Thursday 27 May 2021
Dance with Oti - Illustrator Q&A with Samara Hardy
Today we welcome Samara Hardy onto Picture Book Party to talk about illustrating her new picture book, Dance with Oti, written by Strictly Come Dancing star, Oti Mabuse. Can
you tell us a little about your journey into illustration? I’ve
always loved to draw so becoming an illustrator was always the most natural
route for me to take in life. I never really considered anything else! After
finishing A-Levels I did a foundation course in Art and Design, then studied
Illustration at Falmouth University, which was an absolute dream! After I
graduated I did various work placements within the homeware and greetings card
industries, then took an in-house design position at a retailer.I never had a
strong singular style, so the role suited me perfectly as it was so varied. I
provided illustrations for everything from gift bags to paddling pools, and it
gave me a great foundation for taking the leap into freelancing 3 years later.
It was a scary step going from a secure salary to what felt like a world of
uncertainty, but I haven’t looked back. I now work alongside my lovely agents
at Plum Pudding, mainly on picture books, but I still like to dip my toe back
into homewares and licensing from time to time as well! What
is your working process? I’m
lucky enough to have a spare room which I’ve turned into my studio which is
fantastic. It’s also turning into a bit of a greenhouse with the amount of
plants I’m rapidly accumulating! I use Procreate for sketches and colouring but
as I use a lot of layers, and Procreate can be quite limiting in this respect,
I piece everything together in Photoshop afterwards. Being able to work on an
Ipad has been great as it enables me to work wherever I want. I’m looking
forward to traveling again to really make the most of this. Although the
temptation to just work from bed some days is hard to resist! How
did you begin illustrating Dance with Oti? I
began by sketching out all the characters. Each child had a particular
character trait to focus on which really helped me in making them unique and
recognisable. Designing Mrs Oti was the biggest challenge as drawing a
character based on a real-life person was something I’d never done before. It
was definitely a bit nerve-wracking waiting for her approval! Once
we had confirmed all the characters I made a start on the spreads themselves.
These started off as small thumbnails before being neatened up into final
roughs. Oti sent across some photos demonstrating each dance move which was
super helpful. As learning the dance moves is such an integral part of the
book, it was important to get them right! What
was your favourite spread to illustrate? My
favourite spread was probably the one where the bird comes flying into the
room. It was a really fun one to do and I love how some of the kids are running
away in horror and others are loving the excitement of it! What
are your favourite picture books/illustrators? I
have so many! I grew up captivated by the worlds created by Beatrix Potter and
Quentin Blake, but more recently I really admire the work of Kate Hindley,
Paola Escobar, Emily Hughes and Alex T. Smith…and many more! Download our Dance with Oti activity sheets here. Dance with Oti is available to purchase here.
Tuesday 25 May 2021
Sean Taylor's Top Tips for writing a Picture Book
“For the child worried about keeping up playground appearances, How to Be Cooler than Cool by Sean Taylor is a reminder that the coolest thing is to be yourself.” – The Telegraph
Thursday 20 May 2021
Ernest the Elephant - Q&A with Anthony Browne
Monday 17 May 2021
Take Off Your Brave by Nadim illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail
Thursday 13 May 2021
How to Be Cooler than Cool - Q&A with Sean Taylor
“For the child worried about keeping up playground appearances, How to Be Cooler than Cool by Sean Taylor is a reminder that the coolest thing is to be yourself.” – The Telegraph
What was the seed of inspiration for How to Be Cooler than Cool?
There’s nearly always more than one seed. In fact, it’s when several seeds start growing that you feel an interesting story is on the way.
In this case, one seed was our younger son being given a pair of sunglasses. (Even though he was small, he knew they were supposed to make him cool!) Then I found myself imagining animals in sunglasses. That felt as if it could be fun for an illustrator. And a third seed was slapstick comedy – which I’ve always loved watching. It very often revolves around deadpan (you might say ‘cool’) actors like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd suddenly, and utterly, losing control. That was the seed which felt as if it could grow into some laughter!
I started scribbling. This is the first rough story plan I came up with…
What I’m doing here is seeing how the narrative might work, split across 14 double-page spreads. Finding out if a story is going to work in a picture book format is always an important early step.
If you can make any sense of my handwriting, you’ll see that the four characters in the final book are in this first vision of the story - cool cat, cockatoo, pig and chick. I’m just slightly surprised to find that my original plan also featured an elephant…and a cucumber!
Then you wrote the story, based on this rough plan?
Yes, a first draft. It wasn’t even a full first draft. But it had something I liked about it. And one day I was having a drink with a brilliant trio of listeners: my current editor at Walker Books, Maria Tunney, my former editor, David Lloyd, and the designer who would come to work on How to Be Cooler than Cool, Deirdre McDermott. I read them the first, unfinished manuscript. This is it below. (You can see I’m still playing around with titles…A SERIOUSLY COOL STORY…A REAL COOL STORY…SUCH A COOL STORY…)
Maria, David and Deirdre were all, in their different ways, very positive about these beginnings of a story. I happened to meet up with illustrator, Jean Jullien a few weeks later, and could feel him drawing the characters in his mind as I described them to him! So I was encouraged to keep going.
This is the file of notes, scribbles, drafts, editorial exchanges and evolving proofs that built up as we developed the book…
How to Be Cooler than Cool found its form over three years (which isn’t an unusual timeframe for a picture book project.) And this bulky file of notes reminds me what a lot of invention, thought and trial and error went into the process of writing the story.
To be frank, the quantity of paper reveals that there was rather more ERROR than TRIAL. All that work ended up being distilled into a very simple narrative only 286 words long! A great deal fell by the wayside.
How does it feel being illustrated by Jean Jullien?
It’s special. I’m constantly revisiting Jean’s illustrations for our previous books - , Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise and I Want To Be In A Scary Story - because they’re very popular, and I’m always being asked to read them aloud.
I never grow remotely tired of either.
Jean’s illustrations are striking and engaging. He works in simple lines and flat colours. So how does he get so much life inside those two dimensions he uses? It’s absolutely there – character, emotion, movement, LIFE. I’m delighted that we’ve formed a partnership. And I hope that How to Be Cooler than Cool will put a little light into the corners of young readers’ eyes, in the way that our other two books have.
Monday 10 May 2021
Madame Badobedah - now out in paperback!
Take a look at our brand new animated trailer, featuring some of the great praise for Madame Badobedah:
Thursday 6 May 2021
New May Picture Books Releases!
Check out a selection of our new releases
for May below!
Discover why birds fly south in winter, find animal footprints in the snow and learn to make the perfect snowflake; grow a sunflower, find a feather and make a daisy chain. Full of activities, poetry and fun facts to explore, it’s jam-packed with amazing things to see and do outdoors – the perfect gift for every season.
From the team behind Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise and I Want to Be in a Scary Story comes a glorious slapstick title that celebrates friendship, play and being yourself (no matter how goofy).
But even supervillains have a soft side, and as an unlikely friendship grows between the pair, their fantastical exploits take them well beyond the corridors of their seaside home.