I wanted to give you a little look inside a picture book dummy I did as part of a collaboration with a friend of mine, a few years ago. She wrote the story and I came up with a few pictures then we sent it off to an agent in New York. Then it came back to us and today remains unpublished. Such is life, but not all was lost. It was the platform from which I launched my own aspirations to become a children's writer and illustrator and it was a great lesson from which I learnt that anything is possible if you focus your mind.
Getting the pictures scanned and printed and made into a dummy gave me something real to hold in my hands. Something my children could hold and read. They love looking at the pictures and notice small details every time. Like the fact that the father of the boy, Tom, is not featured in the story, but makes an appearance in the family photo on the boy's wall. It's putting in small details like that which makes illustrating so enjoyable.
In my spare art time when I am not busy illustrating or being a mother I paint seascapes, usually with stones. They are pretty intriguing paintings to say the least, when they're done well, but they are just copies of what is in front of me and I can't really say much through them. Sometimes I feel I am two kind of artists roled into one with a continual battle of wills going on inside me. Both compete for my attention and distract me away from the other. A little like having two bold children to mind. I'd like to merge the two though so we'll see who comes up the stronger. Maybe one day I'll start painting like an illustrator though.
