Charis Simpson is studying our Illustrating Children’s Book Diploma Course with tutor Maggy Roberts. maggy sent us one of Charis’ illustrations for our blog….
Charis said…
“I have always dreamed about being a children’s book illustrator and this course seemed like the perfect step”
For the assignment, I was inspired a bit by Chris Riddell – particularly with the trees. I decided to make it black and white rather than grey scale and use line work like he does. I love his work! I think the use of quite a bit of solid black makes the drawings stand out. I tried to include elements of the poem in as well as some new elements that I have added. I wanted to have characters in the piece that would engage the child. I also wanted to include the scared little boy, as I had in the exercise… I thought a tent would work well and included his dog for company so he wasn’t completely alone! I uses black fine line pens and markers for the piece, scanning onto my computer for final touches. I was a bit confused as to whether I needed to add text as I know you said this isn’t normally done… but I think I read it right that you wanted us to add it. Anyway I hope you like it! Thanks again for your feedback… I have really tried to listen to it as much as possible and follow the brief!
Charis Simpson
www.charismariart.com
