Zen Hen

Project Overview

Zen Hen by Keri Powers-Pye introduces mindfulness to young children through one of picture books’ most reliable vehicles: an expressive, endearing animal character with a problem readers will immediately recognise. When the Zen Hen’s peace is shattered by a noisy gaggle of geese, her response — retreating to her rest nest, taking a deep breath, tuning in to her own body — models exactly the kind of self-regulation that children are often told about but rarely shown so clearly and accessibly. Keri Powers-Pye’s rhythmic storytelling gives the mindfulness content a genuinely calming effect as well as an instructional one.

The illustration challenge was making the act of breathing and becoming still look visually interesting — stillness is hard to illustrate compellingly, and every moment of Zen Hen’s retreat needed to feel like something was actively, beautifully happening, not simply the absence of chaos.

Role

The illustration challenge was making the act of breathing and becoming still look visually interesting. Stillness is difficult to illustrate compellingly, so every moment of Zen Hen’s retreat needed to feel like something was actively, beautifully happening rather than simply reading as the absence of chaos.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Zen Hen and the gaggle of geese, anthropomorphic character design with mindfulness expressiveness, calming visual environment and breathing sequence illustration, and print-ready file preparation.

Character Design

Before a single page is illustrated, I develop the main characters in full — defining their proportions, expressions, and personality. This is the foundation that keeps your characters recognizable and consistent across every scene, every lighting condition, and every emotional moment in the project.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.