Children's Poem Illustrations
Titles on individual pieces, 9x12, Corel Painter. 2009
Objective: The goal for this body of work was to illustrate pages for a book that would be appealing to children.
The inspiration for each of the poems and illustration was reading about the things that people's children do. There are so many great stories that parents have about their kids, so I figured why not utilize them. The first, and most difficult step was writing the poems. After that the illustrations came together rather easily. Not to say that they were magically finished, I went through multiple variations of each page before I found the correct imagery I wanted along with the poem. Another note to add, I created all of these using a Bamboo tablet that hooks into the computer. This made it easier to keep the surfaces clean and also to do several different color variations of the same illustration without completely ruining the image. I also greatly enjoy working with the tablet, which was a bonus.
The actual production of the illustrations started with a drawing out the basic outline with a pencil tool. From there I erased the unnecessary lines and began painting. The color was added using digital watercolors, which give the illustrations that great child-like feel. I applied the different colors starting with lightest tints and worked progressively darker.
Through the course of the project, my love for illustration was further illuminated. I have always love to look at and create illustrations, and for a time I lost track of that love, which makes me happy that this assignment landed in my lap. I also learned that writing is perhaps the more difficult part of a poem book. As I had said before, the hardest part of the project was indeed writing these poems. They had to be interesting, easy to read for kids, and be able to be connected with an eye-catching illustration. The challenge was also instigated by myself, seeing as how we did not HAVE to write our own poems. Which leads to the last thing I learned about myself, I want to write and illustrate a children's poem book. That is the main reason I chose to write all of my own poems; so I could actually use them someday!
Objective: The goal for this body of work was to illustrate pages for a book that would be appealing to children.
The inspiration for each of the poems and illustration was reading about the things that people's children do. There are so many great stories that parents have about their kids, so I figured why not utilize them. The first, and most difficult step was writing the poems. After that the illustrations came together rather easily. Not to say that they were magically finished, I went through multiple variations of each page before I found the correct imagery I wanted along with the poem. Another note to add, I created all of these using a Bamboo tablet that hooks into the computer. This made it easier to keep the surfaces clean and also to do several different color variations of the same illustration without completely ruining the image. I also greatly enjoy working with the tablet, which was a bonus.
The actual production of the illustrations started with a drawing out the basic outline with a pencil tool. From there I erased the unnecessary lines and began painting. The color was added using digital watercolors, which give the illustrations that great child-like feel. I applied the different colors starting with lightest tints and worked progressively darker.
Through the course of the project, my love for illustration was further illuminated. I have always love to look at and create illustrations, and for a time I lost track of that love, which makes me happy that this assignment landed in my lap. I also learned that writing is perhaps the more difficult part of a poem book. As I had said before, the hardest part of the project was indeed writing these poems. They had to be interesting, easy to read for kids, and be able to be connected with an eye-catching illustration. The challenge was also instigated by myself, seeing as how we did not HAVE to write our own poems. Which leads to the last thing I learned about myself, I want to write and illustrate a children's poem book. That is the main reason I chose to write all of my own poems; so I could actually use them someday!