Douglas

Subject - These illustrations are from the book Douglas: A Tale of a Dog With Diabetes, Written by Shaye Paskin. This is a beautiful, heartfelt storybook intended for young children, along with their family and friends, who are experiencing the challenges of a diabetes diagnosis.

Style - The softly rendered character illustrations of Douglas the Dog enhance the written story’s intention of allowing children to safely explore and relate to the challenges of diabetes without feeling overwhelmed or frightened. 

In each illustration of Douglas I have focused on conveying the emotion he is experiencing as he navigates his health challenges. This helps small children initially connect with both the character and the narrative of the story, without directly  associating it with themselves, thus helping to facilitate the child’s understanding and emotional processing.

The illustrations provide a visual rhythm with the use of the colourful dotted circular border and limited colour palette against a clean minimalist background.

Colour Pallete - The colour palette is cheerful and inviting, blending soft pastels of blue, green, yellow, pink and purple, with bold accents to create a playful and engaging atmosphere. Douglas is illustrated in warm, earthy brown tones with expressive blue-green eyes.