Researching Into Children's Books

Childrens books can be traced back to thousands of years with the earliest children's books being paintings on cave walls. The oldest surviving illustrated book is an Egyptian papyrus roll from 1980 BC, with other books being made on perishable materials such as wood, leaves, leather and early forms of paper. In the fifteenth century the invention of printing allowed the start of books that had both the images and text printed together, the first example of this was Ulrich Boner’s book called Der Edelstein. Another major contributor in the printing technique is Johannes Gutenberg who began working on the printing press in 1436. The Visible World by Comenius is seen to be the first children's book as it contained pictures designed for children. In the sixteenth century chapbooks were created, these were cheaply produced and roughly prepared and printed woodcuts. The late eighteenth saw a large development in children's illustration as Thomas Bewick’s work took the art of wood engraving to a completely new level, as his work consisted on engraving in fine line on the end grain of dense wood. Until the 1830’s the colour was usually added by hand until a process for printing colour with wood blocks was invented. In 1835 the ‘Baxter process’ was invented by George Baxter and Charles Knight which combined an intagilo plate with multiple wood blocks. An Austrain called Aloysius Senefelder then invented the process of lithography which is the basis for modern printing. In the late nineteenth century Ranndolph Caldecotts Picture Books were thought to have been the first artist to negotiate a royalty payment of one penny per book rather than a flat fee.
The period between the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century is called the golden age of childrens books with illustrations playing a bigger presence on the page. With the intensely layered water colour work of Arthur Rackman and Sir John Tenniels drawings for Lewis Carolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. In the early twentieth century experimentation with illustrating book was more adventurous in France than it was in Britain. They not only used the basic printing techniques from Britain but widen the range of printing processes they used, expanding to pochoir involving hand colouring through stencils.
The story of Babar was first published in 1930’s and was created by Jean de Brunhoff and was nothing like the other children’s books around at that time. Their large, colourful format and hand written text gave the illustrations a simple childlike image that divided peoples opinions. Jean de Brunhoff then went on to publish another five books before his untimely death in 1937. At the end of the 1930’s as war was approaching Curious George became an extremely popular character after his adventure through New York. Curious George’s creators Margetet and H.A Rey escaped the war in Europe with a manuscript for their first book with them.
In the 1950s the medium of picture books grew in popularity as more and more graphic designers were drawn to it with the advantage of art schools emerging in this time. Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak made a huge impression on both children and adults as critics claimed that it would be too terrifying for children. The story is about love but it also deals with anger, hate and relationship between children and adults with the depth of feeling shown through colour, form and composition.

The Jolly Postman is a children’s book written by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg in 1986. It is a children’s book aimed at very young children of around 5-7 years old. The book is 32 pages long consisting of 4 end pages and the rest being of actual narrative. The Jolly Postman combines the use of envelopes containing letters, games and smaller books with the original story to give the book an interactive sense. The narrative follows a postman through his day when he delivers letters to well known traditional fairy tale characters including The Three Bears, Cinderella and the Giant until its time to go home for tea. The overarching themes that can be found in this book are regret, anger, sadness and joy found through the different tales within the book as they receive their letters. Also there are themes from the traditional fairy tales being manipulated and stretched to include the Jolly Postman storyline meaning that Allan Ahlberg used intertextuality for the readers to discover. The contextual matters influencing this book is the way children will interact with the book and how they will connect the subject matter in the envelopes with the overall narrative of the story. Also influencing the book is the originality and handmade feel of the book with modern technology only coming into it with the text and creation of the envelopes, giving it a look and style that would suit the time that it was made. Overall the book has a very simple, intimate story with lots of character. Similar works to the Jolly Postman include The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. Other similar works include the work of Quentin Blake because of the way they both have used the mixture of watercolour and ink. However Janet Alhberg illustrations show more control as the colour and the lines does what you expect whereas Quentin Blake’s work pushes there restrictions.
The colour palette in the Jolly Postman is very subtle with no one colour demanding your attention from the others. The colour and the drawing are also not restricted to boxes or outlines with them having no uniform or repeated shapes, allowing the illustrations to interact with each other. This makes the composition of each page different as text and images are never in the same space with the only similarity being that on each page the hierarchy is always the illustrations as they are more prominent. The illustrations contain a lot of depth that is shown through varying tones and saturation, so the foreground image stands out more than the background. Texture has been created by the use of a pen, by creating shadows and detail by cross hatching and line work. Throughout the book there is a lot of white space where there is no text or pictures this makes the two standout more on the page as the page isn’t cluttered or too busy. There are definite separations between the text and illustrations forcing your eye around the page as you go from one section of the page to another. The larger illustrations themselves have very little white space as they are the busiest part of the page with activity not only in the foreground but in the background as well so you have plenty to look at.
The processes involved are watercolour and ink with the watercolour being split into different layers to build up texture and colour for example brickwork, detail in fabric textures and shadows. The pen is then added to give the illustrations detail and outlines, with the pen also being used for the same technique through directional line work. The illustrations and text, which were done separately, are then put together and the layout decided ready to then become a completed book.  You can see evidence of the processes that have been used by the way the colour is built up into layers and the colours that have been achieved show evidence of water colours. The evidence of pen work is the detail that exaggerates the texture of certain textures such as wood and brick.
What drew me to this book was the aspect of the envelopes and being able to interact with the book by pulling out the letters and discovering the smaller stories that are intertwined with the main story. I also like the way each illustration links with others on the page allowing your eye to follow this path along the page.

An illustrator who is illustrating children’s books today is Quentin Blake, he has callobrated with writers such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen and Roald Dahl. Quentin Blake has won many illustration prizes including the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1980 and the Red House Childrens Book Award in 1981 for Mister Magnolia. His work includes books called Snuff, Ten Frogs, Loveykins and his work with Roald Dahl including Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine.
Quentin Blake’s work has a very unique style that is extremely recognisable. He uses a subdued colour palette using pastel colours that are subtle and blend together on the page so no one colour is drawing your full attention. The colours on the page haven’t been completely mixed so there are patches of different tones or shades this gives the picture more texture and sense of depth. Quentin Blake allows his illustrations to flow around the page with them not being restricted inside boxes with the composition being allowed to change and be different from page to page. On each page the illustrations and text can interact with each other in different ways giving each page more visual interest. The white space on each page allows the text and illustrations to stand out on the page directing your eye straight towards them, he has also done this by not over crowding the page with unnecessary drawings and text. Quentin Blake also uses inky pen to add detail and texture to the illustration, the pen is used in a very scratchy technique by using the pen very freely and not restrained.  Quentin Blake’s style is extremely suited towards children’s books because of the way he draws his characters as they are not uniform. The pointy fingers and big eyes relate to how children draw. His illustrations also appeal to children’s imagination with the colour and style not following any conventions.
Quentin Blake uses a very traditional and conventional medium and technique, he first draws out his illustrations in inky and then adds watercolour over the top.  This is an accessible technique that other illustrators can use as they are cheap and don’t require any new skills. However more modern techniques towards children’s books are now using techniques that require more equipment and skills, example include using computer programmes such as Photoshop and printing techniques like screen printing and stencil work. An illustrator that uses one of these techniques is Owen Davey, a free lance illustrator who focuses on using screen printing in his books.
Owen Davey’s books include Foxly’s Feast and Knight Night. In 2011 he won Junior Magazine Most Promising New Talent Award for Foxly’s Feast and has created work for the BBC, The New York Times and Jamie Oliver. His work doesn’t have a narrative as he uses the pictures to convey the story instead. The colour palette is limited to a few select complementary colours for example in Foxly’s Feast the colours span from different shades of green to oranges and browns. There is no white space left blank on the page with the illustrations using the whole double page spread. This allows your eye to follow the character and work through different parts of the page. Owen Davey uses a lot of texture that he created by using lines over the top of the prints he uses this for detail on the bark of trees also fur and feathers on the owl and fox. He also includes patterns within his illustrations adding a new depth as these patterns don’t stand out from the page as they has the same colour as the background its placed on. He also uses speech bubbles with pictures inside them to convey the characters thoughts and feelings, in Foxly’s Feast he uses a picture of knives and forks inside a speech bubble to portray that the fox is hungry. Owen Davey’s process to create his books take much more time and money than Quentin Blake as Owen Davey has to create a drawing that will then go on to be a screen print. However he doesn’t just use the screen printing technique as he couples it with work on Photoshop to change or add more colours.
By comparing these two illustrators I can see that they each use completely different processes but both create children’s books that are captivating and interesting. However the style of Owen Davey I feel is becoming more common as children’s books develop and start using new illustrating techniques.  The style of Quentin Blake should not be forgotten as it’s a style that is simple but creates individual and imaginative drawings.


Researching into children’s books has made me take into consideration many different processes and composition techniques. For example by creating a dummy book and flat plans has allowed me to play with layout design so that it is more pleasing visually. It has also allowed me to see how certain layouts that I thought worked on a single page basis do not work when put together on a double page spread. The technique of creating a dummy book allowed me to found ways that I could incorporate an illustration with other images on the page and text so the book does not become boring and repetitive. From research I have also looked into the concept of end pages and title pages taking up a certain number of pages in the book. End pages I really enjoyed creating and designing as I could include repeating patterns of backpacks and characters and looking at the different processes that I could use to create them.
I also looked into character designs and the way different artists drew they characters, this helped me to refined and develop by character designs giving them more personality and range of movement. From the research into the artists who illustrate children’s books I discovered a range of process and media that they used from the more traditional techniques of printing and watercolours to the more modern techniques of using screen printing and computer techniques. Due to this I could experiment with these techniques through artist copies and emulations and see which processes I enjoyed the most and would suit my children’s book the most.  It also allowed me to see which processes worked well when they were combined for example using inky drawings done with an dip pen then scanned onto the computer and using Photoshop to colour the images. I found that these techniques gave the image a very crisp and structured illustration.

For my project I will be creating a children’s book, this book will be 32 pages long with four of these being end pages resulting in 28 pages of narrative. By carrying out brain storming into several ideas I will discover the story that I want to turn into a children’s books, looking into storyline and character designs, that will hopefully be interesting and entertaining. The brain storm will go down three routes being either farmyard tales, a space theme or a story that will involve a character and an inanimate object.  I will research children’s books and find out their history and illustrators throughout the years included in a history of the children’s book. From looking at illustrators I will find processes that I might not of thought of working with before and practising them by doing artist copies and emmulations. I will then experiment with these ideas to see which will work best with the book I will create.  For the children’s book I will work out plans for the story and page layout so that the flow of the story is correct both visually and within the text. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS:
A Brief HIstory of the Picture Book
Illustrating Children's Books: Creating Pictures for Publication by Martin Salisbury 
Show Me a Story: Why Picture Books Matter - Conversations with 21 of the worlds most celebrated illustrators by Leonard S Marcus
Little Big Books: Illustration for Children's Picture Books by Robert Klanten and Hendrik Hellige
Children's Writers & Artists' Yearbook 2012
Making Great Illustration by Derek Brazell and Jo Davies 

The Jolly Postman by Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg

Roald Dahl Collection

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Fergus The Farm Dog by Tony Maddox

WEBSITES:
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/owen-davey
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/9646192/Quentin-Blake-I-never-wanted-children.-But-I-do-invent-them..html
http://www.childrenslaureate.org.uk/previous-laureates/quentin-blake/
http://www.quentinblake.com/gallery/illustrations/illustrations/illustrations-33
http://www.owendavey.blogspot.co.uk/
http://owendavey.com/
http://www.templarco.co.uk/picture_books/owen_davey/owen_davey.html
http://www.quentinblake.com/meet-qb/bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_literature