Children's Book Pro

I participated in the Children's Book Pro course from SVSLearn.com these last several weeks. The course pacing is really fast. It was definitely tough to stay up with the assignments in the timeframe given. But, the material was great and I'll have continued access to it, so I'm going to go back and revisit it as I build out my portfolio and write and illustrate my own stories. 

The course has guidance for the practical side of developing illustrations for a children's book. The instructors provide three manuscripts based on familiar fairy tales as source material to allow students to practice the various stages of illustration.

My choice was Jack and the Beanstalk. To make it interesting for me, I tried illustrating the story as though it was a metaphor for a young upstart from rural America coming and stealing the political thunder of a dustbowl-era politician. The politician is the giant. The various items Jack steals (the coins, the goose, the harp) represent various political allies. I'm not sure the concept is necessarily children's book material, but it was a useful process to go through and was intellectually stimulating for me to try to illustrate it in this way without changing any of the words in the manuscript. 

The concept has potential, but since the class is over, I'm not sure how much more time I'll be spending on it.

Below are some of the illustrations that came out of that exercise.

Image of cover design for Jack and the Beanstalk story including giant represented by rotund political leader.
Cover Art
Illustration of giant character from Jack and the Beanstalk story portrayed as a rotund political leader ca. 1930s reading a newspaper.
The Giant.

Illustration of Jack's house from Jack and the Beanstalk story, with Jack standing on the porch.
Jack's house.


Illustrations of Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk story showing many facial expressions.
Faces of Jack.

Thumbnail sketches of children's book spreads for Jack and the Beanstalk story.
Some thumbnail sketches for the book dummy. 

I have been a subscriber at SVSLearn for a while now. Their classes are very practical and I've found them useful. This course was very valuable for me. I guess the final word will be whether I end up as a working illustrator of children's books, but time will tell.

Some notable things I feel came out of the class for me personally:

  • I have a better grasp of the value of a limited color palette
  • I understand how important reference is to making good illustrations
  • I made connections with some very talented fellow artists who are working toward the same goal 
  • I have a stronger sense of the practical processes of illustrating a children's book


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