How to Illustrate a Children’s Book

Looking back when I was a child. *not so long ago really. (a river in Egypt: De Nile)* I used to illustrate my short stories. I didn’t see it that way. I was just telling the story. Never thinking twice about the different ways you can tell a story. Illustrations, story telling via words only, sounds, music, and combination of it all.

I am visual.

It’s hard for me to read a book with no pictures. I need to sketch or create a world visually in order to really get into the story. It’s an interesting point of view. The visuals change as the story develops, it’s an evolution of characters and worlds.

Sometimes the evolution through the story makes the character unappealing visually. Which makes me gloss over the ugly description and stick to my first thoughts on what it might look like in my imagination.

You know, when you read in chapter one there’s a troll, you can imagine a cute or childlike looking troll. Then come chapter 15, you learn the troll is 10 feet tall, hideous with warts all over it’s ugly face. HAHA yep that changes everything visually.

Start simple

I used to tell stories with stick figures. My niece, Victoria, used to be so much better at this than I. Her sketches were mini works of art. Where as mine…well they needed some help haha. Proof that practice, in my case, lead to my good illustrating skills today. Two books down and many more to come.

Anywho~back to the main topic.

 

 

 

 

How to Illustrate a Children’s Book

3 Simple steps

1 story

Write your story out. Make it short and sweet.

Tip: think Children story. You’re writing for a wee child. Don’t complicate things. Short and to the point.

Most Children’s books have illustrations on every page. Your story will need an illustration for each page if you’re going the traditional route.

In my children’s book I wrote at least 4 to 6 short drafts of the story. Then narrowed it down to what you can read today. I changed words, story line-up until I was happy with it.

Tip: paper works just fine. Or if your write best on computer, using simple google docs or word doc free versions all works. I’d highly recommend you save pdf’s of your work on your desktop as you go.

Plot out the story across 12 to 24 pages.

The normal/traditional Children’s books have a range of 12 to 29 pages. If you’re writing for toddlers the longer your story can be. The babies usually have short books of 10 to 12 pages. However, that is not a law so you have wiggle room to get creative and try something different if you felt like it.

For Grandma’s Magic Blanket, I used sticky notes to map out a simple version of 29 pages to work with.

I’d write the story out, place the lines on each page and adjust as I wanted.

Sticky Note time

Each page needs an illustration. Use your sticky notes to quickly sketch out an idea for each page.

Pick out the important parts of the story as your illustration. It should help make your story pop off the page so choose wisely.

Before you know it you’ll have mini sketches for each page.

Now you turn those mini sketches into the large illustrated pages you’ll need for your book.

Voila~ You have the start to finishing your first Children’s Book. Congratulations!

 

I am a self published Author of two books looking for people to share her stories with. Check out my books on amazon or on my blogs.

2 books down, cookies made, and who knows how many more to come.

Thank you for reading until the end. As a self published Author/blogger any and all support is appreciated!

Have a comment or thought to share? Type away in the comments. 🙂

Write on~

Cecilia