Farmer in Training
In her spare time away from the family farm and job as an English teacher, Anwen had been working on creating a series of children's books. These books were inspired by real events on her family farm. Instead of the idyllic version of farming which many children’s books often convey where Lambs are “frolicking in the fields” Anwen’s stories are taken from real events in the typical farming calendar, similar to ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ (For kids). Even the character share their likeness with her own family. These characters include Jack the farmer’s son who wants to become a farmer, just like his dad when he grows up.
Client
Green Wellies Publishing
Industry
Publishing
PROBLEM
Anwen had no idea where to start. She’d had this idea in her mind for quite a few years and could make the stories. But she didn’t know how to go about bringing her the book and illustrations to light.
It just so happened Elwyn Davies (her brother) ran a design studio!
SOLUTION
Next to Pixelhaze, we setup a sister company. ‘Green Wellies Publishing’. Here, we took on all the responsibilities of a traditional publisher (besides printing).
When creating the illustrations we used Adobe Illustrator on both the iPad and Mac to digitise this artwork. We created rudimentary sketches on paper until we were happy with the designs, the ported them to the adobe suite. We opted to create the artwork digitally instead of hand drawing each individual page as we could recycle the various assets in future content, making each new book easier to create. After we finished the first book in the series, Shearing Day we had all the illustrations to be able to start creating the other books. These books include Lambing Time, The Show, and Sheep in the Garden.
The series has since evolved, with 2 new books published. The Farm Visit and Christmas at Hilltop Farm. We have even setup downloadable audio books, a YouTube Channel, published other books such as the ‘The Dan-Y-Bont’ series
