I'm Not Scared - IF

 

The first thing that came to mind when Illustration Friday's suggested topic word of 'Scary' was remembering all the dressing up and anticipation for the North American festival of Halloween. Which as an occasion is catching on in my Aussie neighbourhood more and more each year. 'The harvesting of the lollies' night is one candy companies, retailers and and (lets not forget the kids) are loving. A bag of free candy from the neighbours just for dressing up! Wow! Kids aren't stupid.

The second thing that came to mind was a book I illustrated in 2005 for Blake Education. The images here are just some from 'I'm Not Scared'. This was for their Gigglers series and was aimed at reluctant primary school readers. Above is a page where an Ogre appears and below is the printed spread where the Bunyip is appearing.













The story was about a father and daughter ghost talking about what they found most scary.
Each scary 'monster' mentioned manifested. Then, as each monster mentions what scares them it then manifested. And so on. It was a great little book written by author Wendy Blaxland and was great fun to create and play around with scary fun characters, including the father and daughter ghosts, an ogre, a giant and Australia's own billabong frightener the Bunyip.

The illustrations were created digitally from scans of the roughs and was the first book that I extensively used photoshop filters for texture. Below, is the cover image showing some of the character faces.

Pass It On

Jackie Hosking of the weekly e-zine Pass It On has included my 'Suds' children's illustration and short interview with me in the latest issue. (issue 355. Monday, September 12th 2011)
The suds illustration is from my children's book portfolio and pre snakeskin sketchbook which most of my recent posts have included. You'll need to go back a few months to see more of the children's book and educational work.

What is Pass It On?
Pass It On is a weekly, interactive, networking e-zine for all those involved with or interested in the children's writing & illustrating industry. (Australian focus)




Meanwhile here is a monkey eating an iceblock. It's a detail from a spread in my Monkey Match books.

http://jackiehoskingpio.wordpress.com/

Waterwatch manuals - NSW Department of Environment & Climate Change (DECC)

These images are a few of many for the NSW government's Department of Environment & Climate Change 'Waterwatch' manuals and guides. Waterwatch is a program where community groups and stakeholders monitor and test water quality in their local waterways. They then can record their results on a central database that the NSW government uses to get a greater understanding of the states water resources. Above here are two images from the 'Landholder' guide and three from the 'junior' (school) guide.  

'Waterbug' images. These little fellows were used in information breakouts as well as on a water quality visual chart.

'How to' There were a great many instructional images showing how to use the various bits of equipment  and how to follow a process. It's important to get these accurate as these are for the collection of scientific data and the margin for error must be reduced for accurate interpretation of the data collected.

All images were finished created using adobe illustrator. Most started life as pencil sketches though some were created fully digitally.

This little fellow is a fox character created for the covers of Oxford University Press' Math Plus primary school workbooks. The original brief was for groovy aliens but changed to a clever inquiring fox detective as the authors were not keen to associate learning maths with being an alien.

I've posted an alien illustration using the characters I had in mind at the time and used in this little tickle the piggy illustration. It has the aliens bringing 'self-awareness' to the little porker with just a touch.

Handwriting Made Easy - detail

Detail from Handwriting Made Easy.
I just like this little guy. His boat is just large 
enough to accommodate his tail feathers comfortably.

Handwriting Made Easy

Handwriting Made Easy

This image is one that I have reworked from the straight vector art that was originally published. This image was created for Thomson Nelson Publishing's Handwriting Made Easy series. There were seven versions published. Each used the same image but with a different coloured background for each Australian state. I like this one as the green background 'sea' makes it appear that the characters and their little paperboat are sailing around on a little pond in a rich green plain.