My, my, July
Making an illustration for your childhood self
Hello friends,
How are you? Hope you’re well and happy and having a cosy day so far.
Bologna Children’s Book Fair was a couple of months ago (for those who don’t know, it’s the biggest, shiniest, most exciting fair crammed with children’s books and children’s book people from all over the world - books rights are sold to be translated, agents pitch their clients, talks are held, portfolios are reviewed…it’s a lot! And a lot of fun). I didn’t get to go this year, but my agent did, and she gave me a run down after on which pieces from my portfolio got the most attention this time around.
You can never predict what publishers will be interested in each time. This year, one thing that was commented on a lot was this illustration of squirrels I did a couple of years ago.
My agent suggested I do a couple other illustrations featuring these squirrels friends to make them stand out even more.
I decided to start off in two directions - I would make one vignette of the squirrels but with more movement in it, and one much fuller scene with more animals and more narrative involved.
I’m very happy with how the running squirrels vignette turned out (above), but lets leave that behind for a moment because the fuller scene is the one I want to talk about.
I started thinking about what kind of illustration I wanted to make, what I wanted to be happening in it and where it should be located. And a little ding-ding-ding went off in my head. It was time.
Anyone who is roughly my age and who grew up in the UK will know this image for sure: Nick Butterworth’s Percy the Park Keeper After the Storm fold out tree page. Ahhh! It was glorious. It still is. I could look at that illustration for hours and still not be bored, and the feeling seeing it today is the same. There is so much possibility in that tree - dozens of stories waiting to be told, heaps of places waiting to be explored, oodles of characters waiting to be met - it fuels the imagination more and more the more you look.
Since I fell in love with this tree I have always wanted to make my own version of it. Not a copy of Nick Butterworth’s, but my own busy tree picture that a variety of characters and secret hollows and hidden tree rooms, from my illustrative approach. I had an itch to make an illustration that my childhood self would have loved. Now was the perfect time to try!
Sometimes I like to illustrate without planning too much and just see where the illustration takes me. It doesn’t always suit to work like this, if you are following a brief for example, and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to just start cold. The way it works best (for me anyway), is if you are excited to be drawing this illustration. If you’re looking forward to working on it, and you go in with only minimal planning, I find it can sometimes make space for a bit more exploration and play without overthinking too much, and it can lead to happy accidents. This was definitely the way for me to work on this particular illustration because a) I didn’t want to get too in my head about it, b) I had been waiting to draw this for ages, and c) this was just an illustration for me and 6-year-old Anna, no one else!
So, I made the most sketchy of sketches (which has a lot more meaning in my head than it probably looks like to you here), and then I just dived right in.
I started with the background and the characters separate because I wanted to see where the animals felt like they fitted into the image, moving them around until they settled in a place where I could imagine what they were doing there. After they had all found their places, I went in and added more details - books, lighting, plants and mushrooms. It was fun to imagine little back stories for the characters and objects as I drew them - especially things I think my younger self would have enjoyed imagining. The owls having a story to start of their day, while the squirrels collect a book for bedtime. A little mouse visits the library for the first time with their mum. A book is abandoned on a branch by a full-of-energy rabbit.
Because I was thinking on the basis of what my younger self would enjoy, the narrative of the characters drove how I approached the illustration rather than the overall aesthetic, and it was a fun way to work. Often I would be working on very zoomed in sections, and it was exciting to zoom out and see how the illustration as a whole was looking.
And so here’s what I ended up with (below)! Let me know what illustrations filled your childhood self with joy, and if you’ve ever tried making your own version of them!
✱Summer rolls. Ahh! How had we never made them before? So easy, so simple, so colourful, so DELICIOUS. We’ve been eating them a lot over this last month.
✱ I finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver at the beginning of June and I’ve honestly talked about it to as many people as will listen, what a great book, I don’t know why I didn’t read it sooner!
✺ This weekend we splashed out and finally got a little bench for our balcony. It will be delivered this week, and I can’t wait to sew cushion covers for it and read my book in the sun not on the ground! Hurrah!
And finally! If you’ve made it all the way to the end I have a little present for you - an instagram sticker that you can find here!
This is mostly useful for UK voters, but others can save it until it’s useful for them. Save the image from this link to your camera roll, and upload it to your instagram story - or anywhere else!
Ok, that’s all from me. Have a sunny day!
Hugs, Anna x
what a lovely read. And amazing result!
Oh my goodness, IN LOVE! The little snail ahhhhhhhh! And the whole concept of a tree library, I want to pop on by and stay!