A few examples of children's illustrators:
Research
These age group divides are not strict
John Burningham (age 7 and under)
 |
| John Burningham |
 |
| Eric Carle |
Pre-school 3-5
 |
| Raymond Briggs |
 |
| Lisa Hunt |
Annette Tison and Talus Taylor
Early reader 5-7
 |
| Colleen Madden |
 |
| Sara Fanelli |
Unknown artists
 |
| Various items in a shop window |
 |
| Wrapping paper |
Alice and Martin Provensen
 |
| La Ronde des Animaux |
 |
| Sir John Tenniel |
Renata Liwska There's a wonderful video
featuring her sketchbooks on her website (for children
of all ages)
 |
| Renata Liwska |
Moomins, I loved these as a child and still do
 |
| Tove Jansson |
Angela Barrett
 |
| Angela Barrett |
 |
| Miss Clara |
 |
| Elisabette Gnone |
I was enchanted by this at 11
 |
| Raymond Briggs |
Anime/Manga
 |
| Rumiko Takahashi |
 |
| LV |
 |
| Coloured with chalk and charcoal |
 |
| Further layers of colour and layered in photoshop with soft light effect |
I chose to colour this image with chalks and charcoal as I thought it would give a nice, simple textural effect; it was actually quite difficult to control the materials at this scale, the paper I used had a flat finish which did not offer any interest texturally and to capturing the brightness of the chalk colours digitally took some adjustment.
Sad Dog (early reader)
 |
| Source photo |
 |
| LV |
Meerkat Family (established reader)
I had the idea to portray the word family with meerkats, which are charming, comical creatures likely to appeal to children.
 |
| LV |
I then decided to colour the image by collaging it in
photoshop, initially using sand as a texture, since they live in dry terrains,
but this proved a bit dull colour wise
So I redid it
with rust
 |
| Meerkat shapes used as a layer mask to achieve tonal difference in collage, with cut out line work placed as a top layer for clarity |
The meerkats in profile looked much more recognisable than
those front on because I didn’t take enough care over the initial drawing so I decided
to make a collage of one particular meerkat, this also has the advantage that
the source photo is not immediately recognisable.
I found this much more stylistically pleasing (I do like to
repeat an image) and tried another layout. I like the Russian doll effect of my
final image and the fact that the collage markings become a 'family trait'.
 |
| Meerkat Family (established reader) |
Here's a better crop of the final image
I found this exercise quite a struggle as working for children is not my metier. I had to really force myself to sit down and just get on with it, having said that I'm quite pleased with my final images for both age groups.
The divides between age groups are certainly not clear cut and there are plenty of darkly coloured illustrations which appeal to children of all ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment