Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:12 Hi everyone. And welcome to this special children's picture book edition of the Fremantle press podcast. My name is Helen Milroy and I'm one of the authors and illustrators of children's books published by Fremantle press. I'm absolutely passionate about storytelling. I love it. I love picture books. So I'm very excited today because we're joined by Ruth Davos, the co-creator with Denny Parker of the book shine. Ruth divorces illustration work has grown out of a career as an internationally recognized textile artist, Ruth combines, traditional pencil, watch collage screen printing. That's a lot of techniques, roof, and digital techniques to create fun scenes and worlds. Ruth's passion lies in illustrating children's books. As a mother of six young children, she is an avid and critical consumer of children's literature, and she also has a ready source of drawing inspiration right in her home. Ruth welcome.
Speaker 2 00:01:09 Thank you, Helen. It's a pleasure to be here
Speaker 1 00:01:11 Really. So I'm, I'm really excited to be talking to you today and I'm really interested in getting to know you a little bit more. So I'm going to start with a really hard question. Tell us a bit about yourself and are you a local?
Speaker 2 00:01:22 Well, I was born in the Netherlands raised in Alberni and then moved to Perth when I started university.
Speaker 1 00:01:30 I think that pretty much makes you local. Yeah. So what, what sort of books do you remember reading as a kid?
Speaker 2 00:01:37 Oh, so many books. Uh, we would go to the library every week because two weekly was too long between library visits. Yeah. I loved reading. I had my noses in the book all the time and I was constantly being told to put my book away and do what needed to be done or watch what I was walking, but also really struggling to remember all the books that my mum would take out of the library, which were all very inspirational. Art books, just general interests, books, everything under the sun, there was a constant stream of books coming through the house.
Speaker 1 00:02:08 Do you have a favorite book from your childhood?
Speaker 2 00:02:11 That's too hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 I must say I had a, an enormous number of books that I liked as well. In fact, I always tell people I grew up on comics. I loved reading comic books.
Speaker 2 00:02:23 Yes. So how did
Speaker 1 00:02:24 You get into the illustrating? And it's one thing to be an avid reader as a child, but a single tie. Another thing to get into illustration, tell us about that journey.
Speaker 2 00:02:32 I love maths and science. And so I did an engineering degree out of high school, but while I was doing my year 11 and 12 studies focusing on math and science, I took art as an outlet and just absolutely loved it. So, um, and I always knew I would get back to that. And as soon as I became a stay at home mom for our first child, I took up textile art just because I always knew I wanted to get back into that. So over the years through my texts, I've consistently kept sketchbooks. And as I started representing children in my quilts and drawing children more and more, those drawings became better and people sat Assange, or you really need to illustrate a children's book with these figures. So I have to say though, um, the, make a story book competition from the children's book council of Australia, that was the highlight of my childhood every year again. So that was illustration back there somewhere.
Speaker 1 00:03:30 So perhaps it was always there, but you had that strong sort of intelligence and, and science background, I guess, or skills. And so maybe you were pushed in that direction a little bit. Um, so it took a bit of time to find that creative side again.
Speaker 2 00:03:44 Yeah, that's right. And look, I love the maths and science as well. So it's a bit of, you can't do everything, but now as a stay at home, mum, illustrations. Perfect.
Speaker 1 00:03:53 Do you miss the maths and science?
Speaker 2 00:03:55 Sometimes my oldest son just started an engineering degree and I'm watching him a little bit jealously at the moment you missed the study, I should say. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:04:04 We do live some of our careers through our children after all. So what's been your inspiration all along for doing illustrations for children's books.
Speaker 2 00:04:16 That's probably a few things first. The fact that story books are such a big part of our family life. We have six children and we make them read whether they like it or not. That always learned to love it eventually. Um, so we're constantly buying books, reading books out loud. There's always books everywhere. So I guess you stern decide which ones you love and which ones you don't and just an appreciation for how incredibly brilliant children's books can be just completely inspiring. So children's book inspired my textile art long before I thought that I would be an illustrator. And one of the things that I really liked is the idea that a picture book is a very accessible art form. Um, not everyone can afford an expensive textile artwork, but everyone can afford a picture book. And I love that my books can get into the hands of anyone really. So
Speaker 1 00:05:06 It's making art available to everybody, including children. That's right. I was really impressed by some of the illustrations Ruth, because they're quite complex. They're very busy. You could almost just look at the pictures themselves and they tell their own story. Is that what you were trying to achieve?
Speaker 2 00:05:24 Kate, my editor made me cut so much. Busy-ness out of my drawings wanting to add more. There was so many things I wanted to tell in the pictures. I do love that sense of busy-ness because a home life is busy and I wanted to portray a real home, not a Pinterest home, or I just a home where real life happens, but I still had to be so selective in what we showed in the pictures. There's so much more that could have been included. So I'm happy that it comes across as busy and interesting. And
Speaker 1 00:05:53 He does. In fact, now that you've told me that I really want to see the originals.
Speaker 2 00:05:58 Well, a lot of the bits that I had to cut out my, their white onto the end pipe.
Speaker 1 00:06:02 So does that mean then that you partly drew your inspiration from your home life, from the fact that you've got all of those children around you and all of the different things that they do and the way that they pull parents in several different directions all at the same time, is that where partly that all came from?
Speaker 2 00:06:20 Yeah, pretty much exactly comes from not to portray it as difficult or awful. I mean, parenting is difficult, but beautiful at the same time. So just wanting to capture that, but yes, there's a lot of memories there from my own family now, but also from my childhood and family memories from there,
Speaker 1 00:06:38 I don't know. I think it just captured the busy-ness. I think it also captured lots of different emotions as well, times of fun and joy, but also maybe a bit of stress there too. And, and exhaustion. Yes. So what do you think you were hoping that the parents would find in some of the illustrations? Did you have a message for them? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:06:56 I, I really felt that this was a chance to celebrate ordinary everyday moments. And I know, cause I know that, um, as parents, we can tend to focus on the milestones, the birthdays or the big family outings or the first day of school. And yeah, I really think that's the stuff that happens every day that we don't notice that is so important to family and is actually really beautiful. So I guess it was the idea of celebrate those Monday and things in your family, because that's what makes you your own unique family or home or, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:07:33 I think that definitely comes through. I certainly got that message when I was having a look through the book and just those little moments where you can just see that child and you just get that joy in your heart at seeing what they're doing. So I think those, I think you're absolutely right. Those little moments are so precious and we don't, we don't acknowledge them enough. I don't think because we are so busy. So then if we think about the kids and the kids that are going to be reading and having a look at those pictures, what do you think they might find from the illustration? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:08:01 I do that then also to have that sense of family and to kind of, I would say, look at their own family and realize, oh, this is us as a family, or this is my home in my home. We do things like this and that's what makes our home beautiful and special.
Speaker 1 00:08:18 In fact, I think almost any child could see something of themselves reflected in some of the pictures, whether it's the chaos or the backyard, or just the fun rolling on the bed or just pulling it, mum's leg. All of those things I think are very much real life aren't they? Yeah. So do you have a process that you go through or how do you get the pictures? How do you go about developing the actual pictures themselves? This
Speaker 2 00:08:42 Book kind of fuzzy and messy at the start because the manuscript is a poem and it was very open to being interpreted in quite a range of ways. So narrowing down a idea didn't necessarily fall into place immediately. I knew when I read it, I thought I had enough to portray the chaos and the mess, but also the beauty of family life, but not in a sweet way. I knew I wanted to do that, but how that would take shape, whether it was going to be different families on every page or one family. So there was a bit of back and forth between myself and Kate, the editor. And then also back to Danny, the author shifting lines of bursts from one part of the book to another. And then as we did that, we settled on portraying a day in the life of a family.
Speaker 2 00:09:34 So that gave us the structure for the books we started with early morning ending with bedtime. Um, so then, because this book related so well to family life and my own experiences with family life, our family photo albums are a huge source of inspiration. Just looking at how people sit while they're playing, how they look while they're engaging with each other. Yeah, I guess that would be the main source here. And I have previously illustrated a picture, but which was quite a different process. It had a very clear storyline and the challenge was in deciding what the setting for the book would be, whether it was going to be a city setting or country setting, we settled on a beach town. So that was where the challenge was in that book. Whereas this one, it was once we had the idea, it was very easy to draw my inspiration from our own home life and family photos, childhood photos.
Speaker 1 00:10:25 He had a lot of scope to develop the pictures any way you wanted. It sounds like once you sort of got the idea, you just, it just all came together fairly quickly.
Speaker 2 00:10:35 In some ways it did, because I had an initial idea. I thought I would love to do it this way. I really didn't want to illustrate something sweet because I, in my experience of parenthood and early childhood, is that it's messy. It's not sweet. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, we were right on the same page immediately. So that came together really well. There was a bit of back and forth with Kate making it work as a day in the life of the family. So we really shuffled some of the scenes around from one part of the book to another. And we even cut out quite a number of pages along the way because of the flow of the book, which led to a really great result. But it's really hard to cut. What did I say, kill your darlings. It's really hard to do when you've drawn some things that you love. And that's where I'm so thankful that we have an editor and that I didn't have to do it myself. I was going
Speaker 1 00:11:32 To ask you about that point. Cause you also said that you had to equally cut out some of the busy-ness from some of the illustrations that you did. How does that feel? Because I know myself and I do drawings. You really hope people are going to like them and they feel so personal. How do you cope with putting them out there and getting the response back?
Speaker 2 00:11:50 There was some that were harder than others. So I a scene that was a play fight, which used to happen when we were kids on the, you know, after dinner, everyone pile on top of dad on the, on the living room floor. And it was fun to be able to include that. And then we had to take it out. Um, and part of that was because dad doing all the nonsense and fun stuff while mum was doing all the household chores. So, um, the decisions all make sense. And I was okay with it after the initial R um, I was okay with it, but I really struggled to do it myself. So I was actually, I could say that having Kate do that was giving us a much better result and taking the pressure off me to be the one that made those decisions. Cause you can't see clearly when you've been working on an illustration for a long time. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:12:44 You, you, you get so invested in it. It's hard to then be objective. So from your perspective, it was easier for someone else to make the decision than you having to cut it yourself.
Speaker 2 00:12:53 Yeah. And, and to trust that she knows what works in a picture book. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:12:59 So Ruth, how long does it take you to do an illustration?
Speaker 2 00:13:05 It's so hard for me to tell how long something takes because it happened in between them last minutes, a bit here and a bit there, I suppose a full scene is a week's worth of illustrating that's after the concept is there and approved. Yeah. So that's taking the rough to a finished illustration. Um, the rough, uh, so hard to gauge the time because a lot of it is spent mulling on ideas as you go about doing other things and then trying them out and then coming back to them. Yeah. So, but for, uh, a full page, illustration would be a battle week, I suppose, of drawing and painting and coloring once
Speaker 1 00:13:51 You're into it, it's hard to let it go. Isn't it? You have to just indulge in the illustration until it's sort of finished. Otherwise you sort of thread how's that for you.
Speaker 2 00:14:01 I love losing myself in the picture book project. And just, just tell me who else gets permission to just draw and paint and create worlds and call it their job. That's just incredible. It's a bit of a bit about that. A
Speaker 1 00:14:18 Treat, isn't it? I mean, it's a privilege to be able to do that.
Speaker 2 00:14:22 It's absolutely a privilege. Um, and it come familiar. I w my biggest struggle then is not finding myself in an empty hole when the books, when the illustrations are submitted.
Speaker 1 00:14:33 Yeah. Yep. So just that description that you said, I've certainly experienced that myself, when, when illustrating or painting, you just get into this whole other world and this mindset that's so beautiful. And so freeing, do you think that's what we should be doing for children? Is that what we should be encouraging for children to be able to do as well, to escape from all the pressures of life and whatever else they're experiencing to be able to escape into those creative outlets?
Speaker 2 00:14:58 I think it's beautiful if they can. Um, I say that with reservation, because I have an 11 year old son who lives in a world of dragons and conquests and epic journeys, and probably needs to spend a bit more time in real life, a balance then
Speaker 1 00:15:17 Maybe a balance for all of us is a good thing.
Speaker 2 00:15:21 Yeah. But it helps them make sense of the world in which they live as well and yeah. Or learn how to have fun or just yeah. Get a sense of joy. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:15:30 Absolutely. And certainly making sense of the world these days through storytelling and creativity and artwork, I think is really important. Given the current circumstances, we're all trying to find ourselves in, um, just a couple of questions to finish off. Ruth. What are you hoping to work on next? What, what, what are sort of things that you might look forward to in the future?
Speaker 2 00:15:53 Yeah. Um, I, um, I'd love to illustrate another picture book when the opportunity arises. And in the meantime, I'm continuing to create, um, textile artworks, um, botanical and childhood themed artworks. And at some stage I'd really love to see those combined a little more, bring some of the textile into my illustration work. Um, perhaps a bit more illustration into my textiles. And I do a fair bit of that already. And it's interesting. I was just struggling with a Botanic, with a series of the technical pieces that I was working on. And then I pulled out a picture of a child that I've made out of fabric and pinned it up next to the pieces I was working on. And it suddenly felt right. So I think that incorporating the chicken back into my tent, it's definitely happening in the near future. So it sounds like there'll be something creative, something
Speaker 1 00:16:44 Creative and something about kids. And it sounds to me like that's almost storytelling through fabric and art in a different way. Yes. Without words.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 That's right. I always, in my texts, art's always been about celebrating small, ordinary, everyday things, whether it's the local streets, flora and, um, or, um, children learning and growing and discovering nature and the world in which they live. So this picture book just fit in so well with my existing body of artwork. It was perfect.
Speaker 1 00:17:16 So Ruth, are there any final words for us today?
Speaker 2 00:17:20 No. Other than just keep making picture books, a part of your life that just, they make the world a better place also for adults, make sure that as adults, we keep enjoying picture books and yeah,
Speaker 1 00:17:33 I agree with you more. I've always loved picture books myself. And even as an adult, I feel like I still learn so much from the pictures and the artwork that are created for children. And there is just as important for adults. So thank you very much for joining us today. Ruth listeners, you can find shine by Danny Parker and Ruth divorce in all good bookstores and online at Fremantle, press.com.edu. If you enjoyed our chat today, subscribe to the Fremantle press podcast on apple podcasts, Google play, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. My goodness. That's a lot of different places. Isn't it? I can't keep up with all of that. My name is Helen <inaudible> and I have been your host today. Join me the next time as we continue at you. <inaudible>.
