For our final workshop, author and illustrator Alison Murray came to show us how she got into the children’s book business. She started out as a textile designer and printmaker, and you can see that influence in her bold and simple illustrations. Her most famous book is Apple Pie ABC, which is all about a little dog who can’t resist the delicious pie on the kitchen table.
Alison brought some early proofs to show us the first stages of producing this book. Each page has a letter of the alphabet in bold type, with the little dog Georgie trying his best to get a taste of that pie. We were able to see how the first sketches were changed and the layout adapted to arrive at the final published version.
The sequel to Apple Pie ABC is called One Two, That’s My Shoe! In this story the same little dog grabs the girl’s shoe and she has to chase him all over the house and the garden to get it back. The illustrations are cartoony and fun, and Alison explained how she starts with pencil sketches and then scans them into her computer to adjust them and add blocks of colour and texture.
Alison is the first Writer-in-Residence to produce a book in collaboration with the Scottish Book Trust and a Home-Start group, just like we are doing. She worked with a group in Renfrewshire and their book was called Little Mouse. It was distributed to every toddler in Scotland through the Early Years Bookbug scheme. We are looking forward to seeing our book, Never Bite a Tiger on the Nose, in the Bookbug packs next year!
The last book Alison shared with us was Hickory Dickory Dog. This one features a big, shaggy, yellow dog called Rufus who belongs to a boy called Zac. Rufus wakes Zac up in the morning and then follows him to school, where he causes lots of trouble and gets very messy. Like Alison’s other books, this one uses a well-known nursery rhyme as a starting point and then adds lots of humour and surprises to turn it into something very special.
It was great to round up our writing workshops with Alison’s talk, and we learned a lot about illustration using computers. Having heard about how the editor and author work together last week, it was interesting to see what the illustrator does and how a picture book evolves from the first sketches to the finished book. Thanks very much to Alison Murray for joining us, and to the Scottish Book Trust and Home-Start/ABE for making this project possible!
The Methil Makars 