluded from society
  • Not old enough to do grown-up things
  • Feeling out of place and different 

I have chosen the “Feeling out of place and different” for this illustration and was thinking along the lines of a pre-teen chick walking with the bigger hens (adults) and feeling different and out of place. 

Figure 8 Thumbnails

Chicken Illustration (Established reader)

The chicken illustration is going to be digital.  I have decided on a layout and scanned it into Photoshop to clean up the drawing and add more details.  

Figure 9 Outline sketch

I have studied photographs of real-life chickens to draw my own drawing.  I started using digital watercolours but felt a little lost with the colours.  I decided to discard the illustration, do a colour study first, start fresh and use pastel brushes.  In hindsight, I quite like the watercolour brushes and will use them again in the future.  I did a colour study to establish a colour palette.  I have decided to go for the cooler background to go with the sad tone of the piece.

Figure 10 Watercolour vs Pastel brushes
Figure 11 Colour study
Figure 12 Finished illustration

The mom and piglet illustration (Pre-readers)

This is going to be a gouache illustration.  I used the same method as the chicken illustration by scanning the thumbnail into Photoshop, cleaning up the drawing and then doing a colour study, sizing the picture and tracing it on paper by using my Wacom tablet as a lightbox.  

Figure 13 Mom and piglet colour study
Figure 14 Creative process

I  include a link to a short video of my creative process.

Once I had completed the gouache painting, I finished the illustration with black brush pen outlines. 

Figure 15 Finished illustration

The target age brackets for children are clear cut when we consider the book’s subject matter, but younger children will still look at older children’s books as long as it has pictures.  There is more text in the older children’s book, probably so the reader can also use his imagination to create an image in his mind.  As the story becomes lengthier and the child can concentrate longer, the illustrations might be less comprehensive.  The text will tell the story to a larger extent than the pictures.  The ratio seems to be the same in young children. 

Children like bright colours, but I think the same applies to colour when creating a mood and tone for a child.  I remember as a child I did not like Beatrice Potter’s black and white pictures in between the colour pages.  I would page forward to the full-colour pages. 

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