Children Books Illustation

Here's a few pictures of the research process I used to create the illustrations of Cheryl in the Clouds.


With a degree in set design from the National Theatre School of Canada (1997), today I’d like to share with you my passion for creating shadow-theatre stories and silhouettes. Within the past five years, I’ve held over 350 activity days for 20,000 primary-school students in Quebec and Ontario.

In the spring of 2004, the Head of Children's Literature at Library and Archives Canada contacted me and asked me to illustrate and stage (in shadow theatre) a story written by Japanese princess Takamado. The show was presented to her during her visit to Canada in June of the same year. It was after this experience that I flirted with the idea of illustrating my stories with shadow silhouettes and creating a series of children’s books, with the emphasis own on Canadian wildlife.







My characters come to life as actors in the shadow theatre only after carton and paper silhouettes have been projected on a large canvas. The resulting images are photographed and form illustrations evoking a living visual poetry on such themes as shadows, colour and light.

The original version of the story was created in 2003 for young narrators and puppeteers to recite during my activities. The layout, the typography as well as the script adaptation are presented as examples. They were all made possible thanks to the Sid Lee Collective’s creative scholarship.






http://www.sidleecollective.com/publishing/index.html