#marchmeetthemaker

I have been taking part in Joanne Hawker’s #marchmeetthemaker. It is a month of prompts for Instagram, I thoroughly recommend it, it helps shake us out of our insta habits. I am at Day 20, very proud I haven’t missed a day yet. You can see the rest as I post them on my insta feed here.

How to hide a Lion by Helen Stephens

Day 1. Favourite to make

My favourite thing to do it write and illustrate picture books. Honing a book into its perfect shape, making words and pictures sing together is difficult and thrilling in equal measures. It can take aaaages, and many failed attempts... but when it all comes together, it is so satisfying.

How to Hide a Lion was a delight to make. It started when I left London and moved here, to the windy Northumberland coast. I saw the beautiful sea haars that fill the town with a silvery mist, and imagined a bright yellow lion walking into the silvery grey town. And that was it, the tiny fragile beginnings of an idea.
It has now sold in nearly twenty languages, won lots of fancy pants awards, and been adapted for stage. I would never have imagined that would happen when I started making it at home with my toddler banging on my work room door asking me to come out! (Working from home with a toddler in the house was tricky!)

Veronica by Roger Duvoisin

Day 2. How you started

I studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art. I used to trawl the charity shops for good vintage clothes (I had a fab 1960’s M & S anorak) and old books. This is one of the books I bought back then. #rogerduvoisin is one of my favourite illustrators. I love the books of the 1950’s and 60’s printed in limited colours, usually two or three colours and black.

I liked picture books, but didn’t really know what I would do when I left art school. My favourite thing was to draw from life, and I always struggled to cross the bridge from drawing to illustration. I had no idea how I would go about Illustrating a book.

When I left art school I moved to London because that is where the publishers were, and there was no internet then. Strange to think of that now. I would sit on my bedsit floor and ring the publishers on my landline (no mobiles then) and ask if I could show them my folio.

I had postcards made of my work and would send them out to anyone and everyone in the Writers and Artists Yearbook. I had a part time job at the Science Museum and worked on my folio every evening. I would arrange meetings on my days off. One of those meetings was with Dorling Kindersley, who liked my work and asked me if I could write a picture book text. I said yes, although I had no idea how to do it! Each night after work I scribbled away, and the next week I turned up with a text. That book was my first picture book, it was called I’m Too Busy, and published in 1998. Lovely @janecabreraillustration was my designer.

Day 3. Flatlay

Nibs, nibs, nibs, nibs.