When I sketch children, I sketch them as I see them - in proportion. However, when I start to put children into a story I alter their proportions. I see children differently when they become characters playing a part in the narrative. They often have to pit their wits against the challenges, quests and villains in my stories and so, although diminutive, they have to act far older than their size dictates. Here are Queenie and Ben in the rough and penultimate page of my book Tom Finger.
Mario, in this rough and first page from Mario's Angels, is also small yet in the story he feels grown up enough to offer help to the fresco artist, Giotto.
I suppose inside every child is a future adult so I try to capture a sense of that in my child characters.
Dear Gillian,
ReplyDeleteReally interesting to read about the future adult in the child and the change in proportions.
And I wanted to thank you for your fantastic workshop at the Winchester SCBWI conference in November. It sparked off lots of ideas for lots of us.
Many thanks, and I'm glad I've found your site.
Best wishes,
Clare.
Thank you, Clare. I will try and follow this up with another post on drawing children as there's lots more to discuss - for example do children like seeing children drawn as a child would draw them?
ReplyDelete