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Book Week Series: The Art of Literature and Illustrations ft. Sarah Horne | Ep. 8
18 Plays10 months ago
Welcome to our eight podcast episode, where we have the privilege of diving into the world of literature and illustrations with Laura Wippell. This special episode is a part of the Book Week Series.
Join us as we journey through Sarah's remarkable career, spanning over 20 years of captivating illustrations. From her early days freelancing for esteemed newspapers to collaborations with global brands like Nike and IKEA. With over 100 books to her name, including beloved titles such as "Charlie Changes into a Chicken" and "Puppy Academy," Sarah's intricate illustrations and engaging storytelling have captured the hearts of readers worldwide. Known for her love of including extra visual narratives, Sarah's recent publication, "The Firefly’s Light" with Scholastic, continues to enchant audiences of all ages.
Whether you're an aspiring illustrator or simply curious about the magic of children's literature, this episode promises to offer valuable insights from Sarah Horne's illustrious career. So, join us as we dive into the imaginative world of storytelling with Sarah Horne, whose enchanting illustrations continue to inspire wonder and delight.
About Sarah Horne:
Sarah Horne is an illustrator with over 20 years of experience. She began her career freelancing for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent On Sunday, and has worked with clients like Nike, IKEA, and Kew Gardens. Sarah has illustrated over 100 books, including "Charlie Changes into a Chicken" and "Puppy Academy." In 2010, she published her first author/illustrator young fiction titles, "Paws, Claws and Frilly Drawers" and "Tantrums And Tiaras." Known for her detailed work and love of including extra visual narratives, Sarah works entirely digitally. Her most recent publication is "The Firefly’s Light" with Scholastic. When she's not at her desk, Sarah enjoys running, painting, photography, cooking, and hiking
Sarah's website: https://www.sarahhorne.studio/
About Book Week Series:
Book Week Series is a celebration of authors and illustrators from around the world. For the past two years, this series has been a favorite on Studimation, where we've explored the art of storytelling through insightful interviews. This year, we're excited to move the series to The Zainab Khan Podcast, now available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, iHeart Radio, and more. Join us as we highlight diverse voices in literature, sharing their journeys, inspirations, and advice. Whether you're a literature enthusiast or an aspiring writer, our Book Week Series offers enriching and inspiring conversations. Tune in to The Zainab Khan Podcast and celebrate storytelling with us!
To see the video version of this episode subscribe to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thezainabkhan
Website: https://thezainabkhan.com/
Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/zainabkhanpodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction to Sarah Horne
00:00:00
Speaker
Sarah Horne is an illustrator with over 20 years of experience.
00:00:03
Speaker
She began her career freelancing for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent on Sunday, and has worked with clients like Nike, IKEA, and Kew Gardens.
00:00:12
Speaker
Sarah has illustrated over 100 books, including Charlie Changes Into a Chicken and Puppy Academy.
First Young Fiction Titles and Recent Work
00:00:19
Speaker
In 2010, she published her first young fiction titles, Paws, Claws, and Frilly Drawers, and Tantrums and Tiaras, known for her detailed work and love of including
00:00:29
Speaker
extra-visual narratives, Sarah works entirely digitally.
00:00:33
Speaker
Her most recent publication is The Firefly's Light with Scholastic.
00:00:37
Speaker
When she's not at her desk, Sarah enjoys running, painting, photography, cooking, and hiking.
Illustration Process
00:00:42
Speaker
Hi!
00:00:52
Speaker
Senev, hi, it's nice to meet you.
00:00:54
Speaker
Nice to meet you too.
00:00:56
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm good, thank you.
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm good.
00:00:59
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining in today.
00:01:01
Speaker
Pleasure.
00:01:02
Speaker
Pleasure.
00:01:04
Speaker
Are you excited for the interview?
00:01:06
Speaker
I am.
00:01:06
Speaker
I am.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:09
Speaker
With over 100 books illustrated, could you discuss your process for creating detailed and visually engaging narratives in your work?
00:01:17
Speaker
So what happens is that my publisher will send me a layout or they'll send me the concept first and say, do you want to pitch for this?
00:01:31
Speaker
And I say, yes, please, that would be great.
00:01:34
Speaker
And if it looks like a good project to do, I pitch for it and then it goes to a meeting.
00:01:41
Speaker
And then we go through lots of kind of contractual things, all the boring stuff.
00:01:47
Speaker
But then they send me the manuscript to read and they also send me a layout as well.
00:01:54
Speaker
So I read and I start to just kind of sketch some ideas as they come.
00:02:01
Speaker
Sometimes the publisher will ask me for character samples that they can share with the author as well so that the author can just kind of check that it's
00:02:09
Speaker
what their vision is and that.
00:02:10
Speaker
So you're, you know, in lots of ways, you're kind of interpreting the author's vision, really.
00:02:16
Speaker
So it's quite a lot of sort of getting a feel for the text and trying to kind of make it all kind of line up and feel smooth and, you know,
00:02:26
Speaker
and just work well with the text and things.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's all about the relationship between the text and the image as well.
00:02:32
Speaker
So, yeah, then I just start doing lots of sketches, and then it goes back to the publisher, and they say, yes, we like it, or no, can you tweak it a little bit?
00:02:45
Speaker
So I go back and I tweak it, and then I actually quite often go into...
00:02:54
Speaker
final artwork straight away because this is the beauty of working digitally as well because you can change it quite quickly as well so um quite often nowadays i i skip the sketch stage quite a lot of time and uh and go straight into
00:03:08
Speaker
into artwork and things.
00:03:09
Speaker
So it's a lot of kind of playing around, looking at the text, thinking about what the author's vision is and then just kind of letting the ideas kind of drop into your mind as well.
00:03:23
Speaker
And that, so it's quite a fun process and it's every single book's completely different and you've just got to find your way into it as well, you know, so.
00:03:33
Speaker
So it's really fun, very varied, you know, lots of different things I've done.
00:03:39
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:03:40
Speaker
So how long does the whole process take?
Early Career and Perseverance
00:03:43
Speaker
For something like a fiction book, like a Charlie Changes into a Chicken or some of the Puppy Academies or Ask Oscar, they're usually about six weeks from start to finish, roughly.
00:03:59
Speaker
Sometimes it's a bit longer.
00:04:00
Speaker
Sometimes they put a bit of time pressure on you to get things finished as well.
00:04:07
Speaker
So it depends on the time of year you get commissioned, really.
00:04:10
Speaker
If it's going towards a book fair,
00:04:13
Speaker
then quite often there isn't very much time.
00:04:15
Speaker
So you're, there's a race to the finish and things.
00:04:17
Speaker
So it really depends.
00:04:19
Speaker
So you, on average with the fiction, it's usually about six, six weeks, something like that.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
So a month or a half, something like that.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:28
Speaker
Can you share a bit about your journey into illustration?
00:04:30
Speaker
Like how did you get started into it?
00:04:33
Speaker
Of course.
00:04:34
Speaker
Um,
00:04:35
Speaker
I was always a drawer.
00:04:37
Speaker
I just loved drawing.
00:04:39
Speaker
I went through all the phases that little girls do.
00:04:43
Speaker
I went through the horse phase and I went through just drawing horses all the time.
00:04:47
Speaker
And I went through just drawing all the time.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I never really...
00:04:54
Speaker
I never really lost the love of drawing actually.
00:04:56
Speaker
You know, I've always loved it.
00:04:58
Speaker
There was something about it that I loved and I thought, you know, even before I knew what illustration was when I was quite young, I was like, I want to, my dream job would be to sit in a room and just draw all day and everything.
00:05:13
Speaker
So I, you know, and then I went and I trained,
00:05:20
Speaker
at art college and I had a conversation with a lady in my village who was also an illustrator as well.
00:05:27
Speaker
She was really instrumental in
00:05:30
Speaker
sort of inspiring me to go for it as well.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I went and trained at art college and then I started to send work off to clients and magazine people and agents and everyone I could think of that might commission or want to work with me really.
00:05:49
Speaker
So I did a big mail out for about a year of 10 pieces every Monday morning.
00:05:55
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Until really something bit, I was like, well, just keep going with it until somebody sees it and likes it.
00:06:02
Speaker
I'm just going to send 10 a day every Monday.
00:06:06
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Put them in the post back then, did samples, wrote a covering letter, sent them off.
00:06:13
Speaker
And then after a while, people did start to buy.
00:06:16
Speaker
I got lots of no's.
00:06:18
Speaker
I got lots of, it's nice, but I can't see how we're going to use this.
00:06:23
Speaker
And then I started to get, as I just kept going, I started to get a few yeses and a few sort of like, oh, can you talk to us in about six months time, keep sending us some things.
00:06:37
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And then I got a call from an agent and they started to, they said, you know, we want to work with you.
00:06:44
Speaker
So I took on an agent and we started working from there, really.
00:06:48
Speaker
So that was kind of in a nutshell how I got into it, really.
00:06:53
Speaker
It's just a lot of perseverance, really.
00:06:55
Speaker
A lot of just keeping going.
00:06:58
Speaker
As with all these things, anything creative, you've just got to keep going.
00:07:01
Speaker
That's true.
00:07:07
Speaker
Would you like to name some of your biggest inspirations?
00:07:12
Speaker
I really loved an illustrator called Ralph Steadman.
00:07:20
Speaker
He's quite a violent pen and ink man.
00:07:26
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So he draws with pen and ink and really kind of quite loose and quite violent.
00:07:31
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He's quite kind of expressive with it.
00:07:33
Speaker
And I just loved – there was a book –
00:07:37
Speaker
that he illustrated.
00:07:38
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He actually illustrated a version of Animal Farm by George Orwell.
00:07:43
Speaker
And it was just like, as a teenager, I just absolutely fell in love with his drawings.
00:07:49
Speaker
And, you know, I didn't know anything about the politicalness of
00:07:53
Speaker
Animal Farm or anything like that.
00:07:55
Speaker
And he was actually a political cartoonist.
00:07:58
Speaker
So it made sense to me, but I only really realised that much later down the line.
00:08:03
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It made sense that he would be the illustrator on George L. War's Animal Farm because it's quite a political...
00:08:10
Speaker
piece.
00:08:11
Speaker
But I just loved his line work and people like Ronald Searle who's kind of someone before Stedman, you know, I think Stedman was quite inspired by Ronald Searle.
00:08:23
Speaker
People like Quentin Blake, I love Quentin Blake, you know, it's all the line, the line drawers, you know, the people that love their line really have been very inspirational.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:37
Speaker
How did your experience working with newspapers and advertising clients shape your approach to illustration?
00:08:44
Speaker
Well, it suited me very well.
00:08:47
Speaker
And I still quite enjoy doing those sorts of jobs.
00:08:51
Speaker
I mean, they're very quick in comparison to doing books.
00:08:55
Speaker
You know, there's a very quick turnaround.
Illustrating Books vs. Quick Assignments
00:08:57
Speaker
You do it.
00:08:59
Speaker
within a week usually and they ring you up at random there's no planning you know so you can't plan anything but they ring you up at random say would you like to do this and you say oh yes please that sounds great i'm free um so they um you know they um there's a very quick turnaround and actually i actually really loved
00:09:20
Speaker
I actually really love that kind of just, you know, just working to a deadline.
00:09:25
Speaker
I quite like the buzz of it.
00:09:26
Speaker
And that as opposed to working on very long books where it takes six weeks and the rest, you know, it's quite a nice sort of balance of doing the quick stuff and then doing the long, slow, careful work as well for books, which I quite enjoy the balance of those two things.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
Transition to Digital Work
00:09:49
Speaker
What led you to work entirely digitally and how has this impacted your creative process?
00:09:56
Speaker
What led me to work entirely digitally was, it was a bit of a long process actually.
00:10:03
Speaker
And even when I was at art college, you know, back then, like 20 odd years ago, because I'm quite old now.
00:10:14
Speaker
But back then, working digitally was a bit of a dirty word.
00:10:20
Speaker
It was a bit of a kind of a no-no.
00:10:22
Speaker
You know, it was kind of seen a bit like you're cheating.
00:10:28
Speaker
And as we went through the art college three years that I was there, our attitudes towards it, because Photoshop and things were just coming in as well, where designers and illustrators were using it more and more,
00:10:47
Speaker
We got encouraged to use it.
00:10:49
Speaker
And so for a very long time, even after art college, I was sort of hybrid.
00:10:54
Speaker
I was working, I was drawing everything with a dip pen and line, but then colouring everything in digitally.
00:11:04
Speaker
And so
00:11:05
Speaker
And then, of course, things just move forward, you know, and I would always say I was a bit of a purist and I would always say, you know, the nibs aren't good enough, the digital nibs aren't good enough yet.
00:11:21
Speaker
And they really weren't, they looked very kind of clinical.
00:11:24
Speaker
Anyway, it was very technical, but I was quite kind of fussy.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:29
Speaker
about it.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then we hit the pandemic and I could not get hold of the nibs that I usually use.
00:11:39
Speaker
So I've got an iPad and an Apple Pencil.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I thought, well, let's just try it.
00:11:46
Speaker
And I downloaded a nib set from an illustrator whose work I really admire.
00:11:54
Speaker
And I was like, well, if it's good enough for that guy,
00:11:56
Speaker
you know, it'll be good enough for me because I love his work and I think he's probably as fussy as I am about nibs.
00:12:04
Speaker
So I tried it out and I did a project fully digitally just to see how it would work.
00:12:11
Speaker
And it was a live project.
00:12:12
Speaker
It turned into a book at the end.
00:12:13
Speaker
And I thought, well, let's just try it and see if anyone noticed and nobody noticed.
00:12:21
Speaker
So I was like, okay, well, I think...
00:12:24
Speaker
But actually, it works very well just to work completely digitally.
00:12:31
Speaker
And it actually helps my workflow as well, helps me get a bit quicker as well.
00:12:35
Speaker
And, you know, it saves me from scanning everything in, which takes forever and everything.
00:12:42
Speaker
So it's actually really helped...
00:12:45
Speaker
um maybe a bit more efficient and get things done a bit quicker as well and um you know as as always everything with everything without art art and making things you know we just sort of see it we see it more as a tool now you know like a box of watercolors you know i see the ipad and the um and the apple pencil
00:13:07
Speaker
as another medium, really, you know, it's another, it's another tool for, for making things really, you know, so yeah, it's, it's been interesting, like the kind of like the opinions that you have of artwork and how they change over the
00:13:24
Speaker
Over the course of 20 years, you change your attitudes to things and help things move on as well.
00:13:31
Speaker
Was it easier to transition entirely digitally?
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, it was actually.
00:13:36
Speaker
It was.
00:13:37
Speaker
I think just because I'd been doing it gradually all the way through anyway.
00:13:43
Speaker
It was like a very incremental transition.
00:13:47
Speaker
process it happened bit by bit by bit really and then before you know it because of necessity i couldn't get hold of the nibs over the pandemic over covid it kind of forced my hand into into doing it completely digitally and and then nobody noticed so i uh i um i just carried on like that really it sort of the nibs are good enough you know now to to be entirely digital that's my conclusion of it
00:14:17
Speaker
Outside of your illustration work, you mentioned interests like running, painting, photography, and cooking.
Hobbies and Creativity
00:14:22
Speaker
How do these hobbies influence your creative mindset?
00:14:26
Speaker
I was really surprised how much painting actually, you know, I just paint for me.
00:14:36
Speaker
I paint for fun.
00:14:37
Speaker
And I paint as it's something creative to do that's not work-wise.
00:14:44
Speaker
It's different enough.
00:14:45
Speaker
It gets me away from the screen.
00:14:47
Speaker
It's different enough that it doesn't feel worky.
00:14:51
Speaker
It doesn't feel kind of like you're on a deadline and
00:14:53
Speaker
you've got a brief and you don't have the restraints of things.
00:14:57
Speaker
So I find that it is really surprising actually how much
00:15:05
Speaker
doing something else creative that's not related to your normal illustration practice, it actually feeds back into what you do in my work as well.
00:15:17
Speaker
So, you know, I found that I was getting more and more, as I painted, I got better at doing colours as well.
00:15:24
Speaker
You know, it makes sense that you would.
00:15:26
Speaker
But just like my eye was kind of trained, so to speak, in terms of...
00:15:34
Speaker
getting colors right, you know, just, just getting, getting the color palette a bit better as well.
00:15:40
Speaker
And, uh, and that kind of thing.
00:15:42
Speaker
Um, other things, um, like I, I love running.
00:15:46
Speaker
Um, I, I, I'm quite, I'm a bit of a fair weather runner.
00:15:50
Speaker
So I run outdoors in the summer and then because the winters are so horrible here in England, it's very wet often and cold.
00:15:57
Speaker
So in the winter I run on the treadmill, but either, either way, it just really helps me with, um,
00:16:03
Speaker
With thinking, it helps me clear my head a bit as well, just helps me get a bit of perspective.
00:16:09
Speaker
And quite often I get some really good ideas when I run as well.
00:16:13
Speaker
So, and I just, you know, it helps kind of if you've got a problem.
00:16:19
Speaker
you know, with something you're doing, something visual, and you don't quite know how to do it, go for a run and just let your head, you know, just blow away the cobwebs a bit.
00:16:29
Speaker
And so that's what I do.
00:16:31
Speaker
And it kind of helps me solve problems as well, like creative problems and other problems and that kind of thing.
00:16:39
Speaker
And I really love cooking as well.
00:16:42
Speaker
I can't do it very well.
00:16:43
Speaker
I wouldn't say I was a great cook, but I quite enjoy cooking.
00:16:47
Speaker
making a mess in the kitchen.
00:16:52
Speaker
So yeah, I'm getting a bit better at things like that.
00:16:55
Speaker
So I quite enjoy it.
00:16:58
Speaker
Do you see any parallels between your illustration and your hobbies like photography?
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I used to actually, I used to, I still love photography.
00:17:09
Speaker
And when I was about 16, I had a brief phase where I wanted to be a photographer instead of an illustrator.
00:17:17
Speaker
And I eventually decided to go back and, because I just loved drawing so much, I thought I'm just going to stick with my first love, really.
00:17:25
Speaker
And, you know, so I abandoned photography.
00:17:29
Speaker
being a photographer, the idea of being a photographer and went back to drawing.
00:17:36
Speaker
But what really helped me with just looking through a lens was
00:17:44
Speaker
What it made me realise was that we, you know, even as an illustrator and a photographer, it's kind of the same thing because you are looking, you are working with a rectangle, you know.
00:17:57
Speaker
So it really helped me in terms of composition, setting up, like getting the way that you set up a page, you know, because you're kind of looking through a rectangle.
00:18:09
Speaker
It just kind of, a bit like the painting, it sort of fed into,
00:18:15
Speaker
the illustration work really you know it's another medium of something that really feeds the creative process really so it's quite surprising really you know how that happened.
About 'The Firefly's Light'
00:18:28
Speaker
Could you tell us more about your latest publication The Firefly Slide and what drew you to this project?
00:18:34
Speaker
Well, I can definitely tell you about that.
00:18:39
Speaker
This was not a job.
00:18:42
Speaker
It was not a book or a job that took six weeks to do.
00:18:46
Speaker
It took more like 12 years to do this one.
00:18:51
Speaker
It was a very, very long process.
00:18:53
Speaker
And it started...
00:18:56
Speaker
with me stumbling across a concept called biomimicry.
00:19:00
Speaker
I don't know if you've heard of that.
00:19:01
Speaker
Have you heard of biomimicry?
00:19:03
Speaker
So biomimicry is
00:19:06
Speaker
basically where scientists and inventors and engineers and um and creatives um they they look at nature uh and they look at how certain things work and like the breakdown of things they actually look at how um certain uh certain things work and what they're made of and that kind of thing and they look at it really deeply and then they they replicate it um
00:19:35
Speaker
as a product, basically, or as a piece of artwork or as an invention or something like that.
00:19:44
Speaker
So what I found was so fascinating was that they'd done this, you know, creatives and inventors had been doing this for centuries.
00:19:56
Speaker
We've been looking at nature for centuries and letting it inspire how we do things.
00:20:02
Speaker
So there were so many examples of this.
00:20:04
Speaker
So things like...
00:20:05
Speaker
things like the Japanese bullet train, you know, the very fast train.
00:20:11
Speaker
And it's got kind of, you know, that train that it's got a very kind of pointed nose.
00:20:16
Speaker
So that went through, that train design went through a series of different designs.
00:20:23
Speaker
And it started off as life just being a normal train with a normal kind of front end train with the steam and everything.
00:20:32
Speaker
And because this particular train is especially fast, when it went through cities and went through tunnels, it was actually breaking the sound barrier when it goes through tunnels.
00:20:47
Speaker
And when it breaks the sound barrier, it makes an incredible racket and there's this huge bang.
00:20:54
Speaker
And it was really disturbing the residents in the areas of the towns and the suburbs and everything.
00:21:02
Speaker
And there were tons of complaints.
00:21:05
Speaker
So this designer engineer guy who worked for the train line, he was a keen birdwatcher.
00:21:17
Speaker
And he was like, I've got to solve this problem.
00:21:20
Speaker
I've got to find a way to make these trains quieter.
00:21:26
Speaker
And he was out birdwatching and he was watching this kingfisher with his beak dive from a branch.
00:21:36
Speaker
He saw it dive and it broke the surface of the water without a splash.
00:21:43
Speaker
And it just, you know, it just broke into the water and was just completely smooth.
00:21:48
Speaker
And it's because it was streamlined, because it used its beak to kind of break into the water silently, really, and catch the fish because the fish never saw the kingfisher coming, really.
00:22:01
Speaker
So he went away and thought, what if I make this train actually have a beak, have a pointed nose, you know, so it's streamlined, so it can break.
00:22:13
Speaker
it can break through the air, so to speak, rather than water, but through the air and make things quieter.
00:22:23
Speaker
And actually, it's because of the streamlining of the beak or the nose on the train that it actually, it really worked.
00:22:32
Speaker
And then it became really famous for having a very unusual shape for the front of a train and things.
00:22:39
Speaker
And it could also go extremely fast as well.
00:22:43
Speaker
I just, I kept finding all these examples of where, you know, mankind had looked to nature.
00:22:52
Speaker
And, you know, the other one was airplanes and things like, you know, I don't know whether you call them cat's eyes in America, but you know the studs that go in the middle of the road, that they light up in the dark with the headlights.
00:23:08
Speaker
Do you call them cat's eyes?
00:23:10
Speaker
No, I don't.
00:23:11
Speaker
I don't remember what we call it.
00:23:13
Speaker
They're like little studs in the road, but they stop you from swerving off the road.
00:23:17
Speaker
There's a lovely story about how that came about.
00:23:21
Speaker
And it was basically, they call them cat's eyes because it came out of a guy who was driving along a foggy road in England, really dark and stormy.
00:23:33
Speaker
And he nearly went off the road, but saw a cat in the dark and the reflection in the eyes of the cat
00:23:40
Speaker
actually told him where the edge of the road was.
00:23:43
Speaker
So it is, I could go on about this for a very long time and I don't want to be too long, but there's just so many examples of that.
00:23:51
Speaker
And the more I look, the more I found.
00:23:53
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of the time it was quite hard to kind of narrow down the examples because there were so many different amazing examples, you know, through design and engineering and art and, you
00:24:09
Speaker
you know, and science as well, you know, it was quite fascinating.
00:24:13
Speaker
So we've got 20 different examples in this book called The Firefly's Light.
00:24:19
Speaker
And it's for children who are, I would say, probably for seven-year-olds plus, you know, confident readers, you know, kids and adults who are interested in inventions and for the curious-minded, really.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that book.
00:24:46
Speaker
You've illustrated a diverse range of books from Charlie Changes into a Chicken to Ask Oscar and its sequels.
00:24:53
Speaker
How do you approach illustrating for different genres and age groups?
00:24:57
Speaker
um just the same um the same way uh as as i do when a when a when a project really comes when it comes through my inbox um i i just um sit and read it i i read the synopsis or i read the text and um i um i think about you know how i would
00:25:20
Speaker
respond to this you know and I start to sketch and start to think about it sometimes I can see the pictures straight away sometimes a bit of sketching kind of helps you know so really it's just it's just a case of of reading the of reading the text and and just trying to get a feel for it and trying to kind of just find your way into it really you know so and as I said as I said at the beginning you know every every book's
00:25:50
Speaker
got a completely different feel to it you know there's there's not really there's not really one out of the hundred or so that i've done that have been exactly the same you know they've been the same in terms of um genre and where they where they sit you know for age groups and things like that but the
00:26:08
Speaker
the titles have all been completely varied and different and different authors and all different voices, you know, so it's wonderfully varied.
00:26:18
Speaker
So, but I just sort of, I just kind of get a feel for it and start to draw and let it kind of find its way really, you know.
Advice for Aspiring Illustrators
00:26:30
Speaker
What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators, especially those interested in working digitally?
00:26:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:39
Speaker
You know this already because this is the generation that we're in.
00:26:46
Speaker
But I would say just go for it with the digital things.
00:26:52
Speaker
It's not a dirty word.
00:26:54
Speaker
It's actually a tool like anything else.
00:26:58
Speaker
I don't think I really need to say that for your generation or for kids coming into it, because we're all so digitally savvy nowadays.
00:27:10
Speaker
I think it's more second nature.
00:27:13
Speaker
I would say in terms of becoming an illustrator, I would say, you know, whether you go digital or you are still traditionally drawing it with pencils and paints and charcoals and printing and liner prints and however you do it, I would say don't use digital art.
00:27:41
Speaker
the digital medium to kind of mask your drawing skills that might not be up to speed.
00:27:49
Speaker
You've got to get your drawing up to scratch, you know, because drawing is really the
00:27:55
Speaker
the base for everything, everything else.
00:27:58
Speaker
And it doesn't really matter how good your materials are or how good your digital program is.
00:28:04
Speaker
You still got to learn to draw.
00:28:07
Speaker
It's one of those things that you can't really do a shortcut with.
00:28:12
Speaker
And I would say, you know, just keep going with it as well.
00:28:15
Speaker
You know, we don't really stop
00:28:18
Speaker
um we never really you know the thing the thing with them creative things it's very different to becoming a doctor or you know being qualified we don't really stop where we are you know we're always going to find a new way to do or a new a new product will come in and it will change how we work as well so we're i would say um don't don't rest where you are you know um always be looking at the next at
00:28:46
Speaker
how you can improve things how you can innovate a bit you know how you can um keep yourself excited about your work as well because it's very easy to fall into a a little box or a pigeonhole or something like that you know so i'll just say don't give up keep going with it and just keep trying to keep yourself fresh as well you know that's a great piece of advice
00:29:11
Speaker
As an illustrator with such a varied portfolio, how do you stay creatively inspired and motivated?
00:29:16
Speaker
I keep a sketchbook.
00:29:24
Speaker
I watch...
00:29:26
Speaker
a lot of films and I love story as well.
00:29:30
Speaker
So I read a lot.
00:29:31
Speaker
I read stories, I read fiction, I read nonfiction.
00:29:35
Speaker
I also live in London and there are some amazing galleries here.
00:29:41
Speaker
So I go around some art galleries, I go on a walkabout
00:29:45
Speaker
I go and look at buildings.
00:29:47
Speaker
I go and I go for a drive sometimes.
00:29:53
Speaker
Driving really helps just to get a different perspective on things.
00:29:57
Speaker
Go for a run.
00:30:00
Speaker
What else do I do?
00:30:03
Speaker
I meet up with other artists as well because you know the old adage of iron sharpens iron as well.
00:30:11
Speaker
Some people can, you know, we need other people as well.
00:30:14
Speaker
And
00:30:15
Speaker
you know somebody can say something and it will just open up um a whole new way of thinking how you do things um and that and this is why you know we can't we can't really exist in a vacuum we have to have other people to help us um unpick some of the the more tricky things that we do really you know um so i would say all of those things really
00:30:39
Speaker
really helped.
00:30:40
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:30:41
Speaker
Could you share a memorable or a challenging experience from your career that has had a significant impact on you?
Impact of 'Charlie Changes into a Chicken'
00:30:49
Speaker
I think one of my most memorable things with one of my books, actually it was the Charlie Changes into a Chicken book, is just the feedback that we had
00:31:05
Speaker
from it and it was so incredible the the book um charlie changes into a chicken i'm not sure if it's made it to america i i suspect it has um
00:31:18
Speaker
published by Penguin and they've got a huge reach.
00:31:21
Speaker
But we had some amazing feedback from that book.
00:31:25
Speaker
And basically the book is about a little boy who suffers from anxiety and every time he gets anxious and stressed, he turns into an animal at random.
00:31:37
Speaker
And it's very funny.
00:31:39
Speaker
It's really warm.
00:31:40
Speaker
It's written by a guy called Sam Copeland who actually was, when he wrote it, he was dealing with his own stress and anxiety.
00:31:49
Speaker
And it was more of a therapy for him to write, to deal with that.
00:31:55
Speaker
So he wrote this really funny book.
00:31:58
Speaker
And the feedback we had from that was just amazing because we had things like a mum would write into us over social media.
00:32:11
Speaker
And they just said, you know, I'm a mum of three boys all with autism.
00:32:18
Speaker
And they're all very, they get quite stressed with things as well.
00:32:23
Speaker
And, you know, so I got hold of this book.
00:32:25
Speaker
And so,
00:32:26
Speaker
you know, it just spoke into what my kids go through all the time.
00:32:32
Speaker
She said, so I want to thank you for really just speaking into that.
00:32:37
Speaker
And she said that there's such a calm about this book, you know, which I don't quite know how that has come about, but she said it actually, my kids are just, she said my kids are really difficult at bedtime and trying to get them to calm down.
00:32:53
Speaker
And actually reading a book about stress and anxiety and just the humour in it that Sam had written, you know, it really helped them to calm down.
00:33:06
Speaker
And there were just so many examples of...
00:33:12
Speaker
parents and carers that would write in um about this book you know it really it really seemed to um to speak into something that um was happening you know um that was happening with in kids lives and things and that's really you know i i find that really inspiring because um books have that kind of
00:33:34
Speaker
Like anything, like with music or with film or any kind of storytelling or anything in the creative arts, they have like an unusual way to speak into people's lives, not necessarily in a kind of heady intellectual way, but they can speak.
00:33:53
Speaker
they can really bring something that you wouldn't get from someone just talking to you about it.
00:33:59
Speaker
Do you understand what I mean?
00:34:02
Speaker
It's that kind of... It's just, you know, it's an incredible platform that we've got as creatives to help other people, really.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker
The book's kind of weighing a beautiful message.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
What's one piece of advice you wish you had received when you were just starting your career?
00:34:26
Speaker
I think I wish I'd listened to this actually because I might not have done it I might not have gone into illustration but I think you know
00:34:39
Speaker
My friend in the village, she said to me, it's not an easy career.
00:34:47
Speaker
It really isn't.
00:34:49
Speaker
It's not something that is an easy job to do.
00:34:53
Speaker
But she said, if you keep going with it,
00:35:03
Speaker
you will break through and you've just got to persevere with it and everything.
00:35:10
Speaker
So yeah, that was, you know, she sort of warned me that it was very hard to do, but it's rewarding when you get through, when you get through, when you get over the hump.
00:35:24
Speaker
So to speak.
00:35:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:35:26
Speaker
Lastly, what projects or ideas are you currently excited about or working on and what can we expect to see from you in the future?
00:35:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:35
Speaker
I'm quite excited because I've got two illustrated projects that are coming up.
00:35:43
Speaker
I've got one book that is coming out actually at the end of this month.
00:35:48
Speaker
I think it's just UK only.
00:35:52
Speaker
for the time being, but it might not be because it's with HarperCollins and light penguin, they have a huge reach in this cell.
00:36:00
Speaker
in various places.
00:36:01
Speaker
So it might make it to the States.
00:36:02
Speaker
It might, it might be sold in other territories as well.
00:36:07
Speaker
But this book is called Betty Steady and the Toad Witch.
00:36:11
Speaker
And it's very funny fantasy comedy book by a debut author called Nikki Smith Dale.
00:36:19
Speaker
So I was brought in as a, as an illustrator, as the illustrator.
00:36:24
Speaker
And it's about a,
00:36:26
Speaker
a a kind of a um a very kind of confident confident character called betty steady and she's kind of the protector of a fictitious land um and she's got you know she calls she calls her muscles um like human names she's got like biceps and um and she's like the real heroine and everybody loves her and
00:36:48
Speaker
They rely on her for everything.
00:36:50
Speaker
And then there's a baddie called the Toad Witch.
00:36:54
Speaker
He's like the classic kind of pantomime villain.
00:36:57
Speaker
And she, by magic, she turns Betty to the... She kind of shrinks her to the size of a walnut.
00:37:07
Speaker
And then Betty can't... She's...
00:37:10
Speaker
completely dysfunctional.
00:37:12
Speaker
She can't do anything.
00:37:13
Speaker
She's completely weak.
00:37:15
Speaker
She goes on an adventure through the woods as the size of a walnut.
00:37:21
Speaker
There's a brilliant adventure with lots of woodland creatures and it's all very silly.
00:37:29
Speaker
The great thing was that I think this is the first book in over 100 where I've actually been able to draw an adventure map, like those maps that
00:37:39
Speaker
the beginning of those fantasy books like the lord of the rings or something like that you know so i actually managed to draw this lovely kind of map um of of the land and things so it was it was just such a such a fun project um the other one i've got um which comes out in a couple of years actually there's a very long lead time on this i think it's
00:38:04
Speaker
2025, 2026, I think it comes out.
00:38:06
Speaker
So two years, two years time is Book and Ears, which is a pirate adventure book with Walker books.
00:38:16
Speaker
And it's kind of pirate mystery.
00:38:18
Speaker
So it's like Agatha Christie with pirates.
00:38:24
Speaker
and that so I'm just working on that at the moment it's taking me a very long time because there's lots of detail so it's definitely more than a six week job and that so but I'm quite excited about those two at the moment I've got a few few other ideas I'm working on myself that I'll be writing I hope in the near future but they're still quite early early days yet so probably best not to talk about them in case they don't happen
00:38:51
Speaker
Awesome.
00:38:52
Speaker
Where can the audience find your work?
Where to Find Sarah's Work
00:38:55
Speaker
You can find it online.
00:38:57
Speaker
You can find it all the good bookshops.
00:39:03
Speaker
I would think it depends on the territory.
00:39:07
Speaker
I mean, there are lots in Waterstones here in the UK.
00:39:12
Speaker
I would think for US probably Barnes and Noble, places like that, Amazon, you can get it on Amazon.
00:39:21
Speaker
and online in other places as well.
00:39:24
Speaker
So yeah, all the good bookshops, you'll find them.
00:39:28
Speaker
So yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
Would you like to mention your website?
00:39:31
Speaker
Would I like to mention your website?
00:39:35
Speaker
My website is sarahorn.studio.
00:39:38
Speaker
Awesome.
00:39:41
Speaker
With this, we end our chat.
00:39:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining in.
00:39:44
Speaker
It was fun talking to you.