H is for Hhhh...Hippo!

Lots of hippopotamus fun this week while completing a spread for the letter 'H', for the 9 Degrees North Project - The ABC's of Northern Ghana, a charity picture book project by the Tools for Schools Africa. My assignment had the accompanying text, "Have you ever seen a hippopotamus yawn? Its mouth and teeth are enormous! Their large bodies overheat easily, so they spend most of the day cooling in the water."

I started with lots of sketches of hippos, since I'd never really drawn them before. The goal was to understand their true form, and find the details that make them exclusively 'hippos'. Lots of reference was used.




Also researched were the variety of hippos that are specific to Ghana; a 40 km stretch of the Black Volta near Wechiau in the Upper West Region is a protected hippo sanctuary. So the color of the river, the fish, the birds, etc. were all good details to have in mind when planning the composition,



Hopefully it engages the young reader enough to feel like they are right there in the thick of it and looking around, using their imaginations to continue the little stories happening in various parts of the illustration.