Julie Vivas
As an artist, the best part of illustrating a picture book is when you invent the characters in the author’s story, so I like the rough drawings at the beginning, when you discover exciting things. I draw different body shapes, and head and face shapes, until I see that the body shows a personality and you can see how he or she feels. Doing the rough dummy is where you try to make the words and pictures work together as a whole, and this takes a lot experimenting with different layouts. When you show the author and the publisher the rough dummy book, they tell you what they feel about what you have done. I like this feedback very much. It can make you happy or angry, frustrated too, but it is always exciting. Finished artwork takes ages, and I am not so enthusiastic about it. I love the white paper before I get in a mess, and it stiffens with my drawing, as I redo what I discovered in the rough. I do enjoy the first brush, laden with watercolour paint, to watch it touch the wet paper.
