Drawing Polar Bears and Lambs: White Fur, White Wool and Colourful Jumpers!

My feedback came through from Egmont on Tuesday, so I spent that day on the very boring task of enlarging my drawings on the computer, printing them out and tracing them up onto my pink pastel paper.

Now, it's a bit nerve-racking, deciding where to begin on a new book. I dithered for a while, then plumped for the lamb on skates and the polar bears I showed you last month:

My main reason: they are both principally white animals, so that was one colour I wouldn't have to make a decision on, and so would ease me in gently. Plus, I love the way white is made up of so many reflected colours and how pastels allows you to play with that, building it up gently:


I worked on both pieces side by side, because it's quicker to work on 2 similar illustrations at the same time - always handy when things are running behind schedule.

I based my polar bear drawing on this lovely photo I found on Google (ahhh...).

I used bold colours for their clothes, so they'll stand out against the white and also show up on whatever coloured background we drop in later. You see, none of the characters will have illustrated backgrounds: every page is going to have a different, flat colour dropped in later, in Photoshop.


The effect will be similar to my earlier baby book, When You're Not Looking! - simple and bold (ideal for this younger age group), although I think it will be slightly less zingy, without moving as far away as pastels.

This is how things stood on my desk come Thursday morning - I may have to go back and tweak these early pieces, once I've got into my stride but, for now, I'm pretty pleased with how they've come out:


Here's a closer view of those polar bears. I envisage this page on a mid-tome soft blue, so it has a feel of the ice, but is not too harsh. We'll see what Sarah, my designer, thinks. If only we could snuggle up with them like this...


Right - who's next up? Where's that slug..?