You may have this idea that authors do all the illustrations for their books. That sometimes happens if the author is very good at drawing AND writing but that’s not me. I needed a talented artist for both my books.
You might have some image, then, of author and illustrator working side by side. Writing and drawing and sharing hot mugs of cocoa. The author saying “I know what could happen to the characters!” and the illustrator yelling out “Hey, I’m drawing it write now!” and then the illustrator saying “Look at this picture I want to put in the book” and the author saying “That’s so perfect – it’s made me think of a WONDERFUL story I want to write to go with it – just let me jot it down!”
Then they would take lots of nice breaks, ambles among the trees and by the beach. There would be cake and chocolate. Lots of cake and chocolate. And spotting of cute owls along the way.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite like this though many of us wish it would.
My gorgeously illustrated book, A Very Special Moon Mission, was illustrated by the talented David Allan and it was published and I didn’t meet him. I thought I wouldn’t.
Then last year, at a Book Fair in Sydney, David and I met. It was a lovely opportunity and David is as friendly and nice as he is a great artist. We had to take a photo of this (actually quite rare) occurrence!
While there wasn’t a lot of owl-spotting, David was making some dragon toys at the Book Fair so there was dragon-spotting – not a bad substitute!