Peter Taylor, the multi-talented SCWBI Coordinator , Queensland chapter, and the Book Safari Coordinator, the inimitable Jenny Stubbs roped me in to help with the Book Safari tents at Woodlands. This was a first for me and proved to be an excellent networking and promotional activity. Opportunity abounded to talk to lots of teachers, students and other writers, illustrators, publishers and editors.  In other words it was reading, hearing, viewing and doing STORIES, pretty much non stop!

Here is a pictorial overview from the days I was there – 2nd, 3rd and 5th of September.  PHOTOGRAPHS: 1-3 Woodlands;

Woodlands, Ipswich from the approach road

The heritage listed Homestead with the Book Safari banner at the entrance

Why it is called Woodlands.

4-6 Editors, Presenters, Writers and more…

Kristina Schulz, UQP, Leonie Tyle, Random House, Dr. Robyn Sheahan-Bright

Julie Nickerson, Cheryl Gwyther, Dee White

Justin D'Ath's very unique book launch

7-9 Illustrators and workshops…

Behaving like Wild Things at the mask making workshop with Lee Fullarton

Lucia Masciullo shows us her new books x 2

Lachlan Creagh inspires us with his own brand of wild things

10-13 The nomads at their tents…

Peter Taylor,writer, illustrator, calligrapher and SCWBI coordinator

Author/illustrators, Helen Ross of Miss Helen Books and Lynelle Z. Westlake

Lynelle Z. Westlake using every spare minute to create!

J.R.Poulter + books, Peter Taylor not losing a moment in the background

Jenny Stubbs and Book Safari Coordinators in hand-painted, South African t-shirts designed for the festival

MS Readathon Tent

14 & 15 Jenny Stubbs and the Coordinating Team outside the Jacaranda Room; MS Readathon Tent

16 – 19 The people who keep the writers and illustrators viable – the amazing folk of the BOOK GARDEN!

Mending Lucille - cover

Mending Lucille has been described as …

“…a book to be treasured by all. It is the story of a young girl and how she copes with the loss of her mother. The illustrations are both stunning and sensitive… Mending Lucille is a story which will help any child coping with the loss of a loved one. It shows that time will heal but you never have to forget. The theme of grief is dealt with in a sensitive and age appropriate manner. The little girl is never given a name. She doesn’t need one. She is every child who has ever suffered the pain of losing someone they care about.”
I loved it.      “The Reading Stack”, Issue 11, August 2008, page 12

Peak inside now – http://bit.ly/VQxs1

My story Lost: Space Monkey has been published in this month’s Stories for Children Magazine. Thank you to all the wonderful editors there who helped the story along its way to publication.

Read my story here : http://storiesforchildrenmagazine.org/Lost_SpaceMonkey.aspx

Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave me a comment.

Cat's Concert -1

Dirk Walbrecker and Bernhard Oberdieck

“Katzenkonzert”, The story of Bianca and Nero

How sad life can be if there is no one to play with! This is the fate of an old piano which is all alone in a cellar bar. Longingly, it remembers the days when the pianist Tom coaxed beautiful sounds out of it. But who appears in the cellar instead of Tom and starts to produce totally new sounds? First Nero, the amorous black tomcat with the white paws! Then Grrr, the amorous grey tomcat with the grim face! And finally Bianca, the elegant cute white cat with the black paws … A concerto for cats in major and minor modes, on black and white keys, with black, grey and white paws. And who plays best with whom in the end? The text and music of Katzenkonzert can be listened to on the accompanying CD – spoken by Dirk Walbrecker with jazzy classical improvisations by Jenö Nyári. Dirk Walbrecker studied German language and literature and educational science, among others. Since 1986 free-lance author: screenplays, radio plays, picture books, novels for children and young people. Many reading tours. For further information, see web site at www.dirkwalbrecker.de.

Cat's Concert - 2

Bernhard Oberdieck sat at the desk of his father at the age of four already, decorating the back sides of business letters. Studied graphic design in Bielefeld, worked as art teacher and in advertising agencies. Since 1978 free-lance illustrator of more than 180 books for national and international publishers. For further information, see web site at www.kinderbuchillustration.com. When Cats are jazzing … A musical story for young and old cat lovers A concerto with black and white paws

Including CD

Target group: Children aged 6+, parents

32 pages (with CD) fully illustrated in four colours

hardbound 21,8 x 27,5 cm

ISBN: 3-7957-0186-4 (ED 20433) € 19,95

Cat's Concert -3

Cat's Concert-4

Hi all

The amazing folk at Query Tracker are celebrating their 2nd anniversary -  celebrating and giving US the presents!!!!!!!! Details below……

Help us celebrate QueryTracker’s second anniversary, and you could win a website  custom designed for you and your writing.  Yes, your own website designed specifically for you.

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For details about the contests go to http://QueryTracker.net/carnival

“Mending Lucille” has been nominated for two very important awards in Australia, the Family Therapists’ Award and the Crichton Award!

Sarah Davis has been nominated for “New Illustrator of the Year” in the Crichton Award for her AMAZING  art work in our picture book, “Mending Lucille” [Lothian/Hachette Livre].

I am so thrilled Lothian/Hachette gave me the opportunity to go search for an illustrator and that  I found Sarah on the internet! Despite having no funds to pay Sarah for it, her  spontaneous “love it” for the manuscript persuaded her to do a sample for Lothian - the rest, as they say, is history! Thank you Sarah from the bottom of my heart for agreeing to take on the manuscript of a relative unknown and for ’seeing’  what it had to say!

Here is the site announcement   - http://cbca.org.au/crichtonaward.htm

The annual Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature is awarded by the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT). A book for older readers, and one for younger readers, are awarded  for being the best books of the year to be useful for therapists in practice. A list of books recommended for use by therapists is also announced by ANZJFT. “Mending Lucille” has been nominated for the Young Readers/Picture Book Award.

Being Nominated for the Family Therapists Award is deeply meaningful for Sarah and myself . It recognises the contribution our book has made in tackling a very sensitive topic, the loss of  a parent or central carer, and in making available to therapists, counselors, teachers and others involved with children in such a traumatic loss, a resource that is seen to be able to help the child at their point of need.  Adults too have responded  to the book and have found reading  it very therapeutic in helping them deal with such a loss of their own, often buried deep in their past.

Here’s hoping Sarah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Mending Lucille" by J.R.Poulter, illustrated by Sarah Davis, Lothian

Interview with Spain’s leading illustrator, The Golden Age continues!

“

Angel Dominguez - for sketch of Captain Cleveland

Jennifer: Fans of Dulac and Rackham do not despair, they have a worthy successor. The art of Angel Dominguez has already been compared master illustrators of the Golden Age of book illustration. He has the vibrant colour and pattern of Dulac and both the delicate and the quirkily grotesque approach to fantasy characterisation for which Rackham was famous. Angel, I believe you formally started your career in illustration in 1971? What influenced you to choose such a career? Are there other artists in your family background?

Angel: “Curiously and curiously” as Alice says… because my master is Arthur Rackham, but you´re right,  I also love Edmund Dulac. Many people say I´m more like Dulac. In writing on the topic,“The Master illustrator of the Golden Age of book illustration”, you must write about Rackham and Dulac, both have the same quality and charm.

I had an uncle, who was a very good painter in oils. So if you ask about genetics, I think that maybe there is a link, but to be an artist it is really only necessary to love art and all that’s around us.

Captain Cleveland

My strongest influence in choosing to illustrate children’s books was Arthur Rackham without a doubt. I remember, as a child, having a book in my hands with a little and awful reproduction of “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” from Alice in Wonderland. It was so bad, I was even unable to read the signature of the artist…but, in that moment, I knew I wanted to do that wonderful kind of art. I fell in love with that imaginative place too, the Mad Hatter and the other characters, with that cottage and background… I felt a lot of sensations, good inner reactions to that technique of painting. I WANTED to do the same! And further, visiting London, I saw a lot of books by that artist… and now I have nearly all his books on my shelves. I did Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland with Artisan of New York and I was the happiest man on Earth. I did The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with special affection, and the original was sold quickly. People even asked me to paint other ‘originals’ of that same scene.

Jennifer: Who were the artists, you feel, had the most influence on your style as a young illustrator and why?

Angel: If we talk about fantasy (also I´m wildlife artist) my strongest influential artists were:

1^st CAVE ART:

All the amazing paintings on the walls of the caves, from Altamira, the best, I think, to all others around the world, in the deserts of Africa, America…

2^nd ABORIGENS:

I love each nationality of artists in the wild, for all of the continents, but specially the Australian Aborigines, they painted wonderful art on rocks and on bark… I was so inspired, I also did some paintings in this medium.

3^rd COMIC:

Alex Niño, Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Toppi, Josep Mª Beá, Carlos Giménez… a lot of the world of comic.

4^th BOOK S ILLUSTRATORS:

Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, John Bauer, Beatrix Potter, Kay Nielsen… a lot too.

GENERAL:

Speaking of ART… I must mention too Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele… and the masters of China and Japan, specially Hokusai, whose books on Manga were one of the most wonderful pieces of art that I ever saw.

Jennifer: What inspires you most in the creation of your art?

Mowgli and the Wolves

Angel: Animals and plants… Nature, Beauty and Love.

A beautiful lady, a nice orchid, a wonderful gorilla, an elephant… the amazing giraffe, that incredible animal which still is with us on this planet. The blue whale… the little mice, the birds… with colors and forms without end.

Aesop's Fables - The Vain Jackdaw

To save the wonderful creatures in this amazing world is in the forefront of my interest, so, painting them to show all their beauty and their interaction with their interesting human companions as they appear together in the wild, this is my goal. As Sir David Attenborough said, he likes to show nature’s wonders in order to preserve them; he never liked to do movies with “distressing messages to the innocent bystander who was at home sitting in their chair.” But it´s difficult, you cannot forget, for example, the bushmen of the Kalahari desert, who are disappearing so fast, already it is a challenge to find a family complete - and all due to the diamonds under their feet… and the powerful people don´t know that the true diamonds are these very same tribes folk?

Celtic inspiration - detail

The variation in art inspires me… I see a wonderful book on Celtic art and I WANT to do Celtic art… I see an interesting carved wood or stone… and I would like to do the same. In fact, I saw a picture by Arthur Rackham and that was the start in my career as illustrator, I wanted to do images like that.

Jennifer: Every body is different some can only paint when inspired, some have a daily routine. How do you approach your work?

Angel: Setting down to work is a daily ‘routine’, constantly having in mind the sketch book for each work in which roughs are done when I´m inspired, so, the results come together in the right way. Routine is a word that artists must categorise as ‘forbidden’. In fact, I hate schedules, or… I´m unable to use them, so, let me see… I think that I don´t use schedules nor “daily routine” per se! This, speaking of my work in the fantasy genre only, because I also work on wildlife art, which is the easiest for me, and in this case, routine isn’t a trouble to me. The truly ‘work’ of art is the fantasy world. The inevitable is to work hard.

Jennifer: Does your native region of Basque Country, its geography, history and legends play a part in who you are as an artist and has it influenced your style? I know you travel in Europe and the United Kingdom and Celtic influences are obvious in your love of delicate, interwoven patterns and symbols. How have they come to be part of what is your signature style?

Basque influence - Mari, Queen of the Basque

Angel: As a Basque, I think that the woods of this country inspired me as much as the wild life of England near where Rackham lived at Arundel, inspired him; he loved trees, me too. The mountains and nature of Basque Country are a magnificent source of inspiration to me, and have been from my childhood. Also the Basque Myths are interesting to me, and our books are feature plenty of faery characters of all kinds, … perfect for my fantasy.

Of course, every time I do a trip, I take a lot of sketches and photographs, I want to carry with me every wonder that I find. I like the Pubs of London a lot, I have photographs of almost every one of them, and I wanted to do a book only on pubs… well, I did some pictures and two of them were printed in my book Diary of a Victorian Mouse. One of these Pubs, The Porcupine, did a set of postcards of my drawing in this book, and they were sold in that Pub. To drink a pint of good beer looking at these postcards was a nice moment.

Also, I knew in England the wonderful Celtic art in the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels, what a collection of striking calligraphy and patterns and borders… I love all of these wonderful books.

Jennifer: You have an obvious love for storytelling, your pictures talk to the viewer, do you deliberately put layers of story into your works or is this a right brain thing that happens as part of the creative process?

Arabian Nights - Mediterranean, Moroccan and Basque influences

Angel: Both, I think. We the illustrators, well, the artists in general, we put in our creations our acquired culture throughout our lives, spontaneously, and those details which aren´t spontaneous, with hard work. So, the viewer can admire our culture and enjoy our hard work.

Jennifer: You have a very keen eye for detail, especially in your drawings of wildlife. But you animals are more than just good anatomical representations, they leap from the page! Do you carry a sketchbook with you, a camera or do you rely on memory or zoological sources?

Angel: Again, both, every tool helps me. My sketchbook, my camera, my memory… AND… my loved books, movies, stamps and cards. Memory is the less important. Having talked about memory’s role in our work with my artists friends, all agree in this, and more… I know a gag:

-“I heard that memory is the intelligence of fools”… said a man to a friend…

-“Yes, and so it is because I forget everything”.

Always I carry a little sketchbook with me, and when a good idea comes, I draw it… and after, I put it in larger sketchbooks, which often have better drawings than in the same published books!

Jennifer: Can you share with me and the readers some of your earliest experiences with art?

Angel: The very first, as a baby… was an “O” filled with a pencil… I needed to fill that blank room. Well, this book, of my father, is still with me, and I have no better drawings with me from my childhood, which was awful. Due to the work of my father, we were doing trips up and down to many places, and all my drawings from school and that which I did at home were lost… a pity… and they were a lot indeed. This happened to Hokusai too, but worse; all the first pictures, from a wonderful stage in his life, disappeared in a fire that burned his house… and, further, he never was able in to do them again, although he did try to recreate them.

Fedra

Further, as a youngster, I did comics, and I won two first prizes, with my creation Fedra, a woman of the future as heroine… and I´m thinking of following up with further work on her some day, not too much later on. I have some good ideas for her, but in the form of a book not as a comic.

Jennifer: You have done some outstanding work illustrating new editions of such all time classics as “Alice in Wonderland” and “Wind in the Willows”. This must have presented some unique challenges.

How do you approach a project such as “Alice in Wonderland” which has already had many well know illustrators put their stamp on it?

Alice and the Duchess from Alice in Wonderland

Angel: Easy for me, I love Alice in Wonderland very much… I approached this story WITH EMOTION, which is THE GOAL OF ART, as another artist said, Goyo Dominguez –not a relative. I love this special world created by Carroll so much, that not only do I love the story but each of the characters, of course, the writer, the illustrated editions… England, in a word. I wanted to go to England to feel the origin of the book, the mood… to visit a lot of bookshops, to buy a lot of old books, not only of Alice, but of the Victorian times. Each part of my book is full of plenty of messages.

And, if you look closely at many Victorian times (Carroll’s time), The Great Exhibition was held in the Crystal Palace… The objects on display came from all parts of the world, including India and the countries with recent white settlements, such as Australia and New Zealand, that constituted the new empire.

So, I took advantage of this event which, at that time, had the effect of familiarizing English society with foreign wildlife, to paint the wonderful animals that you have there in Australia into the illustrations.

Ron ’s amazing picture inspired the poem, “The Journey” which both celebrates the role of the rescuers and the fire-fighters, and highlights the traumatic events they were dealing with moment by moment. The courage and dedication of such unsung heroes is what it means to be ‘my brother’s keeper’! I am so grateful there are people around like this - inspiring wonderful role models for our children in a world which seems to be increasingly full of hatred and violence and selfishness - TO THEM!!!

The Journey, text by J.R.Poulter, art by Ron Chironna

.

Pandamonium by J.R.Poulter, illustration by Joy Streuerwald

“Pandamonium” is available to download free from www.sharing-books.com.

Topics include :
weight loss, diet, healthy eating, exercise, group activity, nutrition

This poem poster features a poem that is part of  a collection called “Of Catalumphs and Hippograffes” written by J.R.Poulter and illustrated by Joy Steuerwald which will soon be available to download from Sharing Books.

ENJOY!!!!.

Ten of Them text by J.R.Poulter, illustration by Jason Ferguson

“Ten of Them” is available to download now free from www.sharing -books.com. Above I have inserted the name tags for each cat to assuage the curious!

Topics include:
cats, pets, counting, numeracy, numbers, sequencing, numerics, maths, mathematics, addition

House Tree Lower by Mattias Adolfsson

Soupilifications by J.R.Poulter

“Soup”, said the little bird up in the tree,

“It’s SOUP they want to make of me!”

O> O> O> O>

“Disgusting!” the parrot replied, but he lied.

He’d helped brew the stew of the others who’d died.

O> O> O> O>

The little bird looked at his trembly wee feet

And went , Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeet….”

O> O> O> O>

“Alas, ‘tis sad,” the parrot sighed,

“Come sit on the branch here, by my side.”

And the parrot preened, stretching his wings out wide.

O> O> O> O>

“You have big wings, I could curl up and hide…”

The wee birdy twittered. The parrot obliged.

That was the last that was heard of wee bird.

O> O> O> O>

So here’s a tip for you or whoever,

Birds of a feather should NOT stick together

If one of them’s on the menu ever!

Sleeping Child/Dog Day Afternoon by John Blackford

Suzie Dreaming by J.R.Poulter 08

Suzie’s dreaming in granddad’s chair

And I am watching over her.

Suzie knows that I am near.

She sleeps on safe, she’s not afeared.

I’ll stay beside her till daddy comes

And tucks her up in her own little bed.

Then I’ll watch over her there instead.

The Ancient Hero and the Robot by John Blackford

Little People shouldn’t play… by J.R.Poulter 08

Little people shouldn’t play

With things that stab and prick, okay!

I say this to you little man

For your protection and I am

Going to take your sword away!

No off you go, good boy, and play!

Wizard by John Blackford

Expelling spell by J.R.Poulter

Now which one was it?

I must get it right!

The king wants his horse,

He wants it tonight

And, of course,

He can’t ride it far in ajar!

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

Abble dabble kibble cow

Come out now!

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

That didn’t work

Did it….

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

Ribbit! Tip Rabbit!

Jars are a bad habit!

Give up and get out!

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

Sigh……

////\\\\////\\\\////\\\\

Well I could try and fake it

And just up and break it!

But how do I

Resize the horse that is in it

When I’m on a deadline

That ends in ONE MINUTE!

Review in FeMail for "Mending Lucille"

New Zealand children have chosen “Mending Lucille”, placing it in the top 6 picture books for 2008. This is a wonderful honour to be chosen by the children themselves! Sarah and I are suitably excited and humbled at the same time! Dunedin Public Library District is one of the largest in New Zealand , incorporating 6 pubic libraries in its territory.

See page 3 of the promotional brochure:

childrens-choice-picture-books_-dunedin-public-library-nz1

Other Reviews for “Mending Lucille”

mendinglucille_brisbaneschild_sept08

mendinglucille_canberratimes_oct08

mendinglucille_magpies_sept08

jenniferpoulter_bundabergnewsmail_sept08
AND

“New Zealand Listener”,  December 20-26 2008 Vol 216 No 3580 - has placed “Mending Lucille” in the top 10 chldren’s books/young adult books for 2008 -  Full review available online on 3rd January 2009
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3580/artsbooks/12442/breaking_barriers.html

Bernhard Oberdieck

The Art of Illustrating for Children and Some Survival Initiatives for Illustrators! - An Interview with Bernhard Oberdieck - storyteller with paint and pen

Jennifer: Bernhard you have already covered in detail the extraordinary processes and techniques you utilise to create your wonderful images. [Readers - I highly recommend a visit to http://www.bernhard-oberdieck.com/en/technik.php to gain an insight into the workings behind Bernhard’s creations.] You have an astounding output – around 200 books by my estimation! What I want to cover in this interview is the background to all this amazing creativity.

You talked about developing ideas in the studio and doing variations of an idea until it is ‘right’ especially in relation to the layout of text. Do you also carry an artist’s notebook with you when you travel in case a solution occurs to you for a particular illustrative problem or an inspiration comes? Could you share one of your more challenging projects with us?

BERNARD: No, I don’t take an artist’s notebook with me if I travel. Previously, as a professional illustrator and as a student, I have drawn and painted a lot from nature and I have visited a lot of museums to study the old masters. Today I draw almost everything freely from my head or I look at photos or old illustrations from old books which I use as stimulus and inspiration. Some I utilise their basic layout in changed form in my illustrations. A good example of this is the circus illustration. Here I took an old photo, I made several years before in the South of France. I deleted some houses in the middle and placed the circus tent in their place. Because I illustrate daily about 8-12 hours, I take no drawing materials in hand in my free time.

Jennifer: Hi Ian,

Thanks for agreeing to the interview!

I’ve had a ball tracking through the amazing adventures you’ve had with pen and ink! You have a wealth of

Ian Beck

experience in other arty areas, from designing album covers (including the cover for “Yellow Brick Road”), to advertising, from cards and calendars to murals.

What do you feel this more commercially driven art brought to your work as a children’s book illustrator?

‘Marketing’ is something that seems almost a dirty word to purists but it is an essential part of any saleable product in a competitive marketplace – does the ‘selling’ aspect play any part in your creative process? Should it?

IAN: I began my career as a ‘commercial’ illustrator, making drawings and paintings for anyone who asked, I just wanted to make a living from illustrating. That had been my goal since I was very young and I had noticed ‘spot’ drawings and the like in newspapers and magazines. My ambition had been to do something similar. I spent a very varied and happy twenty years or so in that illustration world. I learned a great deal technically through the trial and error of making drawings for difficult and or demanding clients. I learned patience, and the ability to redraft, remake, remodel, with a smile and good grace. This all helped when I was offered my first children’s book to illustrate (Round and Round the Garden) in 1982. It helped me to be consistent in my coloring, to get the mood of the book as demanded by the editor and designer, a process I was by then very used to. The selling part is obviously important. No publisher wants to make a book that does not sell, nor does any author. I certainly built on my experience in commercial illustration to make my pictures ‘appealing’ if that is the right word. I tried to bring tenderness and charm to my depiction of babies or animal characters. That was how I worked anyway, my commercial work had been influenced by the world of children’s illustration from the word go. I collected illustrated books from my time at Art School, and I still do.

Jennifer: With Heroes like Edward Ardizzone and Harold Jones and a teacher like Raymond Briggs one could say you were always going to end up illustrating children’s books.

What were your favourite books as a child? What images stuck in your mind - were they from books, films or somewhere else? How have these influences shaped your approach to your art?

IAN: I grew up in a house with very few books. Ours was what you would call a ‘blue collar’ family. My father was a milkman, (as was Raymond Briggs’ father) we had a patchy library of mostly old novels, I remember we had volume two of Gone With the Wind, no sign of volume one. The printed images I saw were either in comics, magazines or newspapers. I began my interest by trying to copy those images, often on to the endpapers and flyleaves of the old books that were lying around. Later I joined my local library and began my life long love affair with books and the pictures in them. I started with Hugh Lofting’s Dr Dolittle books. I read all of those in sequence and often reread them too. Later I moved on to Richmal Crompton’s Just William books, and I still read and laugh over those. I think however if there is a single illustration that I remember, that opened my eyes and mind, it was the one by Pauline Baynes, in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, it is of Mr Tumnus out in the snow with his parcels and the street lamp. It still gives me the shivers. I think my own illustration work has been made of so many influences it would be hard for am to untangle them all, but they are all there in some way even if the result is recognizably ‘me’.

Jennifer: The ability to tell a story inside a story as with your book “Five Little Ducks” –How did you set about that now classic ‘Beck’ book?

Was the other story of the fox there from the outset or did it ‘occur to you’ in the way the speaking crow did in Tom Trueheart?

Five Little Ducks by Ian Beck

IAN: As so often happens, Five Little Ducks began as a quite different book. I was discussing with Judith Elliot, then the overall editor at and founder of Orchard Books, the possibility of a book about night time. I had made some roughs, written out some ideas, but it had stalled. Jill Slotover who was an editor there suggested the rhyme of the five little ducks. I saw it complete at once in my mind, the fox, the brave duckling etc etc. I drew some thumbnail sized color visuals in a sketch book, and that was it, go ahead, and I did. It seemed to flow very naturally and was a very positive experience.

Jennifer: This brings me to the ‘right brain’ process present in much of creativity.

In one interview, you spoke of ‘trusting’ an inner nudge that told you to go with the talking crow, even though never envisaged as part of your original idea for Tom’s story.

How does this work in the illustrative process and is it different to that in the writing process?

How do the two creative processes compare?

IAN: In writing a longer story there is naturally a certain amount of planning but as you work on something the imagination creeps up behind you occasionally and goes, ‘boo, weren’t expecting that were you’? This is just what happened with the talking bird, it seems meant and obvious to me now that Jollity the crow should be there, but he was meant at first just to be a target for Tom to throw a snowball at. Once the notion popped into my head that the bird would speak the book opened up for me there and then. My drawings were always planned more rigorously, I was very much in control of them, I can’t imagine the same leap occurring during the making of a drawing.

Jennifer: I’ve checked out http://www.tomtrueheart.com/ and encourage readers to

Tom Trueheart: The Secret Adventures of Tom Trueheart by Ian Beck

do ditto! The silhouettes perfectly suit the darker story, but are very different to your style say for example used in “The Teddy Robber” and again from “Puss in Boots”.

How do you decide on your approach to each project?

IAN: The silhouettes were not in the planning of the book at all. I was working on some ideas for the cover of Tom Trueheart with the designer Molly Dallas at Oxford University Press. We had a lot of ideas scattered about on a table, when she remembered that the endpapers I had made for a previous book (The Oxford Nursery Story Book) had used silhouettes. I turned the image of Tom walking with his packstaff into a silhouette and it seemed to click into place at once. It was a short step from that to illustrating the whole book with silhouettes. It was quite a discipline to learn, but a very enjoyable one. So I suppose this approach was unplanned but seemed right. Most of the picture books would be planned with the designer and editor together. They have a valuable input as well after all, quite rightly. Sometimes an editor will say, ‘it would be nice if this book were some thing like this’, and refer to a past book or approach, that certainly happened with The Little Mermaid, I went for the sad and the romantic, the lavish and the wide screen in that book very different to much of my other more graphic output, I imagine for the first and last time.

Jennifer: Any career path is a journey and one might have predicted that having the story teller gift (as demonstrated in “Five Little Ducks”) you would eventually arrive at the point where you wrote your own stories.

Did you always want to do this, or is this a new adventure?

Why now?

IAN: I was encouraged to write my own original story to illustrate by my first editor David Fickling. This became The Teddy Robber, a book still held in affection by readers twenty years later, as I am constantly reminded by teachers and children on

The Teddy Robber by Ian Beck

school visits.

The urge to write narrative though has been with me from the beginning. When I was a young commercial illustrator I went to creative writing classes. It was my intention to write adult fiction. I wrote a couple of short stories, began a novel, but it all ended in a drawer unresolved, unfinished. The urge was still there, the itch, the frustration if you like, but all necessarily suppressed under my busy drawing schedules, the need to earn a living, growing family life etc. Then the seed for Tom Trueheart was planted and grew a little in the potting shed inside my brain. He lay dormant for a while until, sadly, one of my best friends died. This was a big wake up call, as he was younger than me. ‘Come on’, I thought, ’finish that idea, grow that seedling, do what you really want to do, life is too short’. So then Tom actually got finished, with the encouragement of my agent Hilary Delamere. The publisher liked him and so did several other publishers. He is in ten languages now I think, so sometimes trusting your instinct is the way to go.

Jennifer: Tom‘s second book of adventures “Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories “ is darker by your own admission. The same applied to the progression of J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

What led to this?

What were the influences at work when you realized a second book needed to be written?

IAN: The second Tom Trueheart adventure came about by chance. I had not intended to write more than one book while I was busy writing the first, it seemed both

Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories by Ian Beck

contained, and complete. The first draft ended with Tom confronting the villain Ormestone in a wood and Ormestone turning him into Tom Thumb, ie Tom finally had his own story to complete. My editor Liz Cross read it and said that she didn’t think it was the end of book one, rather she felt it could be the beginning of book two. I was delighted to think that there would be a book two as I had enjoyed writing about Tom so much. Book two needed a new set of stories and characters, there was the unresolved business of Tom’s missing father, maybe he would make an appearance and so on, it all just slotted into place. I used some of those darker fairy story elements, wolves, castles, bats spiders, skeletons, and so on, imagining that the villain would go to where he would be appreciated, and all this with Tom shrunk down to the size of Tom Thumb. It was great fun to do, and I have now nearly finished the third book, provisionally called Tom Trueheart and the Land of Myths and Legends. As you may know Suppertime Entertainment are developing animated films based on the books, so we wait to see what happens next.

Jennifer: How did you feel as an illustrator about someone else doing your illustrative work, as with the book covers for paperback edition in UK [Adam Stower] and the USA edition [Brandon Dorman]?

IAN: It is something of a luxury and a delight to see other artist’s interpretations of my characters and stories. As an illustrator myself you might expect me to be hyper critical, but no, I am very relaxed about it and I very much like what both Brandon Dorman and Adam Stower have done in relation to Tom Trueheart. Just recently, I saw the jacket for Pastworld which is far better than anything I might have done, completely spot on, designed by John Fordham and with an illustration by Paul Young, full of texture and mystery. It was sent to me as a ‘fait accompli’, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Jennifer: What do we expect to see next?

What about film scripts [ I noted the trailer on your site.]?

What about your own totally Beck picturebooks?

IAN: I have a big novel (in terms of length and ambition) coming out in the summer of 2009. It is called Pastworld. It has taken me four years to develop and complete, Bloomsbury will be publishing. It is a much darker book, aimed at older readers, twelve years and up. A complex book, and hard to sum up in a few words, it is a dark adventure set in what appears to be Victorian London. I suppose you would perhaps categorize it as ‘Steampunk’, there are airships, and murders, and strange passions. It has grown out of my obsession with London, the city I have lived in for forty years, with the science fiction novels of H G Wells, and movies and all sorts of other things muddled together. It may surprise some of my readers, even shock them. It is intended as an older read, it is nothing like Tom Trueheart, and it is not at all cute.

After that I am writing a novel for Oxford provisionally called The Hidden Kingdom, in which the hero is thrust into a sudden drama and the reader discovers the truth as the story develops and at the same time that the hero does. It is set in a mythical place and time and will I hope explore love as one of the subjects.

As to films, I wrote a short story for adults called The Summer House. A young film maker read it and wanted me to adapt it as a screenplay for a short film. I did the adaptation and the film was shot in France two summers ago. Through the magic luck of casting the director Daisy Gili, got Talulah Riley, fresh from the film of Pride and Prejudice as the young female lead, and a boy called Robert Pattinson as the young male lead. Rob of course is playing Edward Cullen in the film of Twilight which just opened ‘big’. So our little 13 minute film now has the added bonus of two rising stars. My son has a film making company and he kindly makes book trailers for me, we are looking forward to making the trailer for Pastworld plus a website where further mysteries can be developed.

As to Picture books, I very much enjoyed illustrating the book Winston The Book Wolf written by Marni

Winston the Book Wolf, illustrated by Ian Beck

McGee, but whether I will ever make another one of my own I don’t know, the longer form seems to have taken over.

Jennifer: You’ve had a lot of interviews that have covered a lot of ground.

Is there a question you wish you had been asked? Okay, now’s your chance! Question and answer – over to you!

Q. What would you have done if you hadn’t made books?

IAN: I would like to have been a ‘café concert’ cabaret entertainer in the mythical Paris of the 1900’s, singing in a tux with a cane, and hanging out with Ravel and Erik Satie and perhaps even having a passionate affair with Colette!

Jennifer: Yep – I can see you doing a Maurice Chevalier complete with top hat!

Maybe that is more than just a dream??????

Now here’s a tantalizing tease - Hidden Kingdom and Pastworld are coming up AND, with one shorter film under his belt already and two animated feature version of the Tom Trueheart books under way, can we expect Ian to be off to Hollywood next with a blockbuster in his sights? Stay tuned!!!!!