Animal Characters in Watercolor for Children’s Books
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Explore the softness and playfulness of childhood through lovable anthropomorphic characters using watercolors
Watercolor allows you to paint atmospheres and bring a personal approach to any scene. Illustrator Julie Mellan uses it to create captivating illustrations for children’s books. She explores color, light, and shadow to paint images full of personality that have been published by the likes of Penguin Random House, Clavis, and Fleurus.
In this course, Julie guides you through creating watercolor illustrations of your own, featuring dynamic, expressive animal protagonists. Immerse yourself in your own private woodland and bring characters to life with watercolor.
Get to know Julie, your teacher for this course. Hear about her creative journey to becoming a children’s book illustrator. Then, discover the influences which have inspired her along the way and take a look at her online portfolio.
Get familiar with the materials needed for the course and learn to understand the differences between different types of paper, watercolor, and brushes. Then, begin practicing with watercolor basics, from painting a flawless solid color to incorporating texture. Julie shares her tips for sketching dynamic poses for your animal characters before exploring how to draw facial expressions.
Create your final animal character. Start by narrowing down what you want to include in your illustration before doodling thumbnails to find the perfect scene. Draw your final sketch onto regular paper, then trace it onto watercolor paper, ready for painting. Learn how to prepare your watercolor paper and stretch it to avoid bumps. Then, decide on a color scheme for your scene and experiment with it using thumbnails. Julie shares how to paint light and shadows before adding colors and creating contrast between the foreground and background. Add the finishing touches such as hairs and little spots of light to bring your illustration to life.
To finish the course, Julie talks through how to scan your illustration and edit it in Photoshop for a professional end result that stays true to your style. Then, she shares her advice for posting your work on social media and presenting it to professionals.
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