Windows into Illustration: Caroline Magerl

Caroline Magerl is an award-winning and internationally renowned illustrator, cartoonist and painter. Her picture books, with her signature use of crosshatching and pen and ink line, capture the innocence of a child’s view of the world, with occasional surreal overtones. In this Windows into Illustration feature she describes her approach to her book Piano Fingers

I find being an author/illustrator to be a lot like a two-legged sack race. There are days when the writer is the one who appears to be doing the hard work of shuffling toward the finish line, on other days, it is the illustrator who is doing all the heavy lifting. Doodling, drawing, thinking on paper, is an important part of my writing process.

The image I’ve chosen to discuss is from my picture book Piano Fingers. As with all my books, little sketches are the vehicle for intuitive leaps. I began by drawing a little girl at the piano, prodding the keys with one finger, slumped in abject misery on the piano stool, or arms raised, poised for a thunderous chord. After an embarrassingly large number of such sketches, (I simply enjoy making such drawings), I got a sense of the character, and that humour would be a factor in the story. I had begun to write some fragments of text, with no attempt at a structured story at this point, but the words were lyrical, and there was even at the start an attempt at conveying how music can make you feel.

I love the sense of wide-open spaces in the early phases of a new picture book. There is a horrible niggle in the back of my mind, because I know I will have to piece together something that can be called a text. After many years of finding myself in the same bog of uncertainties I can say that it is at this stage where much of what is good in the finished book, is found.

One of the happy accidents in the exploratory phase of Piano Fingers, was the emergence of Maestro Gus.   This is a good example of one of those little leaps which turn out to be a nugget, worth keeping and developing. The fall board of our old piano, which our daughter dutifully practiced on every day, had three scratches on it. I found these marks while dusting and thought to myself that the previous owner of this clunky old thing must have had a cat. Although my focus in writing Piano fingers was a little girl’s struggle to learn the piano, a little cat now began to appear in my drawings. Once I saw Maestro Gus dancing across the keys, there was a knock-on effect, the story began to move forward. The character of Bea, my little pianist, had found her foil.

In a few random drawings of a patient piano teacher, another clue was found. The third and final character was born, Bea’s big sister Isla.

In my experience, the final story is encapsulated in my initial drawings, and it is then my job to tease it out. Once I finally have a workable text, I pin up my favourite versions of the characters, and take my cue from the selected images. I call this my Crazy Wall stage, because I feel the need to see everything at once, to build the world of the book. In attempting to see the book as a whole, I make big, loose charcoals to design the layouts across the 32 pages. I will settle on a colour palette and have an argument with myself over whether to use pencil or pen and ink. Then I use both.

Having been an illustrator for many years, and then a writer, I can only say that the two-legged sack race of writing and illustrating has deepened my respect for both artforms, both together and separately.

Piano Fingers is published by Walker Books, ‎ 978-1529512472, £7.99 pbk.