Windows into Illustration Natalia Shaloshvili

Natalia Shaloshvili began her creative career as a fashion and editorial illustrator, working with international magazines and creative agencies, before finding her true calling as writer and illustrator of children’s books. Her stories about Bear, are tender and comical, full of carefully observed emotions. She describes how the character came about and her illustration technique.

Bear Worries is the second book in a series about Bear, where I try to talk about emotions. In the first book, called Bear, the main character, also Bear, kept finding himself in awkward situations where he didn’t know what to say or do so as not to hurt or offend anyone – but eventually he got hurt himself. He also learned that it’s important to say no from time to time.

In the second book, Bear worries. A lot. He worries about all sorts of unpleasant things that can happen to him. And, to Bear’s regret, they do happen to him. But Bear, going through his worries, finds out that even if all his worries come true, things can still turn out better than he expects.

I created this character a while ago. I just scribbled a bear sitting on the bench with an ice cream cone, and there was something about this Bear that made me realise he’s not just a character – he’s a main character. And the stories started to spin around him. Or, more likely, he started stumbling into them.

As it happened, this project became a very personal and favourite one for me. I was happily tinkering with it. Some illustrations in the book are very new, but some of them are more than five years old, dating back to when I first started thinking about the story. One of those illustrations depicts Bear walking into a scary forest where he thinks he’s going to get lost. And he will get lost. I have warm feelings toward this illustration for many reasons. I drew it a long time ago in my very first studio, when the story was just evolving around Bear. And I remember taking long walks in the woods, looking for beautiful spots I could later illustrate.

Funnily, there were Fox and Duck walking into the scary forest together with Bear. But the story changed, and so did the characters. First, Duck changed her mind and left the company. Fox followed her shortly after. And in the final draft, it’s only Bear, all alone. That’s why I find it a bit funny and a little bittersweet to look at that lonely Bear heading into the woods to get lost.

Overall, I have warm feelings about many of the illustrations. I worked with acrylic paints on paper and used crayons on top to add some texture. The hardest part was probably maintaining consistency – ensuring that the drawings I did years ago still matched the style and mood of the ones I created much later.

Bear (978-1836006565) and Bear Worries (978-1805701026) are published by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, £7.99 each pbk.