When Words Meet Art
After I researched and communicated with several illustrators, I realized that the If Grandpas Grew Like Trees story required an illustrator whose art reflected the characters depicted in realistic scenes and who could easily switch to the drawings of a six-year-old child. Antonia Pylaeva was recommended by another illustrator whose schedule was too booked for her to take on another large project.
Antonia is an artist with an imagination. She is the mother of three small children and brings her experience with small children to her work as an illustrator of children’s books. I want to thank her for the beautiful illustration art she created for If Grandpas Grew Like Trees.
I wrote words on paper and Antonia filled those words with the action in the story. Her art tells the story for children who are listening to the words that are read for them by someone else.
Antonia has done an amazing job on the story. Her art is beautiful and reflects the loving relationships among the characters. Her stick figure drawings are astonishing. Those stick figures have a lot of personality!
Here is what she wrote in an email about her work on the stick figures in the story: “As it turned out, it was more difficult to draw stick illustrations)))))). I had to practice, and imagine that this is the only way I can draw ))). It was necessary to combine the simplicity and naivety of the image (which a 7-year-old boy should have) and at the same time make it look interesting, dynamic and beautiful. I tried to keep what I drew fresh, to correct it a little. It was an interesting experience.”
As an example of how we worked together, consider the following description of an illustration that I asked Antonia to produce:
Illustration 5
Inside garden fence. Tomato cages. Trellises of prickly picklers.
Neat rows of carrots, eggplants, rhubarb.
Straw on ground between rows.
Rakes, hoes, forks, shovels. Bugs, worms, etc.
on the ground and plants. Butterflies, birds, etc.
From this, Antonia created this illustration!
