Brian Wildsmith

After watching the BBC documentary 'when we were young' the one illustrator that stood out to me was Brian Wildsmith. Wildsmith's unique art style represented my personality best out of all the illustrators in the documentary and this is why i had a connection with his work. 

Wildsmith's work is messy and imperfect, representative of that of a child's art work (colouring outside of the lines etc.). Wild smith is a children's illustrator so why would he try and create these perfect illustrations? he is creating for children and children do not care if the paint goes outside of the lines or if the illustration is slightly out of proportion. The very fact that his work is imperfect actually connects with the children more as they can relate to his art style and won't get disheartened if their own work isn't perfect. Almost all of Wildsmith's illustrations are of animals, this again is something that children will connect with as animals are an intriguing part of life and fascinate children. Wildsmith's illustrations uses a lot of vibrant colours and his colour pallet is vast. on top of this his illustrations are very textured and almost bring the flat illustration to life. These are all components which will attract children to the books and connect with them. 

i think that Wildsmith's art style is aimed at key stage 1 (5-7 years) and possibly key stage 2 (7-8 years). i think this because although his work is messy and 'child like' it is also quite detailed and i personally don't think early years children (4-5 years) would neccassarily understand the illustrations. yes they would connect with the vibrant and vast range of colours which Wildsmith uses but they wouldn't connect with the actual illustrations whereas key stage 1 and 2 is the age where children start to develop an understanding of drawing and colouring in a more serious fashion and they would appreciate the detail in Wildsmith's illustrations more than an early years child. 

below is some of Wildsmith's illustrations.