The Musicians of Bremen Children's Book

I was trying really hard to incorporate more organic patterns into a more complex composition than the baby book. I think I was successful. Every time I show people my portfolio I get really excited by these one but they tend to be greeted with indifference. I think its probably the overly controlled quality of it all, it doesn't quite jam with the organic forms. I'm trying to be less controlling in the picture book I'm currently working, getting lots of inspiration from Dave Mckean's pen and ink style.

The Musicians of Bremen Baby Book

We started this brief after the dogs brief and I really wanted to develop the things I was doing with the patterned dog linocut. I do want to challenge myself more in incorporating patterns into less stylized images so I'm not hiding away my drawing ability. Still they are quite charming, they were suppose to be fairly simple in composition because they're intended for a baby book.

Something a little bit more traditional. I wanted to do a children's book illustration style thing but for some reason I couldn't do it without a story behind it so I made one up in which a girl pesters her parents all the time about letting her take her dog to school. When she finally sneaks her dog to school her dog steals all her friends, aces all her tests and basically does a better job at school than she does.
I did this one in oil pastels and I think looking back its certainly a medium I should re-visit. I might have to fork out for some good ones though, it looks pretty washed out in the background. Still not a bad considering I hadn't made any prior colour studies.

Pigeons

A Illustration I did for the Macmillan prize last year. It was the last page of a story about a knitting pigeon I made up. The composition could be better and its a bit stiff overall, I should have redrawn this one a lot more before rendering. That being said I'm happy with the render and colour choices. I'll improve on my mistakes next time.