Stink
A bit of stink wafted in with this fun book!
A recent project completed earlier this year for Eleanor Curtain Publishing is now published. And it wasn’t a stink at all. It’s a very typical guided reading format. They are small, fictional books that can be found in most UK libraries and school libraries too. They are aimed at improving a child’s reading level, but are very much the forerunner of the picture book. Over the years I have illustrated a number of these little (often fictional) books.
The ‘Goodmans’ Go Camping
This book tells the story about a Hispanic family who, decide to go on a wonderful camping trip and get back to nature. However they fail to read the camp rule book properly and a stinky chaos ensues! They get ‘skunked’!
Character Development
The starting point for illustrating a guided read is character design. Generally the publisher wants to see how the artist (moi), sees the characters. It gives the publishers a chance to amend and adjust any character designs I do. I usually do some in full colour, as editing the colour (especially skin tones) is very important.
Trees forever! And no stink…
Today I am sharing the cover artwork, as some of the internal illustrations can be found in my children’s fiction folio (click here to see). The cover artwork is often brighter and more intense in colour than the internal artwork. So the artwork jumps off the page a bit! In actual fact, folks, I tuned it down a bit in Photoshop, as the version online was giving me a migraine… but seriously, it needs to stand out on a shelf, so the colours work.
The artwork is partly hand-drawn and partly digitally. I have also added some collage elements too. I still like to do some of the work by hand, but do enjoy trying new things all the time.
