Evolution of an Illustration Page

For our next children’s book “Bettina Creates a Garden”, we needed a creative page where some story text could go. Here’s the artistic evolution of this illustration page. Jean in art studio working on page for Bettina Creates a Garden 2022 We developed the idea of having a page with a collage of painted borders…

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Leo’s Birthday Adventure Cover Design

Designing the cover of our children’s book “Leo’s Birthday Adventure” was a design adventure of its own. We first chose Jean’s illustration of lighthouses and sailing ship and then added a painted cut-out of Leo the Falcon to best represent the story. We added a Prussian blue background and worked on the title design. Jean drew…

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Leo’s Birthday Adventure Book Design

The design of our children’s book, “Leo’s Birthday Adventure” was somewhat of a challenge for various reasons. One of the issues was that some of Jean’s paintings were smaller in proportion compared to the size of the book. The solution to the sizing issue was to add details around the paintings. This is an example…

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Wizard Kingdom Illustration

The Wizard Kingdom Illustration for our book, “The Wizards and the Whale”, started out as a painting commission for an Umbrian family in 2014. They wanted an Umbrian countryside filled with trees, medieval castles, Asian temples and their dog. Castle, Mountains and Morning Sun by Jean Tori 2014 With the brief in mind, Jean began…

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Crane and Wizard Story Design

This is the design story of one of Jean’s paintings for our “The Wizards and the Whale” children’s book. Jean has always been inspired by the Asian designed cranes, especially those found in Japanese woodblock prints and paintings, in Korean folk art, and the cranes in many Chinese screens. Here is a decorative Japanese crane…

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Illustration Evolution in The Wizards and the Whale

We have an unusual way of creating our children’s books where Jean paints and then Anthinula creates the story around the artwork. Once there is an outline, Jean will create other illustrations as the story develops. Here are the first pages of our children’s book “The Wizards and the Whale” and the following images show…

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Inspiration and Gretchen the Sheep

Jean is inspired by many things from travels, nature, childhood, art and even friendships. Occasionally, people’s personalities and big-hearted spirit work their way into our stories and influence the animals’ characters. In “Elliot and the Perfect Wave”, we had a special friend woven into the narrative.   Meet Gretchen the Sheep, mentor, helper and optimistic…

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Printing The Wizards and the Whale

Book pages of the Wizards and the Whale at KMS Litho

Printing our first book The Wizards and the Whale was an adventure. We knew that because of the extraordinary colours we were going to have to choose an amazing printing house. We found the “Dream Team” at KMS Litho in Hook Norton. The printing process was incredible. Working with the team all the way through to this…

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Alphabet Book Paintings. Part 4

More alphabet letters during this Umbrian heatwave! I is for Isolated Island. And I couldn’t resist combining J and K – after all, I didn’t paint this jigsaw rabbit with a kite with the Alphabet Book in mind, but it fits the profile wonderfully! J is for Jumping Jigsaw and K is for Kaleidescope Kite.…

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