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 and to read about the project and how I created the style. And then why not buy a copy for the little one in your life via the link at the bottom of the page?
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, but also approached this differently. Usually I would 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.
Colour Work
Stage 3 of any children’s book project (but stage 2 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 to pop more. The page above was one of my favourites to create…I got lost in creating the glowing interior of Bee’s home.
