Diane Ewen is the talented illustrator behind many favourite picture books for children including Coming to England, Is That Your Mama and Never Teach a Stegosaurus to Do Sums. In her new children’s book The Great Unicorn Rescue Diane has taken on the role of both author and illustrator and shares a story that shines a light on facing your fears.
Diane very kindly answered some questions for us about writing and illustrating as well as representation, including in the unicorn sphere!
Thank you. I created the illustrations for The Great Unicorn Rescue in a variety of ways. I usually begin all my illustration projects by making sure I get the characters right. I start in the traditional way of drawing with pencil and paper, or I draw directly onto my iPad.
Creating the main characters for The Great Unicorn Rescue began with pencil and paper sketching. It was the first time I had drawn a unicorn, and it took a few attempts to get the shape right. I also knew I would be creating an enchanted forest so I did some experimental painting in watercolour, of flora and fauna that I might use when I got to the colour stage.
In the story each of the children has a unicorn friend; I took a lot of time to match the unicorns with just the right child. Once I knew the look I wanted them each to have I uploaded my drawings to Microsoft Photoshop and completed the colouring digitally.
I love to mix things up. It’s good to have a bit of variation so I never stick to a set process, every book is different!
This is the first time I’ve both written and illustrated a picture book. Being the author too was both difficult and easy in some ways; it definitely brought some new challenges to the creative process. First I needed to get the story flowing, and drive the action forward page by page, and I was lucky to have a great editor in Grace Gleave at Macmillan Children’s Books to help me iron things out.
Once the text of the book worked I just fell into illustrator mode, trying to do the best job. What really did feel different this time was how I felt more at ease with the illustrations; I suppose that’s because I knew I could change things more readily than with another author’s project.
In both cases you want to create a great book, engaging both with the written text and visually.
The kernel of the idea for this story came from many different things over a period of time. I think I’ve always been interested in stories that had a magical theme to them, with fairies etc.
I had written an initial outline of a story that involved both a unicorn and a little girl with the theme of being afraid of the dark that was set in an enchanted forest. The Great Unicorn Rescue grew as an elaboration of that initial story idea and once it began to grow, more unicorns and children were introduced.
I created Norrie, my afro-headed unicorn some time back as I had realised that there was a gap in the unicorn story telling market for an undoubtedly black and afro-centric looking unicorn. I had seen many unicorns but none that looked like Norrie, so I think that’s the reason I created her. I know things have changed recently but the story market has for whatever reason, seen a shortage in leading black protagonist role models in children’s picture books and it’s great to have my Louella and Norrie out there now.
Emotions are something that I like to try to get right. Characters in my books are full of emotion.
Whilst I really don’t think there’s been a really difficult or tricky emotion to convey in my illustrations yet, a useful tip I use to getting emotions right, is to try to feel the emotion you want to draw. For example, if your character is sad, their face portrays that so their mouth will turn down at the corners their eyes and eyebrows will look a certain way, same as if they are happy the face will show it. My biggest tip is to look in the mirror whilst you convey these feelings – it will help to get the portrayal of the emotion right.
A brilliant question. I don’t know. I think my unicorn would probably have dark rings around their eyes from working on illustrations all day. Ha, ha! Just joking!
I think I would prefer my unicorn to be the person I wish I could be, maybe with even more unicorn magic. It would look a little like Norrie but with paintbrushes in its hair perhaps and wearing earrings and bangles as I love my jewellery.
Yes, Norrie and Louella will be back in another adventure, which is nice. The new story is written, and I’m now underway with my illustrations.
The next book will contain a few new exciting forest creatures too, so look out for it next year
I’m so happy that I have people around me that have given me and my ideas a chance to flourish.
In terms of other projects I have been working on, I have been illustrating a picture book for an exciting new debut award-winning author. Something a little different, which I am enjoying illustrating just now. The book is amazing so look out for that in the not-too-distant future.
Find out more about Diane’s newest, and completely enchanting, children’s book below along with a few other favourites she has illustrated over the years.
Many thanks again to Diane for answering our questions about The Great Unicorn Rescue.
