Apr 20, 2014

Children book page: the fox and the crow

This was my most favorite week so far in the e-course Make Art That Sells
I thought it would be, and I was right: The children book market!

Our assignment was to make a cover or a double page for a children's book,
based upon Aesop's fable: 'The Fox And The Crow'

 

On Monday our inspiring teacher Lilla Rogers gave us the new subject: foxes.
My first reaction was: YES! I like to draw animals and I like foxes!

I looked on the internet for source material. Lots of beautiful foxes there!
I started to draw them. First realistic with pencil to get to know them more.
After that I played with shapes, lines and used all kinds of other materials.




I found it very challenging and fun to add various expressions and attitudes to the foxes.
Also interesting to find out what makes a fox a fox: his pointed ears, his sharp nose
His color and ofcourse his beautiful tail.





It was funny to see, the more foxes I drew, the longer his tail became :-)

After several hours of drawing, cutting, scanning and playing,
foxes were everywhere in my house.

Here a picture of my work in progress on my kitchen table:





I came up with a fox character. I've played with the idea of his long tail.
That would be a nice idea for a story and it could bring my fox in several situations.

We knew there would be also a crow involved in the story, so I worked a bit
on their relationship too. And  tried to keep the character consistant,
which is quite a challenge:






On Wednesday we got the big assignment: a cover or spread
after Aesop's fable: 'the fox and the crow' in your own style.


I first made several possible composition sketches. Here are two of them:



And  there was his loooong tail again:-)

At first I thought my fox would be too sweet to do something rude
to the crow (stealing his cheese) because in my head they where friends.

I liked the idea the fox was using his tail as a violin to seduce the crow to sing.
I chose that option to work on and built the spread.




We also worked on handlettering, which is also quite new to me.
I played a little bit with it, but I must say I need to explore this a lot more.

I came upon this inspiring handlettering site including
lots of tips, tutorials and videos about this subject.




Before I submitted my final spread, I first placed it in our facebook group,
I asked for some feedback, I thought there was someting missing, didn't know what.

A very good suggestion was to let the text follow the tail of the fox.
Besides all the information we get, is that another thing what I like so much about this course: the stimulating, supportive and positive atmosphere in the class :-)

If you want to have a closer look on my final spread click here

Will be contined, another two weeks to go...

7 comments:

roberto M. said...

Hi, Nelleke. Your art is great! There is nothing I do not like!
It is a very good book cover. congratulations!
Happy Easter!

manon gauthier said...

Dear Nelleke, very interesting process and wonderful results. Thank you for sharing. You are great! xx

Unknown said...

de vos die de kraai verleidt tot het zingen van een lied, de kraai komt niet veel verder dan wat krassen wat bij de tulpen eronder verwondering opwekt.
hi hi, ik ben benieuwd naar dat boek en hoe de kraai uiteindelijk tot zijn lied zal komen!

mooi en beeldend verslag van jou werk deze week, het plezier, de moeite zijn goed te volgen.

Ben benieuwd naar de volgende opdracht!

Elizabeth Rose Stanton said...

I love these, Nelleke! Such a wonderful balance of color, text and layout!

Nancy McKenzie said...

This was one of my favourites!You can tell you had fun.

Anette Heiberg said...

Great post! So much fun to look at your process!

Iris Biran said...

It's a fascinating and inspiring process you share with us.
I love your illustrations and the sense of humor they express.
This Fox book cover is fabulous!