Task Three

Task Two

1. Information / Reference title aimed at 9-11 years olds.

• Horrible Histories, Martin Brown.

For the information/Reference title aimed 9-11 year olds I immediately thought of the horrible history books that I used to read when I was that age. Illustrated by Martin Brown. His style he uses for these books is very comic, graphic and humerus putting a unique spin on history. He does this extremely successful in my opinion. Studying history at that age can be quite boring for the child but Brown illustrates in a way where he 

puts a unique, humorous spin on the subject, as you can see from some of the example imagery. It's certainly a successful art style I just have to think back to when I used to read the books we all in class would read the series and it was certainly the art style that drew us in. As I mentioned previously when illustrating for a reference or information book for this particular age range, you can't afford to illustrate in a bland dare I say boring style as the subject may already not be to the children's taste. So putting this unique, humorous spin on the illustrations is a very clever art style choice.

2. Baby/Toddler - First Objects Book.

• Michael Smollin
  

I found researching an art style for this age range to be quite difficult. I tried to think back to the sort of books that were available to me when I was a baby and some of the baby books I still have knocking around the house. I stumbled across an old Sesame Street book of mine. Where it obviously wasn't an object book, I feel this art style by Michael Smollin would work perfectly for one. The unique characters and bright world Smolling created with his illustrations would capture the imagination of the toddler's combine this kind of art style with objects and an educational skew for the toddlers I feel would be a very successful combination. Having some kind of mascot like a Sesame Street character and combine that with an educational, learning skew for a toddler's first object book for example I feel has the potential to be a successful combination. The characters and art style is very child friendly, very simple, easy on the eye. I must note from my own experience however that sometimes at a young age kids especially toddlers sometimes may find such illustrations a little scary perhaps?

3. Picture Book aimed at 3-6 Year olds.

• Leslie Patricelli

For the picture books aimed at 3-6 year olds, I chose illustrator and author Leslie Patricelli. She has a very simple, fun, very child friendly art style using babies as her subject of the illustrations which will certainly appeal to the age range. She uses a lot of bright, bold colours in her work that will certainly grab the child's attention and expecially for a picture the different bright colours, bold art style I feel that this is imperative. In a picture book the imagery has to be the narrative and Patricelli illustrates in this way. Her books she illustrates for are actually picture books so she illustrates the babies doing certain activities for example that the children will be familiar with. I feel with a picture book for the age range it is a positive thing when the children can relate to the illustrations and certainly they can here. As well as including humour in the illustrations. I feel Patricelli's art style is one which is a perfect fit for this demographic.

Task One

For this task I looked at four illustrators some of which I'm very familiar with having been introduced to them at as a child, reading books these illustrators worked on.

Quentin Blake

I chose Quentin Blake to look at in more detail for this task for a couple of reasons really. He is the illustrator who I immediately think of in regards to children's books and grew up reading the Road Dahl books so he's an illustrator I was brought up on. However the biggest reason I chose Blake and still in a way to this day as I did when I was  a child I find his illustrations at times quite unnerving and I recall as a child often being unsettled by his illustrations, especially the illustrations of the 'bad guy' characters.

Looking back upon his work now It is amazing the amount of character and life that is etched into his illustrations and personally I believe the unsettling nature of some of his illustrations I experienced as a child has to be testament to the life Blake can bring out from his illustrations. Personally I feel Blake is the best example and children's book illustrator at bringing characters to life. Each illustration, character has a certain vibrancy, personality.

He illustrates in such a unusual and unique style, with his scratchy technique but it definitely works and in my opinion as an illustrator his style is certainly one of the most strongest.

If I was to select an age range best fitting for Blake's work i'd personally say 5-11 however I feel his work can certainly be appreciated by an older crowd. His style isn't so narrow in that it can only be aimed at a certain age demographic as even know at 22 still find his illustrations breathtaking.

Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

Beatrix Potter

Alex Scheffler