Instead of doing a rundown of the events from the past week, I’ve decided to take you through my beginning process of writing and illustrating my own kids book.

My book, “Where did all the food go?” is about a bear named Alder who wakes up from hibernation to find all of her favourite food spots are barren. She spends the book hunting down food as she’s starving from fasting for the winter months. She ends up following many footprints that lead her to a surprise party with all her friends and a welcome back spring meal for everyone to enjoy.

I wanted to write this book for my younger self, as I am dyslexic and have a learning difference (calling it a difference is better then calling it a disability). I read kids books on my own time until I was about 13, mainly for the illustration but also for the simplicity of the writing because it was easy to follow. I have also always been in love with nature and focussed on awareness surrounding it. I wanted to subtly point out what it would be lake for a bear to wake from hibernation up without any food, but still wanted to keep it fun and engaging for kids.

I started my journey of this book by writing a couple simple plots down, writing out a point by point layout of how it would read, putting together a moodboard, character design, and finally doing thumbnail sketches for each page.

Black bear references
Anatomy and drawing references
Illustration style moodboard
Character and shape design
Character and shape design

There will be more to come, end of week 6!