The Society of Children's Books & Illustration lovers Volume 4 Nov 2013 | Page 6

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The Society of Children’s Books & Illustration Lovers – Newsletter #4 – November 2013

think the idea will go nowhere, and then suddenly I have a
breakthrough. I rely a lot on the honest opinion of a good editor
too. I have a great editor in Alison Green and a good designer, Zoë
Tucker. If I am stuck we get together and fire ideas around, it’s lots
of fun and we laugh a lot. I then take the ideas home and start
drawing again, and a story might evolve in this way.

Example of rough drawings for How to Hide a Lion from
Grandma where I'm working out the story structure and
where the text and image will go

The words and pictures happen together, I don’t write and then
draw. I don’t write a long text then edit it, the words happen at the
same time as the pictures, constantly changing, often doing
hundreds of drawings and rewrites until the whole thing starts to
work.
I scan roughs in, then chop and change them on photoshop, then
make a pdf so that I can see where the page turns are and how
they work. I often make paper dummy books too.

Style, process and tools
It’s all in the preparation

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