Children's Book Illustrator - Painting Rosy Pictures

Every parent wants their child to inculcate the good habit of reading as soon as possible. In order to make sure that their child develops a fondness for this habit, parents these days are encouraging their kids to start reading books from a very early age. But you cannot expect lines and lines of monotonous words to hold the attention of a toddler for long. Young kids have a very short attention span and do not have the ability to concentrate easily or for long periods of time. What captures and holds their attention is anything that is bright and full of color. In order to look interesting to children, books need to have colorful pictures in them and to serve this purpose Illustrators are employed by publishing houses.

A Children’s Book Illustrator is someone who adds pictures to novels, comics and books specifically for young children. Their job is to pick up interesting scenarios from the text of the book that can be depicted in the form of paintings, paint them and then add those paintings to the book.

As a Children’s Book Illustrator, one’s primary job is to make the book seem interesting to a kid. Children like to flip through books that have colorful and attractive illustrations in them. If the pictures manage to hold their attention for long, they begin to develop an interest in the story and start wanting to read the book. Apart from the pictures to be included inside, an Illustrator also has to design and draw the cover of the book. They have to keep in mind the theme of the book while designing the cover. The cover should be in keeping with the storyline and the central idea of the book. It should also be done up very attractively and beautifully so that it draws the attention of children towards it.

The payoff is good for Children’s Book Illustrators working in the English Publishing Industry as they pay you really well. It is tough for those employed in the Hindi Publishing Industry or the publishing industry of any regional language. This difference is caused due the fact that books in English are much more highly priced than those in Hindi or any other language and thus the returns too are better for the former. The market for English books is also much bigger than that for Hind books or books in regional languages. A freelance illustrator can easily make anything between 20,000 INR and 50,000 INR on a monthly basis depending upon the publishing agency they are working for, their quality of work and the demand and sales of the book in question.

If one is good at painting, sketching, drawing they should concentrate on honing their skills throughout their school years. At the college entry level, aptitude tests are conducted by several colleges based on the results of which one can gain entry to a four-year graduate course in fine arts. In this course, students are imparted knowledge in the fields of illustration, visual communication, nature drawing and object drawing. This can be followed up by a two-year postgraduate course in fine arts. The College of Art, Delhi and the Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai offer such courses.