Bee and Bear
Children’s Book
‘Bee and Bear’ (2019) is a picture book about friendship and learning your primary colours, for kids aged 2-5 years.
It’s a book that I’m hugely proud of, and a shift in my illustrative style from the Haggis MacDougall series I had previously drawn.
Scroll down to see more images from the book, to read about this lovely project, and how I created the new style. And why not buy a copy via the link at the bottom of the page for the little one in your life?
Linework
Linework is usually the second stage of a children’s book project for me. Prior to this, I produce scamped pages, showing rough dimensions and character placements for each spread in the book. After author approval, I move onto the detailed linework as shown above.
For Bee and Bear I went straight to the linework stage, and also approached doing this differently too. Usually, I complete the linework stage simply in black and white, however in this project I wanted the black tones to be used sparingly for the eyes and fill of Bear’s nose to emphasise these. So I created the linework using base tones from the colours that would ultimately be used for the characters and environment within the story.
Colour Work
Stage three of any children’s book project (but stage two for this one!) is the colour work, following author approval of the linework. The pages were inked digitally using Procreate on the iPad Pro, and its huge range of digital brushes; primarily Gouache and pencil for this book.
The colour pallet I chose was autumnal, allowing for layered contrasting oranges and browns, mixed with Bear’s textured fur and the lush green woodlands. All of these tones allowed the golden yellow of Bee and her hive, and the colours of the honey throughout, to ‘pop’ more in contrast. The page above was one of my favourites…creating the glowing interior of Bee’s home.
