Creating Amy…
November surprised me with its quick and rainy arrival but I finally got some free time to just sit down and think about things. And this complicated process led me to realize that I’ve completely neglected my blog. There is no excuse, apart from one - I’m a lazy introvert who doesn’t feel the constant urge of sharing her thoughts with the rest of the world ;-) I was very late with getting my own website, I’ve already abandoned my Instagram as it was a bit too much to keep it alive and I only use Facebook to watch rescue dogs stories, so… you get the picture.
But I solemnly swear to change that as there are few bits and pieces about illustrating children’s stories that I want to share with people who stumble across my website and maybe wonder how it’s all made.
And this November, as gloomy as it can be, is also the month when Amy’s Coat, written by first time author Sarah Sells, is being released to the world, to hopefully help children and their parents talk about being sad, depressed and overwhelmed by feelings.
When Sarah first approached me almost a year ago and sent her manuscript, I felt instantly hooked to Amy’s character. In a way I still sometimes feel like her - heavy under my worries. But how do you talk about mental health problems or depression with young children who most likely can’t even spell these words?
Sarah chose a simple and yet brilliant metaphor. The coat that Amy wears everyday is not just another layer of cloth, it resembles the emotions deep inside her and the stones she is collecting and hiding in her pockets symbolise all the worries and fears she experiences with time passing by until it’s simply too much.
Sarah had a vision of Amy with auburn hair, emerald eyes and some freckles… wearing a red coat. But that didn’t go well with her hair, so we had to change something. And it happens every so often when two people starts exchanging the ideas and inventing new ones.
From my side, I wanted to show that Amy is growing up from a happy and curious little girl to quite lonely and shut down. Desaturating her coat and taking the colour of her face helped to illustrate that change. And the black, rainy cloud? Well, once my daughter (aged about 5) told me that she felt like a little black cloud and I always thought it’s something young children can easily understand and relate to.
It took about 4 months to illustrate the whole book, as quite frankly I so enjoyed drawing Amy that I didn’t want that feeling to end too soon :-) And also because I love to get into details as I know children do like to find those when they look at the illustrations.
If you got to the end - thank you! And if you are interested in Amy’s Coat, you will find more information here:
