#012 From Play to Picturebook Project
How play is a big part of my process.
Hello
Here’s a look at my process for a picture book project that I made in the final module of my MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. I am getting ready for our graduation exhibition and thinking back to this time last year when play inspired this project.
I started 2024 by drawing a vehicle each day in January in a little notebook with pages numbered 1-31. I love drawing vehicles and this felt like a fun way to play each day. There was no pressure as it wasn’t linked to a project and there was no expectation or outcome. It just felt like play.
Over the summer I started to think about how I could make a book with vehicles and narrowed the 31 cars down to 5 which became my characters. If I had had to invent 5 characters without that play, I don’t think I would have felt the same joy or freedom of imagination.
Play is a really important part of my process. It’s separate from my projects so feels free, but somehow it always inspires my work or leads to breakthroughs.
I’m excited to share Ready, Steady, Go at my graduation exhibition. Come along and read it if you’re near London!
Details below:
If you can’t make it and would like to see more, here’s a trailer I made:
Congratulations Charlotte! I popped in on Wednesday and your work really made me smile. It was great to hold the dummies in my hands - even better than seeing them online x
Congratulations! Your drawings are always so delightful and make me feel like a kid a kid again.