I am very excited to be part of the Beyond the Burrow blog tour this weekend featuring the super talented Jessica Meserve!
Hello Jessica! Tell us about your background , how did it lead you to write and illustrate picture books?
My mother definitely influenced my love of art and books growing up. She loved reading to me and my sister at bed time and for birthdays and other special occasions she would buy us beautifully illustrated picture books. The book of Russian fairy tales is one of them. Also, my mother painted for pleasure so we would all spend a lot of time together doing art projects at the kitchen table. I can remember very clearly trying to paint my Beatrix Potter figurines in water colours!
I did A-level art, an art foundation and subsequently went on to study for my BA and MA in Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art where I focused mainly on printmaking and landscape painting. After graduating, I didn’t become an illustrator straight away but instead somehow found my way to becoming a designer for the Banana book list at Egmont Books. It all began with work experience and spending hours every night teaching myself photoshop and desk top publishing programs! So when a junior designer job came up I went for it and got the job. The Banana books is an early reader series, fully illustrated and a great learning ground for picture book illustrators and junior designers! I don’t do so much design any more but my years with Egmont taught me invaluable skills and gave me insight into what it was like to be a working illustrator and the process that all books go through before they end up the shelves. Of course, during this time, I got to meet so many lovely and talented illustrators and authors and just really wanted to be one myself.
One day, after several years, I decided to take the plunge and go freelance to give myself the some time to get an children’s illustration portfolio together. I got my first chance to write and illustrate with Andersen Press and my first picture book was called, Small. This book was completely digital and I went on the make 4 more picture books in this way. In 2014 I went back to college to study part-time for my MA in Children’s book illustration at Cambridge School of Art. It was at a time when my youngest daughter started going to school and the possibility of having more time to focus on my working life opened up before me. I immersed myself in the world of children’s books once more with the amazing students and staff on the course. It gave me the opportunity really explore how I wanted to work and by the end I finally found a way of working that used all my experience and brought together my love of painting and drawing with my knowledge of working digitally.
Beyond the Burrow is a beautiful book to inspire boldness – and encourage us all to step beyond the burrow..our comfort zone. What was your inspiration around this story?
I was a very cautious and shy child and found trying new things daunting. It’s funny because my own children don’t seem to struggle with that!
I guess I loved the idea of an animal so shy and vulnerable finding kindness and fun when she steps out of our comfort zone. Lots of us worry, including me, that if we try new things we might get hurt, fail or be laughed at and I wanted to write a book that tries to dispel that feeling. Also, the book is a little bit about how we judge others on misguided preconceptions. So underlying it all is a gentle message to be accepting of difference. My aim was to do all this with a little bit of humour. It was also just lovely to work on images that let me travel even when we couldn’t really leave the house!
Tell us about your beautiful illustrations, how would you describe your illustration style?
I think whimsical might best describe my illustration. I like to try and capture a sense of light and movement. I work in pencil, ink, and crayon layered up with layers of water colour. I like how it allows me to capture the layers of light filtering through the leaves of the hills and trees. I love painting landscapes too and Beyond the Burrow allowed me to combine my illustration with my observational drawings of landscapes.
What children’s books did you love growing up? Have any influenced your work?
I loved Bread and Jam for Frances (Russel Hoban and Lillian Hoban), The Giant Jam Sandwich (John Vernon Lord), Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Margaret Mahy and Brian Froud), Blueberries for Sal (Robert Mcloskey) and The Story of Ferdinand the Bull (Munro Leaf (author), Robert Lawson (illustrator)
I love the gentle humour and authentic child voice of Bread and Jam for Frances. As a child, I found meal times very daunting and so I really loved reading about a character who also found eating tricky. And she is so funny! I hated eggs so much so I loved this rhyme.
I do not like the way you slide,
I do not like your soft inside,
I do not like you lots of ways
And I could do for many days
Without eggs.
So, I like writing picture books that respect the very real and important feelings of children and do this hopefully with kindness and humour.
Since we are all picture book lovers here, finish this sentence ..
Picture books are awesome because … they can bring so many endless hours of happiness to children. In a picture book absolutely anything can happen and they breathe life into characters that would never have met anywhere else, sending them on extraordinary adventures together along with the young reader turning the pages.
What is a favourite picture book you have read recently?
That is a very difficult question but my favourite book I bought recently is The Suitcase by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros. It is beautifully designed and such a sweet, sad and gently funny book explaining difference and immigration without being in any way didactic. A strange blue animal arrives with a suit case and is immediately confronted by animals that question him.The story manages to convey some of different attitudes towards immigration with four characters, each a different coloured animal. The story is told almost entirely in direct speech and the text is colour coded to the animal. For example the red fox speaks with red text. The author only changes to prose and black text when the stranger is dreaming of his journey. It’s just a lovely piece of work.
What are you working on next and where can we follow you online?
I have a few projects that I working on which are in the early stages. The one that I am having a lot of fun with is a about a character who is an amalgamation of both of my daughters when they were smaller. There are things that they both in real life which appear in the story. I’m going to include a lot of their toys and even some of their artwork. I think I’m making it mostly for myself as a record of those crazy and tiring but wonderful years!
You can find me on instagram @jess.meserve and twitter @JessMeserve My website is www.jessicameserve.com
Picture Book Book Club 