The Book Bump

As my formal illustration training comes to an end, I’ve been thinking more about the kinds of projects I’d like to create. Illustration allows me to explore storytelling and emotion in ways that writing alone does not.

That’s when the idea for a personal picture book began to take shape. The story centres on a grandmother and her grandson as they navigate ageing and memory fog together.

The inspiration came from my own experience as a parent helping my children understand memory loss in our family. Watching my children react — sometimes with fear, but mostly with confusion — as their great-grandparents gradually lost the ability to communicate inspired this project.

Children’s books often tackle big emotions, but in a gentle and reassuring way. Teddy’s Magical Pages aims to introduce young children to the themes of ageing and memory loss through metaphor and visual storytelling. With illustration-led narration, I wanted to offer reassurances rather than explanation, showing young children that even when memories fade, love and connection remain.

This project is proving to be a big learning curve for me, as I learn to trust my illustrations to convey emotion without relying on text. Love and connection drive this story. All artistic decisions must serve the emotional core of the story.

Creating a cast of characters took some time. Would humans or anthropomorphic animals carry the story better? In the end, I chose animals. Using animals allowed the story to feel like a story first, and perhaps a life lesson second. It also helped make the experience of ageing feel more universal rather than tied to a specific person. Animals also opened the door to visual metaphors, creating a gentler world and helping children absorb difficult ideas more easily.

One thing I found easier than expected was depicting animals’ facial expressions. I expected it to be more complicated than with human characters, but I’ve found that simplicity is often key to a child’s understanding.

I still struggle with colour. I am not confident in using colours, in creating stark contrasts. I tend to play it safe and stick to mild, soft colours, which mutes the illustrations, reducing their impact. As I move forward with this project, I need to step outside my comfort zone and explore colours further. I expect I’ll “ruin” a fair few spreads before I complete one that meets my standards, but that’s all part of the process.

This project has also given me a chance to trial-run my potential anchor style on a full-length project. Testing this style on such a project has shown me that while I can sustain this style consistently across a dozen spreads, there are areas I need to improve. Page rhythm and shot variety are some of my biggest pitfalls. But again, this is nothing that experimentation and sketching can’t fix.

This project is still very much in its infancy. I’ve written the manuscript and imagined what each spread should look like. Now I need to keep sketching, experimenting and most of all, trust the process. “Ugly” first sketches lead to beautiful, finished illustrations. Beauty isn’t born; it’s nurtured.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this project. I’ve set my expectations high, and sometimes I feel like my current skill set won’t let me finish this project to the standard I have in mind. Every so often, I must take a step back and revisit my first sketches to see the progress nearly eighteen months of practice have achieved.

This project is teaching me that I am allowed to dream big and have ambition. But those dreams only materialise if I put in the work necessary to reach them. I am learning that taking my time to do things properly isn’t the same as procrastination. A steady, sustainable rhythm that births a high-quality project is better than something pushed out in a couple of months to satisfy an internal voice that nags me that I’m not fast enough.

This project is helping me understand storytelling in a new way, and I am learning to enjoy the journey. I’m curious to see where it leads.