In children’s publishing, a lot of care and attention goes into every book. Everyone I’ve ever worked with, on each and every book, wants that book to be the best it can possibly be. One of the many criteria it needs to fulfill to reach for this target is, “Does it make sense to the reader?” and “Is it clear.”

But, there’s a fine line to tread because by making something ‘as clear as possible’, we close doors to the reader. If clarity goes too far, we end up with a book that has no space for the reader to co-create as they read. That space is, in fact, the magic of books.

Just as poetry or painting invites a reader to make their own meaning, so too do good picture books. There are many ways to do this – in the words, in the pictures, and more interestingly, the combination of them.

Words, pictures, and the combination of them

Words have an advantage – they are abstract by nature. I could write the word “Yellow” and, chances are, five different readers will conjure a a different shade in their mind. I could ‘clarify’ this word… perhaps use the words “Lemon Yellow”, and those 5 readers might picture a more similar shade of yellow. I could add another descriptor – “Light Lemon Yellow” – and the image would be further refined.

This doesn’t work with pictures. The yellow I paint is the yellow a reader will see. The same yellow – for everyone. There’s no room for the imagination to breathe like there is with ‘yellow’ as a word only.

The challenge for me, as an illustrator, is to build my illustrative vocabulary (line, colour, shape, tone, pattern etc) and learn how to use those things to invite a reader into the pictures – to not prescribe but suggest. This may be something as simple as not completely closing line work, or using how colours, lines, shapes, tones, patterns etc feel so that they provide the conditions for a reader to have their own, unique emotional reaction to a drawing. It may also be recognising that if the sentence I’m illustrating uses the word ‘yellow’, then perhaps the illustration doesn’t need to tell the reader exactly which shade and instead, let the reader in – to co-create the images in their minds rather than being told exactly what to see.

It’s really difficult to show another human your idea without putting something on the page. In this way, every drawing is a raffle ticket. The more ideas one puts on the page, the greater the chance becomes of connecting with someone – someone who gets it; that may be a loved one, or someone you’ve never met, or a publisher who has the power and budget to take your idea and show it to the world at scale.

When I pick up a pencil and make a mark on paper, it begins – a conversation. The mark left behind is a prompt to myself; where should the next mark go? And, as mark begets mark, a drawing emerges, and, as a drawing emerges, so does new thinking.

Nine times out of ten, these drawings don’t go further, at least not immediately. But sometimes they take flight and turn into something I could never have predicted in advance. The drawings that take flight are an emergent thing – they arise from the doing. Do nothing, and nothing arises.

So, pick up a pencil now, make some marks, and see what it’s trying to tell you.

There’s nothing quite like the energy of a creative partnership. It’s different from an “I love you” partnership and different from a “you’re a great friend” partnership. Those partnerships are overflowing with encouragement and support, but they’re also easy to dismiss because, “you’re just saying that because you love me.”

The Creative Partner says, “I don’t want to sleep with you, and I believe in you.” They provide a cocoon of psychological safety so that one can take risks that one might not otherwise take – it helps when you know you’re in this together. Creative Partners are also able to see an idea for what it is without the emotional attachment that unavoidably comes with being the originator of the idea.

Creative Partners aren’t easy to find, in fact, it’s a bit like happiness – once you go searching for it, it vanishes. The goal then is to recognise those people in your life as they serendipitously enter and allow them to nourish and fill your soul so when they inevitably exit your life for whatever reason, you carry a piece of them with you forever.

The vision I get when I think about the internet is one of absolute and infinite connectedness. Billions of tiny nodes connected with one another through a fibre-optic gossamer; access to interactions with millions of others at the click of a button.

But, this is an illusion. The fabric is controlled by algorithms optimised for one thing; selling advertising. There are chances for us to connect with others in this vast web, but only if we play by the web’s rules – which tighten and change every day. And even then, we’re competing for connection with the billions of others trying to do the same.

I had one meeting last week, in-person, and I came away recharged and with a feeling and privilege I haven’t experienced in many years on ‘social’ platforms. The feeling of true human connection – creative harmony with another soul. That feeling is indescribable.

Social media is a siren’s song – of scale, of connection, of ‘monetisation’, of a valuable way to spend time. But given the week I just had, it seems much better to stuff one’s ears with wax and keep away from the rocks.

It’s obvious when it comes to physical activity – if I haven’t run 5km for 20 years, it’s not fair to expect that i’ll put on my running shoes tomorrow and be able to do it without breaking a sweat. It’s expected that I’ll have to work up to it again. 1km per day for a while, then 2km, then 3km and so on.

Same with learning piano. In June, I sat down to a piano in for the first time but knew I wasn’t going to bang out Moonlight Sonata. I pressed a few keys (many of them wrong), made some sounds, played some chords based off an ebook download… then my concentration wained, my fingers grew tired – but it’s a start.

For some reason, I thought that completing a picture book digitally wouldn’t be that different to the 20 or so I’ve already done, but they’ve been HARD. Like trying to walk through a thick swamp.

Normally, I find flow in final art making but there’s been very little of it lately. The software and new workflow has gotten in the way more times than I would have liked and if the Apple Pencil wasn’t worth $200, I probably would’ve snapped it in my moments of frustration.

But…

Something changed towards the end of the second book. I realised, almost without thinking about it, that a workflow had emerged. I opened a canvas, followed a series of steps – lines, flats, colour, render – organised layers after the ‘creative’ bit was done, then prepped files for delivery.

I don’t know why I thought it would be easier. The learning curve was less of a curve and more like a steep wall:

• It was my first time using Procreate (so I had to learn an entirely new piece of software and how to maintain consistency across those files),
• my first time dealing with digital colour spaces for illustration (and the onscreen differences),
• my first time trying to work on two very different books at the same time (switching sizes, materials, styles etc),
• my first time setting up new files for print across inDesign & Procreate,
• my first time colour-adjusting after the work was done,
• my first time working out what the iPad was good for – how to sit with it sustainably and comfortably over long periods of time,
• and many other things

That’s a lot.

I ran two marathons in 6 weeks having never ran one before and, not only have I made it to the finish line, but I didn’t finish last – I outran myself. In hindsight, it was probably a bit dumb, but isn’t that always the way; sometimes naivety can be a strength.

And, like with any learning experience, now is a time for consolidation. To go back and watch the replays and think about what I could be doing differently next time. What worked and what didn’t. To learn from the successes and the mistakes so that the next marathon is less of a slog – perhaps I can improve my endurance, and who knows, maybe, eventually, work up to a point where I could even find some flow.

I’m in the middle of finishing two books in 6 weeks and it’s the first time I’m using digital technology to create the final art. It’s never felt more like work – is that correlation or causation?

I found (and fell in love with) watercolour as an antidote to looking at screens which formed so much of my day job at the time as a software designer. I enjoyed closing the computer screen at the end of the day in preference for a piece of paper and a pencil.

The digital work flow I’ve experimented with has had some advantages – no doubt – but these final stages of finishing digital art (normally, my favourite and most meditative bit of the process), doesn’t feel like it does when I’m working with physical materials.

That may sound a bit sad or unfortunate, but on the contrary, it is clarifying. Because picture book ‘final art’ isn’t really ‘art’ at all. For every book there are stakeholders, a brief, constraints. There is the exchange of money for services and time. There is feedback, and edits. There is emotional and physical labour. Making a picture book is work. It’s just that when I’m delivering physical watercolour pages, it feels less like it.

And maybe this more direct connection to ‘work’ that I feel with digital art is a good thing, occassionally. Because it brings it back to what it’s for.

I could feel ‘robbed’ of the opportunity to play with physical materials by having to deliver digitally. After all, at the end of developing final illustrations for a book using physical materials, I get a ‘bonus’ of 24-32 pieces of physical work that I get to keep/exhibit. However, by being made more aware of the final illustrations as ‘work’, I remember more deeply the reason for doing this work in the first place – to fund biodiversity conservation and restoration and help improve childhood literacy levels in some of our most marginalised communities.

So, yes, delivering digitally means that illustrating a book feels more like work than ever before, but nothing in the world will change unless we put in the work; and that’s what keeps me going.

Walking past the laundry doorway, something’s different. Back in winter, we hung a noren – a beautiful piece we bought in Japan almost a year ago. For six months, it hung in our doorway adding a beautiful and subtle separation from the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ world. But today, it’s not hanging straight down – it’s moving a little, very subtly, towards the open backdoor – an invisible force gently pulling it outwards.

Had I not seen the noren hanging in this way, I would never have become aware of the flow of air moving through that part of the house. Because of this simple bit of fabric, I stopped and became hyper-attentive to that moment, that air, that movement – I could actually feel it on my body when I took the time to notice.

It makes me think how little one needs to render the invisible visible; the unfelt, felt. How often this must happen on a day-to-day basis but most of us are too busy to notice. And perhaps, that’s one of the roles of art and the artist – to render what’s there in the gentlest way so that we become more attentive to the world as it is.

When I begin a piece of final art, I begin with ritual. I pull and cut a fresh piece of watercolour paper, at the same time, I’m reminded of who and what had to happen to make this object – the cotton growers, the pulpers, the factories, the pressers – so that I could use it to make the work I’m about to make. I clean and fill water buckets, select the brushes I know I’ll need to use, prepare lighting, make the first marks on paper – the crop marks – all before the final act of art making. I know that once this ritual begins, I’m committed for at least 4 hours to the continual shaping and making of marks on paper.

With each piece of art, there’s risk. The materials that go into the final work aren’t cheap. The physical resources I will use are taken from the world and placed with intention on this piece of compressed cotton. There’s an immense privilege in that. If I stuff it up at any moment before it’s ‘finished’, I have to start again; more resources, more time.

I contrast this with digital ‘final’ art – something I’m trying for the first time as I write this. The same sense of risk isn’t there so the need to ‘prepare’ methodically also isn’t required.

No matter what I’m making, the process is fast and efficient; power button, swipe, tap, tap, go. I can work from anywhere, anytime, and for any amount of time – 5 minutes or 4 hours. I don’t find myself being aware of the thousands of people and precious metals that were needed to create the tablet in the first place – it doesn’t feel sacred to me in the way a piece of watercolour paper does; it feels decidedly commodified. But maybe that’s OK.

One of the things I used to love about physical art for picture books is it felt like a win-win – I experience the sacred and, eventually, it ends up scaled through the commodity of picture books; the money through which I can fund more materials. But now, the digital work flow hasn’t ‘devalued’ the sacred work. If anything, it’s made those moments of working with physical art materials even more more special, more private. I like that.

The other day, I had to drastically prune one of my favourite plants in our small back garden. I avoided pruning it for a long time because I enjoyed it so much so it’s been happily (over)growing for almost 10 years and it gives the garden a certain calming feeling.

In a matter of minutes under the heft of a power tool, it went from lush, full, green and beautiful to spindly, grey, and sad. I definitely experienced feelings of loss that day.

But now, just a week or so later, I’ve noticed new growth – a lush, green, bright contrast is emerging on those grey, spindly branches. These are branches that probably haven’t seen light for many years but here they were, responding to and welcoming the change.

We could learn something from that.