“Remixing Children’s Fairy tales”

My work focuses on the practice of illustration, exploring the development of children’s picture books, looking at how and why it is important for children’s literature to be reflective of a wider audience. My illustrations are a combination of textures photoshopped onto my hand-drawn work, which creates a unique style to my illustrations, while still implementing the use of an inclusive lens. My drawings have a limited colour pallet, using tones of oranges and reds throughout each book. A limited colour pallet allows the reader to distinguish the relationship between different objects and their values. The way illustrations are produced to connect with the words on the page is something quite special. “Children need windows and mirrors. They need mirrors in which they see themselves and windows through which they see the world”(Bishop, 1990)- a quotation from Rudine Simms Bishop, an advocate for Children’s multicultural literature, from her essay ‘Windows and Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors’, which reinforces the importance of diversity within children’s literature and how it allows children to relate to the characters and settings within the book.