IreneShpak

Hello, mes amis :wave: I don't write journals very often but today I really feel like making an entry. I've been on DA for... let me have a look... oh dear, five years! In this time I have attracted almost two thousand watchers and I'm very grateful to everyone who liked my art enough to add me as a friend. However, I do realize that I have earned most of my watchers with my earlier work - color pencil portraits. Today somebody left a comment saying that they miss my color pencil drawings... Yes, for about two years now I have been painting and drawing children's illustrations and so those of you who like my old stuff might be disappointed.

A couple of years ago I have written and illustrated a children's book called "Hoggy". It's about a small friendly hedgehog with big ears and an even bigger heart. I really loved the whole experience of creating a book and I definitely have learnt a lot from it. Anne !trenchmaker (https://www.deviantart.com/trenchmaker) has been a great help with her insightful feedback and advice and I feel that thanks to her I have made a pretty neat little book I'm not ashamed to show off. Unfortunately all the publishers I have sent my book to have rejected it and so Hoggy has been hidden in my folders for many months. I have now decided to post a few illustrations from the book so that my

Hello, mes amis, I thought it's about time I made a new journal, seeing that my last one is almost a year old. I have recently developed an obsession with children's picture books. I've been collecting them for a while but ever since I realized a few months ago that illustrating children's books is actually my dream job, I have become seriously obsessed. I'm always on a look out for really good illustrations and my list of books to buy is now scary long.  I've also been browsing websites where people post scans of illustrations from all kinds of kids' books, and although I've come across a lot of brilliant stuff, some illustrations I found