Children's book Rally: Result!

The Winner

Elys Dolan 'Weasels'

Judge's comment: The art work and story has originality and an immediate attraction. I loved the colour and period feel to the story and the layout and design was very successful.

Runners up

Connah Brecon 

Judges comment: The story has a lovely graphic feel, not a straight picture book by any means, the Bear character is lovely and I look forward to seeing more.

Alice Potter 'Hello! What's This?'

Judge's Comment: Again this book is strongly individual, the colour and design immediately invite the reader in. Really good use of her colour palate.

Worthy mentions

Entries chosen for short-list

Mikko Walamies 'Finding Herman'

Abi Daker 'A Guide to Stripy Dinosaurs'

Marcela Velez 'Kai: Explorer Extraordinaire, The Alaska Adventure.'

Pear Nalatporn 'An Unexpected Welcome'

Katie Johnston 'Joey's Luck' 

Sarah Underwood 'TROTTERS : CHIMERIUM GRAND CIRCUS OF ANIMAL SINGULARITIES'

Niki Leonidov

The Illustrator's Illustrator

Mikko Walamies
Katie Johnston

Frances McKay Illustration blog and Illustration Rally chose two artists for a special "illustrators choice" award. The winners of the Illustrator's Choice award will receive a month's worth of free ad space on Illustration Rally!

Notes from the judges

Illustration Rally: We were absolutely blown away by the amount of entries and the quality of the work that came flooding in. It is great to see some really dedicated and talented artists putting in so much effort. We had a great time looking through the entries and we thank everyone who entered and made it one of our best ever rallies. We also have some notes from Frances to give out some of the reasoning behind the judging and the things they were looking for.

Frances Mckay Illustration:

Frances Mckay were looking for some key things in the entries and here is a brief explanation of each of them and how they were important factors to consider.

Consistency: A necessity for a good book regardless of drawing style.

Originality of style: There were some really good entries that showed original takes on familiar themes.

Layout: An understanding of a book spread, Nothing important in the spine, considered text spaces, breathing space for the illustrations.......

Good clean, colour combinations: If a page is dark, important elements of the story must stand out and there be light areas for text - (British and American books use black text). Keep colours clean (wash your brush out often, they can see it when you don't!).

Audience: Child friendly characters/faces - They don't have to be cute or smiling to achieve this. It's a difficult one to explain as it's something you know when you see it and it's a really fine line at times.

Movement: Whether it be good movement expressed within the illustration ie (a character running, facial expression or leaves falling) or with in a pencil or brush stroke (regardless of how intentionally flat the illustration style is meant to be), movement makes a difference.

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