This document provides an analysis of the illustrations in the children's book The Three Pigs. It examines the author's use of realism, line, shape, supple images, color and value, texture, and composition. The analysis notes that the pigs, wolf, and houses are depicted realistically. Line is used throughout to show distance and details of objects. Simple shapes are used to construct even complex illustrations. Bright colors are used to emphasize the animal characters. Texture is mostly two-dimensional and composition is generally balanced across the pages.

1. Published by: Clarion Books
Received Caldecott Medal

2. The Three Pigs
The author uses detailed images to
tell a story about three little pigs
battling to save their homes made
out of straw, sticks, and bricks from a
wolf in the area.

3. Style: Realism
The author portrays realism
as a style because the house
and animals look realistic. For
example, the pigs and wolf
stand on all four feet, which is
how actual animals stand. Also,
the houses look real as well.
This makes the story seem so
much more real because the
animals and houses look like
real-life animals and houses.

4. Line Lineis used throughout the entire
story. For example, the house that is
made up of sticks portrays lines along
with the door. Next, line is represented to
show distance or how far away
something is. An example would be in
the picture below where the fox is shown
far away from the trees separated by
hills.

5. Line Examples…

6. ShapeThe author uses simple shapes throughout the
story.
Even though this illustration looks very complex, the dinosaur is made up of circular, simple
shapes.

7. Supple Images
The author uses supple images
because it seems as if the pictures
flow together.

8. Color & Value
The author uses a variety of different hues.
Yellow and green are the most common hues because most of the story takes
place outside. Also, light values are illustrated because it is during the day
time. With that being said, the color is achromatic because it doesn’t use
white, grey, or black much at all. The story is colorful for the most part.

9. Color Continued…
The author uses brighter colors when the
animals are illustrated. This emphasizes the
importance of the animals in the story. For
example, the animals are brighter than the
background of the page to make sure that the
animals are more visible than anything on the
page.
The author uses a lot of yellow and that
signifies happiness, hope, and sunshine.
The pigs were not necessarily happy, but
they were hopeful that they could find a
way to get rid of the wolf. Also, the
dinosaur was different shades of yellow
and he was the pigs hope. Last, the story
was told on a sunny day which signifies
sunshine.

10. Texture
Two- Dimensional:
There is length and width, but
no depth.

11. The author made it
seem as if this
illustration would
hurt.
This illustration of
the house looks
rough.

12. Composition
The illustrations are balanced for most of the story. For example, the animals
are placed so that they do not look out of proportion to the background of the
page. Towards the end of the story, the dinosaur takes up most of the page to
show emphasis.

13. Composition Continued…
Some illustrations have borders
and white space.
When the author wants to portray an important message from one of the main
characters, he will make the characters bigger than the rest of the page. However,
when the author is just giving background information, everything on the page is
perfectly proportionate.