Breaking Into the World of Childrens Book Illustration
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
The childrens book illustration publishing industry is a vibrant and thriving market, full of incredible talent and fresh ideas. If you’re dreaming of becoming a childrens book illustrator, there are some specific things you need to know. Read on for advice on honing your visual skills and learning the childrens book illustration market so that you can level up your craft.
Honing Your Childrens Book Illustration Craft
The first step in breaking into childrens book illustration is honing your visual talent. It might seem daunting at first to learn how to illustrate—where do you start?—but there are two main skills you should start with.
Line art refers to sketches or drawings that are made up of lines and shapes. This is the basis for a lot of childrens book illustration, from main character renders to the surrounding environment in the composition. Line art is often used as a base for more detail, or as preliminary sketches for final pieces. Color art refers to more detailed works, in which color plays an important role.
Both line art and color art can be created with physical or digital tools such as pencils, paints, markers, or computer programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, or Procreate. Many of these softwares will have tutorials baked in, or you can start watching YouTube videos, where childrens book illustration professionals share tips and guide you through exercises. There has never been a better time to learn.
Building Your Childrens Book Illustration Portfolio
Once you have explored the different styles and techniques of childrens book illustration, it is time to start building a portfolio. Here’s where you might want to get involved with the larger childrens book marketplace. The easiest way to do so is to spend a day at the library or bookstore and flip through picture books, early readers, chapter books, and even middle grade novels. These are the categories where publishing houses are looking for childrens book illustration.
Here, you might face an uncomfortable moment or two. The childrens book illustration market has absolutely blossomed in the last few decades, with many masters-trained fine artists in the field. Does your work measure up? Or would it be worthwhile to keep honing your skills before you try to compete?
If you decide that what you see in published books matches the quality of your own childrens book illustration output, then you should continue working on pieces that showcase your work.
A portfolio is how you’ll present your best art to potential literary agents, artist representatives, publishers, and art directors. It should include samples that demonstrate your ability in both line art and color art, as well as your ability to draw characters, animals, different body positions and facial expressions, and surroundings.
For childrens book illustration in particular, it is important to include your primary style, as well as some others you’ve developed. An illustrator portfolio really does need to be as comprehensive and fresh as possible. Don’t forget to swap out pieces as you create new work.
If you’re wondering about childrens book illustration portfolio format, I strongly recommend an author website where you let visitors browse through your work. Thai will keep you from having to send gigantic attachments around (most agents and publishers don’t accept them anyway), or hauling a physical portfolio book to physical offices (which you likely won’t get access to).
Pitching Your Childrens Book Illustration Work
Once you have built up a solid body of work, focus on creating a picture book idea that incorporates your childrens book illustration style. I recommend starting with a picture book because a lot of publishers are hungry to work with author/illustrators (creators who write the story and do the illustrations). The picture book market is more robust than that for early readers or chapter books, or spot illustrations that are featured in middle grade.
As you probably know from teaching yourself childrens book illustration skills already, creating stylish, compelling, consistent, and contemporary art is tough. It can be a lot easier to learn how to write a story. In fact, most author/illustrators start as illustrators first, then hone their writing skills.
You can also pitch your portfolio around, but it’s tougher to get interest without a book idea, especially if you want to target children’s book publishing. You’ll want to compose a query letter about your book project which also links back to your online portfolio. In doing agent research, look for people who represent picture books, illustrators, and author/illustrators.
Breaking into the world of childrens book illustration may seem intimidating at first glance, but dedication and hard work will get you far in this exciting industry. If you look around and find that your artistry is not quite “there” yet, keep going. The only difference between an amateur and a published childrens book illustration artist is that they didn’t quit.
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Click here to purchase Writing Irresistible Picture Books, my book on children’s picture books. This comprehensive guide is crammed with craft advice and groundbreaking original research, including a survey of 1,000 upcoming picture book deals, a breakdown of 80 modern and marketable picture book topics, and in-depth analysis of over 150 published picture books.