Children Book Illustration: Going Great Guns!

I have been pastelling away like a fiend all last week on Baby Can Bounce and it's been going very well.

The artwork I did for Baby Goes Baaaaa! arrived back from Egmont safely (phew), so I've been able to use that as colour reference for the various animals, rather than just going on the print-outs they did in the office.

It's made a huge difference: I feel much more confident that I'm getting it right now, so things are going much faster. 

I have to do approx one page per day, which would be a nightmare if it was a book with backgrounds - they take 1.5 - 2 days each to pastel - but as these are vignettes, a day is about right. Here was my desk on Friday morning:

You can see how I tack the Baby Goes Baaaaa! artwork above what I'm working on, as well as the line drawings for the current pieces alongside. I'm working on two at a time, so I can swap between pieces if I find myself slowing down on one (I seem to get slower as I go along).

I started to fill up my usual wall above the lightbox, tacking them up as I finished them:

...but John's been helping out again, cutting all the mounting card and overlays, so from next week I can mount them up ready as I finish each one.

I finished the squirrel and panda last week so today I am working on dancing hedgehogs in fancy dress (it's a crazy world...)