Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:10 Welcome everyone to this special children's picture book edition of the Fremantle press podcast. My name is Helen Milroy, and I just love storytelling and picture books. And I'm really happy to be hosting this podcast. We have a very special guest with us today. We're joined by Katie Stewart author and illustrator of the books. What color is the sea and where do stars go? Now? Katie Stewart was born in the north of England. She came to Australia at the age of nine. She started her working life as an archeologist. And if no historian went on to teaching and later worked in a school library, but her lifelong dream was to be what she is now married to a farmer with three children living in north of Northern where her love of animals mean she has lots of pets and takes lots of nature photos. So Katie welcome. Hello. Thanks for inviting me. Well, you're very welcome. I'm really keen to hear your story a little bit about your story and, and the way that you create some of your books. But first up I have a dog. So tell me about your pets. It sounds like you have plenty of room for lots of pits where you're living at the moment. We
Speaker 2 00:01:17 Have three dogs, two of them are farm dogs, Sarah and Bonnie, but Annie is a golden retriever. She's our old house doc and we have two cats. One of them is 16 and the other sped eight and we have a bungee and a rabbit. Wow. And that's about the least we've had for a long time.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 Now I noticed that your books really feature such beautiful illustrations of animals, um, any particular, the qualler and the possum. But I know those, those stories aren't necessarily about the animals per se. So how do you combine the sort of animals and the storytelling together? Can, can you explain what the books are really about for us?
Speaker 2 00:02:04 What color is the sea is about asking questions and forming your own opinion. So critical thinking, that sort of stuff. So koala goes and asks, question gets lots of opinions, but goes to find out for herself what the answer is, where do the stars go is about looking at things more carefully. It's what I do when I'm out. I tend to look at things and imagine other things, which is where my stories tend to start. So yeah, it's about imagination and the beginnings of creativity.
Speaker 1 00:02:40 Do you think that's a really important message for both children and parents? One for the children that is, you know, go and explore, ask questions, find out for yourself and also for parents to say, you know, let your kids explore, let them be creative. Let them think about things.
Speaker 2 00:02:54 Oh yes, definitely. I mean, my children having grown up on the farm they've, you know, they've been out in the Bush, they've pedaled in the modern and all that sort of stuff, but a lot of city kids just don't do that. So yeah. I think it's important for them to get out there and the kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:03:14 And explore the world around them. Yes. Your images of the animals have a very detailed and realistic. And in fact, I would love to cuddle the animals in your books. They're so gorgeous. Tell me how you get that mixture and make those animals seem very alive on the pages,
Speaker 2 00:03:31 Dig them on, on a computer. It, which is useful because you can build the picture up and up and up and up. So I start off with a flat color, but then I'll go over the top and build the further up. But the main thing about getting the animals to lifelike is their eyes. Once you get their eyes to look right with the light shining in them, that's when they start to look real,
Speaker 1 00:03:54 It gives them that character element. That sort of real person. Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:03:58 Yeah. I used to do, I used to do a lot of pet portraits and I always started with the eyes. Cause once you get the eyes, the pet just comes out alive. How long
Speaker 1 00:04:07 Would it take you to do an illustration? Like that
Speaker 2 00:04:10 Depends on what it is. I mean, um, the koala, probably not very long because it was just playing for, whereas the <inaudible> in the new book that's coming out that took forever because it was every single scale trying to get the Baton right. And everything. So yeah, that took a long time.
Speaker 1 00:04:30 I thought Bangarra was a very handsome banger actually.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Yeah. It was fun to draw, but yeah, it took a long time.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 Tell us a little bit more about your new book. Where do the stars go? How did you choose which animals were going to be part of the story?
Speaker 2 00:04:45 When I first wrote it, I wrote it as a partner story to the first one. So it was actually a koala. And when I sent it to Kate, she said she loved the story, but let's turn it into a possum because I had kept pointing to turn the koala into a possum in the first book. So she's, well, let's make the second one about a possum. So I did the possum, but there was a possum already in the story. So I had to turn that into a number. But once I turned that into a number, I couldn't have the Platypus that was in the story. So because they're not together, they're just not in the same place. So I had to get rid of the Platypus. I had to think about animal than I live in the water. So like I met with a colleague and then, yeah. So it was just trying to find different things, but all that would live in the same sort of area
Speaker 1 00:05:34 Sounds like musical chairs for animals. Yeah, it was. But they're all very beautiful. I have to say Katie. I was really quite struck by your work history. You started out as an archeologist and ethno historian teacher school librarian. What led you onto illustrating and writing stories? Was it culmination of all of those?
Speaker 2 00:05:58 No. It was actually a full circle from where I wanted to be when I was a kid, I wanted to be an illustrator right. From being about seven or eight. But my mother had had to leave school when she was 16 and she wanted all her children to get a good degree. So when I put down that I was then to do art it, what is now curtain? She not, she didn't like that. So I went to UWA and did archeology instead, fully intending to say, well, I've done it now. Mum, I'm going on. But I don't know. I just got caught up in lots of other stuff and it didn't happen. So when I got to my early fifties, I actually read a book by sir, Ken Robinson who talks about following your passion. And I thought, well, what I've always wanted to do is illustrate. So I gave up work and just concentrated on getting a body of work and annoying publishers and that sort of thing until I finally got a publication. So yeah. That's how again,
Speaker 1 00:07:04 Well, I'm so glad you persisted because the illustrations are absolutely beautiful. Had you always drawn from a young age? It wasn't something you always did sort of as a bit of a hobby anyway.
Speaker 2 00:07:14 Yes. Because when I was young, I had two older sisters who were both incredibly bright. I could never keep up with them and I wanted to do something that made me different from them. And they could both draw as well, but they didn't. So I just concentrated on being an artist and because I practiced so much more than them, I became better than them. And yeah. So I became the artist of the family.
Speaker 1 00:07:39 What does your mom think of your drawings now?
Speaker 2 00:07:41 Ah, she actually passed away five years ago, but I remember when she first moved to Northern, she was talking to somebody in Northern and she said that she was Teddy Stuart's mum and this lady said, oh, okay, just do it. The artist. And mum said, I floated I'm the mother of, can I just do it? The artist? Oh, that's wonderful. Katie. That's that's really wonderful. So where do your stories come from? I think it'd be easier to say, well where that don't come from. It's like possum looking at the stars. I get a little bits by ideas and then I don't know, two o'clock in the morning, something will pop into my head. What was sometimes like at the moment I'm working on a book it's for older children, but it started out as an illustration for another book that I completed. I had a little boy on a horse and it was a merry-go-round horse and decided in that book that he wouldn't ride the horse, he would ride a rabbit.
Speaker 2 00:08:39 So I put him on a rabbit, but I still have this picture. I'm a hoarder. And I even on my computer, I never throw into the delay. So I thought, oh, I'll put a little girl on that hole. So I put a little girl on the horse and then I thought, no, I'll put her up in the sky. So I put her up in the sky. I must have a very challenged imagination, I think. And when I'd got her up there on this horse, in the sky, I got the words she rode through the night, sewing stars into the clouds from her rainbow ribbons. So that's how it comes about. I just sort of go from one thing to another, to another to another until I've got a story.
Speaker 1 00:09:15 So does it sometimes come with the images first or sometimes come with the words for it
Speaker 2 00:09:21 Being a writer and an illustrator? I have to admit that I do cheat. I write my story in 16 parts so that I know that I've got 16 pictures. So I'm thinking of the pictures as I'm writing the story. And then sometimes when I'm drawing the storyboard, I think now I want to draw that and I'm going to change the story. So I changed the story to fit what I want to do on that page. So it all evolves with it. It sounds
Speaker 1 00:09:47 Like there's really a very much both a visual story telling element through the pictures as well as then the language storytelling element. And you fit them together rather than one taking precedence over the other or provenance.
Speaker 2 00:10:03 So whereabouts do you do all your work? When we moved into our house, we had about four or five rooms and the big wide brand are on the outside. It's typical farmhouse really, but over the years we've enclosed. The brand is so I'm on a veranda, but it's a bit better standards than just a brand. You know, it's not a sleep out it's proper room, but it's very nice.
Speaker 1 00:10:23 So you have a sort of a permanent studio that you can, you can work in. Is that a good space to sort of be creative, have that separate space?
Speaker 2 00:10:32 Yeah. Being a hoarder. I've filled it up with rubbish. I know that feeling terrible.
Speaker 1 00:10:41 Does that give you inspiration though? Having all of those things around?
Speaker 2 00:10:44 Yes. I think I call it my creative mess. I did read somewhere that creative people are always messy. Um, so you've made the grade. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:55 So thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you. Bye. For now Katie Stewart, author and illustrator of the books. What color is the sea and where do stars go? If you enjoyed our chat today, subscribe to the Fremantle press podcast on apple podcasts, Google play, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. My name is Helen <inaudible> and I had been your host today. Join me the next time as we continue our journey
Speaker 0 00:11:23 Into everything <inaudible>.
