{"id":1666,"date":"2011-08-12T06:03:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T06:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.london-artcollege.co.uk\/news\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2011-08-13T08:14:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-13T08:14:41","slug":"a-writer%e2%80%99s-experience-of-being-illustrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.london-artcollege.co.uk\/news\/2011\/08\/a-writer%e2%80%99s-experience-of-being-illustrated\/","title":{"rendered":"A writer\u2019s experience of being illustrated"},"content":{"rendered":"

A writer\u2019s experience of being illustrated
\nby Janet Foxley\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Janet’s Website >><\/a>
\nFacebook >><\/a><\/p>\n

I had written stories for older children (unsuccessfully) for many years, and I also drew and painted a bit, so when I started to have ideas for picture books for the very young I enrolled on the London Art College\u2019s Illustration Children\u2019s Books. I had just completed the course and embarked on the extension course when I heard that my novel Muncle Trogg had won the 2010 Times\/Chicken House competition for a children\u2019s book by an unpublished author.<\/p>\n

The prize was publication by Chicken House, and because it was to be marketed for quite young readers (7+ years) it needed black and white illustrations. They asked me to send them my ideas of how I saw the characters (who are giants) and suddenly I had to get used to how other people saw them. As a debut author I had no influence at all on either the illustrations or the cover and most of my preconceptions about they way in which illustrations add to a book have been overturned.<\/p>\n

I sent them my idea of Ma Trogg:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the Ma Trogg they published looks like this (the hairdo is right for a special occasion but the clothes could have come from Marks and Spencer!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My Wise Man:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And their Wise Man: (The illustrations are by Steve Wells, a graphic designer who does most of Chicken House\u2019s book covers.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was quite a shock to see my characters turned into childish doodles, but they assured me that this was currently the appropriate style for that age group. In addition all the pages have smudges, thumb prints etc to reflect the slovenly nature of the giants. The whole thing was designed to look rather like Cressida Cowell\u2019s hugely successful How to train your Dragon series.<\/p>\n

I soon got used to the style of the illustrations, but what I still find hard to accept is that the illustrations do not accurately reflect what it says in the book.<\/p>\n

In the text the giants have long tangled hair, but in the pictures they have crew cuts. In the text Muncle is barefoot, but in the pictures he is wearing shoes. In one scene he dresses in knee breeches but the picture shows him in a lounge suit.<\/p>\n

In the text the giants have grey skin, but on the book cover, the only coloured picture, they have pink skin. (Muncle has had to explain this away as an illness on his Facebook page!)<\/p>\n

And what is that horn on the cover? It\u2019s not in the book!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the illustrations have had captions added, such as \u2018who are you calling ugly?\u2019 Now the story is told from the point of view of the giants, and they don\u2019t find themselves ugly, so who is saying \u2018who are you calling ugly?\u2019 Apparently the pictures are supposed to look as if they had been produced by a child doodling in the book while reading it, and the captions are partly the child\u2019s thoughts and partly the character\u2019s response to the child\u2019s thoughts.<\/p>\n

So here are a few things to consider when you are illustrating a book:<\/p>\n

\u2022 What is an appropriate style for the subject matter?
\n\u2022 What is an appropriate style for the readers\u2019 age?
\n\u2022 What styles are currently fashionable?
\n\u2022 To what extent should the pictures reflect what it says in the text?
\n\u2022 Should the pictures be from the characters\u2019 point of view or the readers\u2019?<\/p>\n

Janet Foxley August 2011
\nJanet’s Website >>
\n<\/a>Facebook >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer\u2019s experience of being illustrated by Janet Foxley\u00a0 Janet’s Website >> Facebook >> I had written stories for older children (unsuccessfully) for many years, and I also drew and painted a bit, so when I started to have ideas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-london-art-college-news","wpcat-4-id"],"yoast_head":"\nA writer\u2019s experience of being illustrated<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A writer\u2019s experience of being illustrated by Janet Foxley\u00a0 Janet's Website >> Facebook >> I had written stories for older children\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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