Dyker Brown Studio, best children's books
About Dyker Brown
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Emerson's City Cousin
Emerson's Cottage
Dyker Brown owes much to his parents, not the least of which is his love of reading and an appreciation for great illustrations. As a boy his house was filled with children's books from the golden age of illustration — Rackham, Dulac and more recently Sendak. He aspired to create the rich, detailed whimsy found in these books. Dyker had been a freelance artist his entire life but began in earnest to write and illustrate after his three children were born and they genially demanded a bedtime story every night (or, more often, two or three).
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Dyker developed quite a repertoire of original stories. The favorites were the ones that rhymed so he set about working on a series of children's poems — "Celestial Rhymes for Children" (the next book to come out). One poem, The Heart of the King grew into it's own book to be published early 2017. It is a richly illustrated classic story told in easy flowing meter and rhyme which still engages his kids (and, thankfully, in most cases, helps them fall into a deep slumber).
The story behind The Heart of a King
In addition to trying to get my kids to sleep, I wanted to create a book that harkened back to the books I grew up with, books with lush, whimsical and engaging illustrations. Stories where, as a child, I may not have followed individual words but the tale was clear and the words flowed like music. The kind of books I could tell, as a child, my folks enjoyed reading and looking at also.
At the time the images fired my imagination and I think it was then that I knew, that if I could, I wanted to create worlds like those in the books. I still have those books that my parents read to me. I read them now. They are still wonderful and beautiful but I now know that they have a depth that I did not appreciate as a child. So, I wanted to create a book that had a timeless quality but with a contemporary sensibility.
The Heart of a King is the result.
See illustrations come to life...
When folks see a work of art, they typically don't realize that every one started as a blank page or canvas. The illustration videos below show, in an entertaining way, the entire drawing process. These were all done with modern digital tools but Dyker Brown's illustrations, like those in The Heart of a King, are mostly a hybrid of ageless techniques combined with digital enhancements. This give the illustrations a sense of timelessness that is, at the same time, also fresh and contemporary.
Click to see the illustrations develop before your eyes
Dragon
Waterfall
