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(Book)
Martin Salisbury
Released: August, 2004 |
Just how many books spilling the beans on children's illustration do we need? A quick browse through various online vendors reveals a multitude of publications offering tips, techniques and insights for getting into this particular market – and here's another to add to the pile. Thankfully it's a very well produced book that successfully covers all aspects of children's book illustration. The first chapters briefly map out it's history through the 19th and 20th century to the present day, usefully pointing to current and future trends. Following chapters deal with the fundamentals of drawing, choosing the right media, and developing characters. Case studies are dotted throughout each section , showing how artists approach their work. (Personally I approach it from behind, hoping to surprise it.) Subsequent sections discuss the successful balance of words and images, practical guides to creating dummy books, using effective design and typography and illustrating for older children. A final chapter covers the business side – getting published, agents, contracts and money. Again, through it all, case studies and examples are provided from leading artists and advanced-level students.
Is this worth buying? For anyone curious about this market, or contemplating trying their hand at children's illustration, this is a well researched and laid out book. For anyone else, there's still plenty to recommend it – excellent artwork throughout and a lot of useful pointers and tips found within that can be applied in all aspects of cartooning and illustration, although the jacket blurb makes the hyperbole-tastic claim of 'letting you into the secrets of creating beautiful artwork for children'.
I can imagine the conversation nowÖ
Tell me , oh Quentin BlakeÖ tell me the secret of children's book illustration
Never! I shall take it to the grave with me. Mwahahahaaaa!
FineÖ I'll just buy this book instead
Arse!
I digress. You can pick up a hardback copy online for about £11. The author Martin Salisbury is, as you would expect, an accomplished children's illustrator and is also Course Director for the Master of Arts Degree in Children's Book Illustration at Anglia Polytechnic University (Cambridge School of Art). Let's see him fit that on one line of a business cardÖ
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