Working on our new children’s nature book about honey bees is exciting and fun, which is why we want to share the process with you. We love the countryside’s wild animals, birds, small creatures and landscapes as much as our local gardens and wildlife – so we will be filling our pages with all these lovely things.
Starting this week with the creators’ views, here's some feedback from Claire on her early thoughts about writing and illustrating our children’s book.
But first, a brief note from Claire about the bee illustration used in the word bee image, below.
Claire: I wanted to sum up this post with a quick illustration to add to this nature blog here at Saffron Wildlife Studio. The following occurred to me ...
A bee illustration with bee words for the art about a bee book for children about bees!
A tongue twister is not the way to break the ice on a new idea!
I had in mind a word cloud, so tried out an app, thinking it would be quick and fitting for this blog post. It was the first time I had used a word cloud app and it didn't turn out quite how I imagined - so I would create a unique bee word cloud of my own!
I designed the bee from an illustration of a honey bee I had drawn with coloured pencils a while ago. For this post, I created a shape from my original drawing, then individually added the words digitally - not as quick and easy as it looks, for spacing, sizing, orientation and overall appearance all need to be taken into account. The words are simple bee-related words that sum up my immediate thoughts on honey bees - buzzy, honey, social, queen, wings and magical being the first ones that sprang to mind.
After I had added the words, the bee needed some bee colours, it would be a shame to miss out those warming bee browns, reds, honey ochres - so I painted a bee into the background of the word bee, digitally. I hope to do more of this later in the year; the illustrations for the book will be initially hand-drawn and painted in the traditional way with pencils, paintbrushes, inks and paints, enhanced where necessary.
Final touches were a couple of 'swooshes' to bring the honey bee to life!
Now, back to first thoughts on our bee book project...
#1 - What inspired you?
Claire: Val’s great idea, energy and enthusiasm for the book!
#2 - What are you most looking forward to?
Claire: seeing the ideas come together in the illustrations and final print - can't wait to see a young reader enjoy it!
#3 - What are you least looking forward to?
Claire: promoting it on social media – it’s fun being on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, but time-consuming.
#4 - Why a bee?
Claire: besides the idea from Val, because I love the magical wild bees in my garden, they’re such good inspiration for writing and art – plus, of course, their wider impact on earth.
#5 - Any regrets?
Claire: nope – it’s exciting and fun.
#6 - Any worries?
Claire: hopefully our little bee champion will make it through the challenges ahead!
So...
Look out for our next post about creating a children's book from Val, on her early thoughts of writing and illustrating our children’s book.
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