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Illustrating Children's Books:
The Struggle Of Unlearning

Tabassum Abduraheem

Burnt out from my job as an architect, I was on a much needed gap, wondering about the next steps in my career. And by career gap I mean, hunching over my drawing tablet, drawing all day and night, learning new art techniques just for the love of it. I had been illustrating digitally for a few years then, which was a fun escape where I didn’t have to wallow in my career dilemma. And while I was certain this is where my true passion lies, I had kept aside art as a hobby. Maybe it's the starving artist stereotype that kept me at bay, or maybe the unwillingness to let go of architecture as a career that I had spent years studying for. Maybe it was just a lack of guidance, not knowing where to take all this passion for art towards. And so, I had never considered being an artist as a viable career option. That is until I was contacted by Folksnables asking if I was interested in illustrating picture books for children. It was this simple query that opened up my eyes to a new door, one that never had crossed my mind before. Ever since then, I worked on three picture books with Folksnfables and I continue to explore the world of illustrations through these projects. Adding to that, I’m happy to say that I haven't looked back since.


The world of children’s books


Children's books have a magnificent world within themselves. There are no laws, physics or boundaries in the endless imaginations of a child. That was the gist of how I had to unlearn everything and re-learn how to see through the eyes of a child. Coming from a background of architecture, there has always been a rigidity with which I  approached art; the perspective had to be perfect, the lines clean and the colours always inside the line.

Hence,  my very first lesson was to unlearn this way that I saw art and start seeing things from the eye of a child. I had to let go of any pressure to imitate reality so as to be able to change the visual language of art from elaborate precise drawings to drawings that accommodate the creative explosions inside the mind of a child. I soon learned that illustrating children's books is a lot more than simply drawing a scene from the storyline. Apart from the art itself, there is also an aspect  of book design and layout to consider. One has to focus on visual communication in a sense that the artwork does not hinder the readability of the text or reduce its visual significance.

Thereafter, I encountered many hassles such as drawing for certain age groups, expressive faces, character design and more. Among the many things that I picked up along this journey of illustrating for children a few notable tips are:


1. Expressions are the windows to the soul

When designing characters, it's always better to start off with facial expressions or  make a list of them.  A key characteristic of kid-lit illustrations is the ability to convey the emotional responses of the characters.


2. Drawing for different age groups

Always keep in mind the target audience when illustrating. Generally younger the readers, the more simple and direct the illustrations have to be with fewer details which can otherwise distract the young readers.


3. Draw between the lines

Often in picture books the text will be limited, especially in books intended for the younger age groups. A general thumb rule is that the younger the audience, the lesser will be the number of words. That's when illustrations particularly come in handy. The illustrations describe the scenes, especially the atmosphere, dialogue or emotions which were otherwise not mentioned in the text.


4. Compose around the text

While illustrating, one must keep in mind the position of text in a page relative to the drawing surrounding them. A creative course of action would be to show dialogues in bubbles, keep blank walls or skies in the backgrounds, or shapes where the text can be positioned etc. The use of negative/white space can help a lot while composing spreads.


5. Focus on the focus

Each book has a central theme such as adventure, educational, moral values etc. This would determine the overall direction of the storyboards and the mood of the illustrations. The three children’s books that I worked on with Folksnfables have three different focus points. For example, the book holiday in snow, focuses on a Christmas holiday, the activities of a family and how they bond through them. Here, the element of Christmas and snow is of utmost importance and correspondingly the colors red and white were used.


What also helped me with this process of illustrating for children was to look back on the books that I loved to read myself as a child. One of my first reads was “Grimm’s fairy tales”. More than reading the text, I loved to stare at the huge drawings as I flipped through each page elaborating castles and princesses, magic and colours. When I think about it now, the distinction of characters, the exaggeration of facial features and disregard for reality was what made it so enjoyable to read. I had probably flipped through those books a thousand times, and it was never for the story, it was always for the art. Not once back then did I ever imagine to be curating those illustrations myself. To conclude, I am grateful that I have found a happy little corner between the pages of children’s books and I would like to thank the people at FolksnFables for opening my eyes to this whole new world.

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