So instead of posting a drawing, I thought that I would write about a really great book that I found at the library and found very inspiring. It is "Children's book illustration" by Jill Bossert. It is out of print, but can perhaps be found at the library. It is one of the best books on illustration I have seen, and actually also one of the best step by step guides. The author has interviewed nine very different children's book artists. They each describe a project they are working on, how they got the assignment and how they work together with the editor and the writer. The book then shows in detail how each artist creates an illustration for the book. The artists describe their research and how they approach the text. The amount of research that some of these artists do is really impressive. The artists also describe their illustration techniques and the tools and materials they prefer to work with.
The book is out of print and appears to be pretty difficult (and expensive) to get a copy of, so hopefully there is no harm in posting a couple of pictures from the book.
The book is one is one in a series of three; the other two are on advertising illustration and editorial illustration. If they are anything like the one on children's book illustration, they are worth looking for.
Thank you for posting this, Gry, as it is always fascinating to see the artistic process used by others. It's also interesting to see how differently people interpret a subject - which reminds me of the cats project on our illustration course.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of your course and whether it'll overlap with our course material in March.