WHAT IS A LINE - Children's books

I was at a bit of a loose end with the direction of this brief. I knew what I wanted content to be, and the approach to the style in which it would be drawn.

Initially I wanted to simply produce a journal of line drawings of tree's, in a step by step sequence of different stages in their life, from seedling, to a great, 100 year old tree. But I simply got bored and quite hateful of the idea, knowing It would be difficult to approach this brief, with an idea I didn't like I decided to get some inspiration and take out a few books from the library.

I came across 'The work of E.H. Shepard' which was a book made up of many of her works, within early designs and works within 'Winnie and the poo' and 'Wind and the willows' novels. Here illustrative pieces, produced in pen, ink and watercolour were made up of series of lines. Within this book, there was also a section called 'The master of line' by Bevis Hillier, which goes on about illustrations made up of pen lines.

This book really gave me a direction, I came up with the idea of creating my own children's book, to teach about the different kinds of tree's providing information on where they can be found, and what they look like. I intend to keep a journal, using pen and ink to replicate tree's I see out and about, add a splash of watercolour, and a bit of simplified information to each page.

An image within the book from a 'Winnie the poo' Novel

My own interpretation of the image

An earlier sketch produced by E.H. Shepard in which she intended to go over with pen and ink.