The Jewel Heart

Children’s Book Illustration Project

I took a class called Children’s Book Illustration during my senior year in college. We were assigned one project for the entire semester to create our own book from scratch. We began the project by selecting our main inspiration, which was based on our favorite children’s book or novel. For my project, I chose Barbara Berger’s book titled The Jewel Heart. This book has always stuck with me to this day because of the compelling love story between the violinist and the ballerina. With my illustration skills, I recreated this book in my own style. In this page, I describe my entire process of making my own book.

Planning & Rough Sketching Phase:

Color illustration of a fantasy female elf character in a pink and red fairy costume, with sketches showing various facial expressions and hair styles.
Line drawing of a ballet dancer performing on stage, with swirling lines in the background. Her arms are raised, her eyes are closed and she is standing en pointe. There are smaller sketches of her in different ballet poses around her, with accompanying text: 'His song was for Pavelle.', 'When he drew the bow across the strings, she danced.', and 'Everyone whispered, "Ahhh...."'.
Line drawing of two elegant women in ballet costumes lying on the ground with a small animal, possibly a squirrel, and surrounded by dandelions and a dragonfly. There is a block of text describing the scene.
A black-and-white comic page storytelling a story about Gemino and a violin, with various scenes showing a young girl, a violin, shadows, and a young boy, with text narrating the story.
Black and white illustration of a fairy-tale scene with a fairy girl in a dress on an elevated stage, surrounded by leaves and curtains. To the right are a butterfly, a frog, a bird, and a mouse, with dialogue in text.
A black and white illustration of a fallen fairy with torn wings lying on the ground surrounded by rocks, a guitar, a bow, and a ladybug. A girl is seen leaning over a circular mirror or pond, looking at her reflection.

During the first couple of weeks of the semester, I spent this time creating a character sheet, rough thumbnail sketches for the story, and rough drawings of the page spreads. Brainstorming and experimenting with compositions and the character’s appearance are crucial before moving on to the rendering phase.

Official Cover Design

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Official Cover Design *

The cover of a pink book titled "The Jewel Heart," featuring an illustration of a woman in a red dress ballet pose and a man playing a violin within a heart-shaped frame. The background has floral and animal motifs with roses, mice, butterflies, mushrooms, and birds.

For the cover, I aimed to capture the relationship between the two main characters of the story, as well as its whimsical quality. Before creating the final cover design, I created approximately 3-5 rough drafts and selected the best composition that suited the book. I wanted to highlight the forest animals surrounding the main characters, since they played a crucial role in the story.

Final Illustrations:

A digital illustration of a young man with dark, wavy hair playing a violin, with a joyful expression and closed eyes. He has red markings on his cheeks and a glowing red heart with a gemstone inside on his chest. The background features a blue, swirling sky with musical notes, and text that reads: 'Gemino had a jewel for a heart. But he had no voice. He could only sing with his violin.'
A fairy tale illustration with a girl in a flower fairy costume, a large white mouse, a small mouse, a bird, a butterfly, and a dragonfly against a starry blue background, with a story excerpt about a dog hitting his head and a mouse taking his heart.

For this part of the project, we were required to choose our two favorite compositions/sketches and create them as final illustrations ready for print. I chose these two scenes from the story, with the first one being Pavelle running with the forest spirits. I was very proud of the way I drew the animals and the mood of the scene. I thought them running under the moonlight makes it more magical for the story. The second one is Gemino playing the violin. This scene I fairly enjoyed illustrating! I messed with different brush textures that makes it appear like a watercolor painting rather than a digital one.

Marketing Product Designs:

Two book covers for "The Jewel Heart" by Barbara Helen Berger, with a pink background. The left cover features a red heart with a diamond pattern. The right cover shows an illustration of a woman in a red dress dancing and a man in a white suit playing a violin, both inside a red heart shape.
A pink hardcover book titled 'The Jewel Heart' with an illustrated cover of two characters playing violin, surrounded by floral and animal designs. Next to the book is a matching bookmark featuring the same illustrated characters and floral border.

After creating all the illustrations needed for this project, we were given the opportunity to design hypothetical marketing products for the book, which would be used at art conventions to promote it to the public. The products I designed are bookmarks and stickers.