Illustrating a Children’s Book – How it all came together

At the end of August, I had a conversation with a retired illustrator and mentioned that I had been invited to illustrate a children’s book myself. He told me that “the first page will take you ages – and the following ones will come much more easily.” How very right he was! Here’s page one which took me two days to complete.

The story involves a group of six animals and birds, all national symbols from the United Arab Emirates where it will be published. I began by doing a bit of research into these animals to find out what they looked like and was quickly attracted by how cool they were – so beautiful and distinct in their colours, markings and features.

What I hadn’t anticipated as I was drawing, was how I was not just sketching the different creatures but conveying the sentiment and developing the emotion within the story. Each page had new challenges and finding the heart of what was described helped me to then sketch out and design the layout – which animal was looking at who – did one need to be close-up – how did the action take place – what was the overall atmosphere – and what emotions were individuals experiencing etc.

The style of the drawings also evolved quite early on so I stuck to the same process with each new page which definitely helped me to make consistent progress. This began with a pencil sketch, followed by using a black fine liner then a series of coloured washes both in acrylic ink and acrylic. The looser the marks the happier I was with the result.
So “The Camel’s Tale” the day the animals found friendship by Maggi Gale and illustrated by Gill Drew will be available late 2024. Do check my instagram page for exact dates. Very exciting!!