FAQs

In the beginning, a book needs an author, and a story.
Storytelling is the heart and soul of a book.
The driving idea and direction for the book comes from the author.
But that’s enough about authors. My job starts with the editor sending me the text.

I am told by the editor how many pages the book will have. Usually 32 for a picture book.

Then I work out where the lines of the text will go on each page. This forms the basic layout. It can be moved around later. Then I start the roughs of the illustrations, done with pencil, and eraser, on tracing paper. A photocopier is useful, especially being able to change the size of a drawing. Bits of roughs can be sticky-taped together. A rough can become pretty messy! These roughs show all the important bits of the composition. But not all the details. Lots of things can be left for later. Especially colour, of course.

Then they get sent back to the editor (I hate taking them in personally). The editor may require some changes, or worse - lots of changes! But if the editor loves them then I can start the final artwork. That usually means tracing the roughs onto artboard, re-outlining them in ink, then finally painting them with goauche paint. Sometimes it takes forever going from first rough to final painting.

In recent years I have done quite a bit of colouring on computer. I’ll write about that elsewhere.

The first roughs are done with no instructions. After that you work with helpful feedback from the editor. No, I do not copy.

No - though, they may suggest an illustrator.

It is the editor’s happy duty to offer the text to an illustrator, according to the strengths of the illustrator. These strengths are to do with their brilliant ideas and groovy art-style. These strengths may also include reliability as far as deadlines go, and a pleasant, easy-to-get-on-with nature. And a child-like sense of humour. (As well as the simple ability to imagine and draw).

Quite a lot. But remember, the illustrator must still keep to the point of the author’s story.

One thing to aim for is a mature style that is comfortable and familiar. This style will still allow for a lot of experimentation and mucking around, and making errors. But you will confidently be able to use all you have already learnt. 

Firstly, for the outline (and any other linework) I like to use a nib (with ink). The nib is very expressive. With a nib lines can be thickish or very thin, and the ink can be thick or watery...

Colour is applied with a mixture of inks, gouache (paint) and coloured pencil, particularly soft pastel pencils.

In recent years I’ve done a number of books using Adobe®Photoshop and Corel®Painter 8 software on the Mac computer. I use it to apply colour to my hand-drawn line work. (This outline drawing is scanned into the computer.) The wonderful thing the computer allows is to have the outline drawing on one layer.The colour is applied underneath on a different layer. So you always keep the entire outline drawing, bits of it don’t get painted out.

The computer has its weaknesses though. The computer brushstrokes don’t have that gorgeous texture that a real brush has. But they are pretty good! My computer technique is to produce pictures that appear to be ‘real’ paintings. I’ve not developed other techniques the computer does well, like 3D, or vector images. The physical stress of spending hour after hour on the computer is far, far more wearing on eyes and arms than painting normally. A long days work on computer leaves me wrecked!

To write, then illustrate my own story.

I do have a little story about a cat that may be published one day. It needs a couple more lines at the end, and maybe a bit more in the middle. So far it has taken me five years to get this far.

Writing is hard. I would love to be a political cartoonist or satirist. Drawing the former Prime Minister as a duck is the closest I’ve come to it.

Occasionally people tell me my drawings are stylistically distinctive. That is, that they’re recognisable. That’s nice. My aim always is to make the drawings as energetic as I can. I am fond of extreme angles, or odd points of view. I fear my drawings are sometimes a bit too safe...a bit cute... not risky enough. 

For me,I think the best, cleverest, most imaginative ideas come in silence, and in slowness. What you could call deep thought, or could call 'the zone'.

 

Books on water – climate, rivers, dams, irrigation etc.
I do recommend ‘Back from the Brink’ by Peter Andrews (ABC Books).
Terrific sections on groundwater and much more.
It’s such an amazing thing to think that most water is flowing slowly under our feet.

I have many… Peeing my pants in class because the teacher had said ‘No more hands up to go to the toilet’. I have sort of immortalised this scene in my drawings for ‘The Cabbage Patch Curse’ by Paul Jennings.

I discovered I had a talent for illustrating after three years of life-drawing at Art School in Adelaide. The human body is a very amusing thing. Using illustration, I found I could make fun of everything. I had presumed I was going to become a graphic designer, or – heaven forbid – an advertising layout artist.

Being in the bath with my mother. Awesome!

Water is used carefully around here. I shower only now and then. 

I'm no scientist, but the behaviour of plants, and weather patterns is fascinating. I think change is steadily happening, we should prepare for it, and be more careful using stuff.

I’m often inspired by my fellow illustrators and authors. Not all of them, but quite a few of them. Particularly the Melbourne colleagues - not surprising, because that's where I live.

This country has a phenomenal indigenous art movement. That is inspiring.

Yes, I do. Nowadays I do think about childhood more.

I illustrate from the position of wanting the drawings to be interesting, funny and sometimes surprising. So I draw in a lively, silly sort of way.

I try. I try and be a quite groovy. Luckily baldness is groovy. I'm very groovy.

It’s a little harder than it used to be. I prefer to start the day with a little gardening.

I daydream often about shaded spots down bush tracks.
And wondering what tools I would use to get out if I was bogged getting there.

I try to find a balance between things that are scary and yucky and things that are playful and funny. My favourite drawings are black and white, which is a pity because most kids prefer colour these days.

I watched when my children were very young readers to see how they reacted to different books. Really careful 'tight' styles of illustration did not seem to make a book more attractive! This was pleasing and interesting.

I do try to imagine the illustrations through a child’s eyes.  A trick is to read the story aloud, as you would to a child. 

A few times I have drawn my mother and father, or my cousin Bob. Bob always seemed to me the archetypal good-hearted Australian man. So he was the model for ‘Dad’ in Paul Jennings’ The Cabbage Patch series. I like drawing grown-ups because they do have more distinctive features, eg, wrinkles.

Family life is very important to my illustration. It’s where most humour is. Including, dark, ironic and sometimes sarcastic humour! And warm, gentle, loving humour of course. The family is the core of a child’s world. The depiction of Australian suburban family life is what I do best, because it is what I know best.

I love stories. I am interested in childhood, and the socialising role of story-telling.

My slapstick sense of humour, and drawing style, is suited to picture books. There is more freedom to create in book illustration than in other areas, for example, advertising illustration. Advertising illustration is tightly art-directed - you are instructed what to draw and how. You are a hired pen. With books you are not trying to rip off your audience.

I have in the often tried to make my illustrations as identifiably Australian as possible. This is in response to the weight of imported culture from the US and UK.

Having ideas is usually no problem, but deciding which ones are good can be tricky.

A good way to be inspired is to go to the library, or a good bookshop, and look how other people have illustrated. Look hard at work that really excites you. This is almost guaranteed to start the ideas flowing. Develop several ideas and just see where your imagination takes you. Don’t rush - come back to it days later and with fresh eyes. Inspiration is prompted by research. The more you know, the greater the possible range and cleverness of your ideas. 

Every book is a bit different. But, I never work closely with the author.

The editor gives me feedback about the roughs. The editor will consult with the author, but the editor usually has the last word. Good editors are able to see important things about the story I might have missed, as well as little details that might be wrong or inconsistent.

The fun of developing a story with a thoughtful, encouraging editor is very satisfying. Funnily enough, editors are mostly women.

It doesn’t particularly fuss me. In some way it makes me want to understand my work better.

There is a moment when you tire of it. And your eagerness to start the next picture is increasing.

One trick is to use tracing paper for the roughs. You can en do multi-layered roughs. Or even turn it back to front. Lastly, tracing paper is tough and can take lots of rubbing out.