Illustrating Childrens Books

Illustrating Children's books

Go into any bookshop and you will see the enormous selection of books illustrated in every conceivable style for children of all ages. It will be immediately obvious that our course cannot cover everything there is to know on this vast subject. However we do cover drawing skills, examples of various types of illustration and give the student a working knowledge of the publishing industry.

To succeed in this competitive field you will need a combination of talent, hard work and good fortune. Work submitted to publishers must be of a consistently high standard, but the tastes of individuals ( including art directors and publishers) are all different and so styles can be varied.

The London Art College, with its origins in the Fleet Street of the 1930's, has always had very strong courses for aspiring illustrators. This programme, written by one of the best Children's Book illustrators of recent years and now tutored by Maggie Roberts who herself is widely published, is an excellent introduction to the subject. Students are encouraged to build up their own portfolio of work which can be very useful with interested third parties in the future.

The course content includes:

Basic Drawing Skills ( a refresher)

Perspective, shapes & shadows

Pen, pencil & ink drawing

The art of communication

Materials & colours

Cartoons & caricatures

Figures in the round

Drawing Animals & birds

Fantasy & fairies

Watercolour preparation & technique (refresher)

Drawing Children

More about animals

Simple & bold for toddlers

Developing your own style

Text & Lettering

Book covers

Drawing & Painting children into the story

Developing characters

and much more.

There are submission points where the student sends in work, either electronically or by post . This is reviewed by the course tutor and returned with her personal critique. It is the build up of submitted work with the personal critiques provided by your own tutor that makes this course so successful and so unique.