Illustrating a Picture Book: Little Bear

I thought you might be interested in seeing the way the little bear developed in stages.

I've coloured the background first, then rubbed it back, 'cleaning' the bear area. I could instead have fixed it, then coloured the fresh pastel over the top of the unwanted background, but I try to avoid using fixative too often, because of the dulling effect on colour. Also, it's useful to have the pencil guidelines re-exposed:


I lay in various brown and pink marks to suggest fur, smudging them together, then redrawing more layers, blending and building it up. I am also establishing the areas of light and shade from the outset, as with the red trousers, to make things three dimensional.


It's important to me that some mark-making and separate colours are retained, to stop things becoming too slick and, for the bear, this also creates the fur texture. I tighten up edges, using pastel pencils where necessary, and add the black nose. Then I spray with the dreaded fixative, so I can add the trouser stripes and eye dots:


It's vital that the trouser stripe colours vary, corresponding with the shading on the red, otherwise the stripes will stand proud.

I finish with tiny details like teeth, and add just a touch of slightly green colour to the fur shadows, to hint at the colour reflected from the carpet.