Customer Reviews

Illustrating Children's Books: Creating Pictures for Publication

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Illustrating Children's Books by Martin Salisbury is a gem! With full color illustrations as well as examples from artist's sketchbooks on every page, it has a very right-brain approach to the subject matter. As well it should! While there are many images, and a lot of type to read, it is clear that a lot of time and effort was spent putting this book together. Not only is this book well organized, it is engrossing.

Chapters & Text follow the standard chronological path of development of ideas to publishing. Mr. Salisbury's book begins with an introduction, and short but important history of 19th & 20th century books. He cites influences, technological advances, and gives beautiful examples of books on the international market that you may not have seen or would be able to find here.

Drawing, media & materials and techniques, and arguments for going digital are the broad chapter headlines. Each chapter is then broken down into specifics such as; the life studio, (why you need to draw every day) on location drawing, and media techniques such as oils, black & white, collage, and many more. These chapters in the book are important in the over all focus, however I would still explore more specialized art books if you don't have experience using some of the media suggested here.

The central focus of this book goes on to study character development, concepts for the picture book, and illustrating for older children. And again everything from getting to know your characters, form, sequence, adding drama and making a good solid mock-up are covered. In these sections I really appreciated the case studies which are artist / author interviews similar to the short features found in the Communications Arts magazine. John Lawrence and Martin Waddell's book Tiny's Big Adventure is one example. In this short interview they discuss editing, and the process of working with a designer to get to the final lay out. Several mock-ups and sketches that they could have used along with the last design are shown.

Finally the books last chapters cover nonfiction illustration, history, how-to books, alphabets, counting, and pop-ups. Design, Layout, composition and typography as image have their own chapter. Getting published is the crucial last section. Professional approaches, the publishers view, contracts & money, glossary of industry terms, reading list and of course a few additional books and illustration organizations neatly wrap it all up.

In review, my guess is that this book could have easily been triple in size. Like a good children's book however, it's been distilled down to it's most important parts. I would highly recommend this both to the illustrator or author who works in the field, and especially students at art schools who are interested in pursuing illustrating as a career.

From the above reviews I had great expectations for this book, but they were quickly dashed. It covers a lot of ground, but only superficially. Aside from encouragement to use a sketchbook I didn't find much in the way of the drawing and design"lessons" alluded to above.

The book is also, to my mind, confusing in its design. The sidebars and illustrations are worked into the text in such a manner that it is hard to read the text straight through. Every thought seemed to get interrupted in the middle by an illustration or an author's comment. Very annoying. Lots of good pictures, a decent if shallow overview, but if you want to learn how to illustrate children's books you'll be better off with Uri Shulevitz' book.

This is a terrific book on the topic.

The Drawing section was akin to Drawing 101 in college. It included wonderful lessons on drawing figures, animals and places. I enjoyed seeing real-world examples that showed the process from initial sketch through to the final polished art.

The section on Media, Materials and Techniques is interesting and comprehensive. Except for Watercolors, which got four pages, there are two pages for each type of media which amazingly provide clear working overviews of each media.

The sections on Character Development and The Picture Book impressed me the most. The inclusion of information on novelty and popup books as well as how to make a dummy book make this book a standout.

The Getting Published section was chock full of current, real-world information from an educator in the field not just a glossy cover of old text.

Surprisingly, I haven't touched on all the sections of this book (i.e. Illustrating for Older Children, Illustrating Poetry, etc.). 'Illustrating Children's Books' is a treasure trove of information. I recommend this book because it is concise, thorough, beautiful, insightful, informative and most of all practical.

There are 3 must own books in the library of author/illustrators. This book is one. Read it. Over and over and over until it sinks in. Keep it and use it for reference. I use this book when I need some advice when I'm working on a concept or in the illustration or editing phases. There is invaluable advice in every word, line and drawing. The next book to add to your library, which is also quite informative, with a different spin is Shulevitz book "Writing with pictures". and last, but not least, the original book for author illustrators is "How to write illustrate and Design Children's books" by Frieda Gates. Between these 3 fantastic books, the topic is well covered and forms a fantastic base of information for you to launch and continue your career in the field. I also like the book "How to write and illustrate Children's books and get them Published" by Bricknell and Trotman, which has a nice overall introduction and overview for those just getting started.

Many wishes for success to you all!!

I originally found this book at my library. After reading it I decided that it was one of those books I wanted to steal...so I bought myself a copy. It's given me so many clues to illustrating childrens books I had to have a copy for my personal reference library. It's got great pictures, examples and explanations of other illustrators techniques.

Books on this subject are hard to find, and this one is a gem! I absolutely LOVE this book! The layout is perfect with tons of illustrations and examples while keeping the text interesting and useful. I've been reading it before going to bed every night and almost want to get back up to put the theory into practice! Very practical and an enjoyable read, higly recommended for all illustrators out there!

Many artists might be searching for a book on the techniques for illustrating children's books, and although this book does not show an artist HOW to draw, it does go into detail about what is behind illustrating for children's books that makes the illustrations successful.

This is an excellent, easy read for those interested in illustrating children's books. I bought this book along with Writing with Pictures (which I do not recommend) and found this to be an incredibly valuable resource for someone NEW to the field or illustration student. The book is filled with interesting insights into the minds of various illustrators, tips for processing ideas, understanding how the basic process works when dealing with a publisher and writer, etc. It also has a great brief history of children's book illustration, and talks about what is happening today, as far as media, market, etc.

Unlike many "how-to" books, this one is actually fun to read- and very easy to finish. I have been bored to tears with how-to books in the past- but I finished this within a couple of days. It is filled with inspirational illustrations on every page, and being a very visual person, I found it delightful to read.

If you are looking for specifics- exactly how to lay out a page, exactly how to prepare a portfolio, (though it does give tips) exactly which publishers to send your work to- then you will find this book disappointing. However, if you are new to this field and want a basic overview (and a bit of encouragement) before getting a very specific book- this is the best buy out there.

Other books I highly recommend:

Childrens Writers & Illustrators Market 2007

Inside the Business of Illustration

Bologna Annual 2006 (Bologna Annual. Illustrators of Children's Books)

This book is filled with lovely illustration examples. I find myself flipping through it all the time just because it's so pretty. The content is solid for an overview; you get history, types of media, practices, advice and resources. While I still feel a little overwhelmed by the process of submitting work this book has been a valuable resource.

As a hobby illustrator and a great admirer of Children's Illustration books, this book has provided a generous overview of the world of picture book publishing. Whilst, no area is covered in great depth, it's simplicity and wonderful illustrations provided more than enough information for the interested reader.

To self induluge, I would have loved to have seen some Australian illustrators mentioned though such as Mem Fox, Shaun Tan and Graeme Base as they are considered wonderful Picture Book Illustrators.

I showed this book to some of my collegues and they loved it!