Freya Blackwood may be an unfamiliar name to the majority of British readers, but that’s certain to change following her 2010 Kate Greenaway Medal win for Harry & Hopper, a poignant story about a boy coming to terms with the sudden death of his dog.
Blackwood’s illustrations of Margaret Wild’s text manage to be life affirming while powerfully portraying Harry’s grief at the loss of his much loved friend.
Having experienced the death of several family pets herself over the years, she found that her empathy with Harry’s emotions made it surprisingly easy to illustrate the book.
‘Each page progressed completely naturally, which I find unusual,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I’ve got to work quite a bit harder. Harry & Hopper was easier because there was no interpretation there because I’d had a similar experience. Also, the text felt perfect. Margaret Wild is very experienced and as soon as I read it I knew it was something I really wanted to do.’
Having had no formal artistic training, Blackwood is slightly amazed by the Greenaway win, though with a painter mother and an architect father, creativity is in the genes. Her design degree at university included photography, some animation and film making, but she taught herself to draw and paint and still feels somewhat insecure about her abilities.
After graduating she went to New Zealand to work in the effects workshop on the Lord of the Rings films, but eventually found that she wasn’t creatively satisfied and at that stage began to draw in earnest.
‘It was a really big thing, trying to find what I wanted to do. I felt I was creative and wanted to give myself a chance to find out.’ It wasn’t too long before Blackwood found a publisher, and in the past seven years she has illustrated some dozen texts by authors including Roddy Doyle and Libby Gleeson as well as Australian writers; several have won or been shortlisted for awards. Harry & Hopper is a departure from her earlier work, with a new, looser approach.
‘I’d really wanted it very sketchy,’ she explains. ‘It was a little boy and a dog, and I didn’t think my other style would convey their personalities. And I had an opportunity to try something different. I ended up using the rough illustrations because they had such a nice quality and I used charcoal and watercolour over it.
The paper automatically sets a colour scheme that’s distinctive and helps to tell the story.
The book’s potentially bleak charcoal on grey paper is lifted by intriguing objects strategically placed to balance the composition as well as flashes of colour. Harry’s ginger hair and green shirt are complemented by the black-and-white-spotted Hopper and his red collar.
Although Blackwood knew roughly how she wanted the characters to appear, it was the paper that was the starting point for the book’s overall look.
‘I’ve started with the paper quite often,’ she explains. ‘I enjoy testing out different papers for different effects, and that particular paper felt right. I find white paper really scary and I’m never organised enough to leave areas of white, which is what a good watercolourist should probably do. A lot of the time I’ve started with white and stained it all.
'I’ve done a version of Waltzing Matilda and I stained that all burnt sienna, so it was all red, because the story was set in a North Western Queensland town which is all red earth. I like applying white as well, which is why I like the grey paper. The paper automatically sets a colour scheme that’s distinctive and helps to tell the story.’
‘I decided that on grey Hopper would be really good as black and white and on the grey Harry’s hair would work as red or orange. I also love red, so there’s always a bit of red there. That process sounds really dry, but it’s probably intuitive as well.
Sometimes I’ll sit for days trying to work out what colour to make something because there’s no going back once you’ve chosen the colour, because it’s watercolour. You don’t start changing it, so it requires quite a bit of thought sometimes. It’s also about balancing the picture as well: what little bit of colour will balance the rest of it.’
Once the paper had set the atmosphere she started sketching the characters. An early rough of boy and dog became the first illustration in the book. ‘I’m really happy that the publisher allowed this sort of thing. I didn’t think they would. It was only a small sketch, so it was quite personal and contained.’
She used a computer for the first time in order to keep the spontaneity of the sketches, which, she says, isn’t as paradoxical as it might at first seem. ‘I find drawing on watercolour paper’s got a different quality because it’s softer and your pencil sort of sinks into it a bit.
'I knew that if I tried to redraw these drawings I wouldn’t be able to do these lines again and I thought, these lines are so necessary because they show so much of the quality of the dog. Scanning them into the computer felt like cheating but it was the only way I could get that quality, and now that I’ve thought about it good and hard I don’t think it’s cheating. It meant I didn’t have to be too worried about the painting.’
‘Sometimes you get this watercolour paper all ready and it costs quite a lot of money and you start drawing and you rub it out and you draw it again and you ruin the paper and it all doesn’t look right and you’ve spent so long on it.
'You don’t want to give it up, but the drawing isn’t quite as good as you’d hoped. This way I didn’t have to worry because I’d already drawn something I was really happy with.’
I love Australian architecture and I always try to put in an old Australian house somewhere.
Although she tries to give her books universal appeal, she acknowledges that her home country has an influence on her visual approach. ‘I love Australian architecture and I always try to put in an old Australian house somewhere. There is also a very different colour scheme there. I like using a particular browny colour for the grass, which probably sets it apart from England. You have gum trees mostly rather than green trees like in England, although some of the same trees have been introduced. The bush is a blue grey colour. And there is a different light; it’s stronger and more harsh.’
Her favourite fine artists are Cezanne and Matisse, but her biggest inspiration in her own work is the Austrian illustrator Lisbeth Zwerger. ‘She’s brilliant at drawing and she can draw with pen and ink, which I haven’t tried. Her watercolour work’s impeccable.’ She's not inclined to attempt pen and ink herself, though. ‘It’s too scary. You’ve got to be too good for that. I’ve only ever learned to do this job while working, so it’s still a learning experience.’
She also greatly admires the Australian illustrator Shaun Tan. ‘My mother gave me a copy of The Lost Thing when I was just thinking that I might want to be an illustrator. I think there is an enormous intelligence behind his work. Technically speaking he’s incredible. There’s such a strange magic about his work.
'And I also love Armin Greder, who has also illustrated Libby Gleeson’s books. He works in charcoal and there’s lots of lines. It’s quite moody and a little bit scary. He has brilliant compositions. His work’s a little bit weirder than mine.’
Her latest book, with a text by Jan Ormerod, is at proof stage, and Blackwood is working on another at the moment. It has stylistic similarities and differences; with less sense of movement than Harry & Hopper, it nevertheless retains a similar relaxedness of line. ‘It’s a really fun way to work. You’ve got to be in the right mood to draw like that. I do sketch like this normally but if you think about it too much it can take on a different quality and become tighter and more organised.’
Although she has been both writer and illustrator of one book, Ivy Loves to Give, and has ideas for some more, she is content for the moment to leave the words to others. ‘I’m really busy!’ she says. ‘I’ve never had so much going on so I’m not all that tempted to try anything else. Got to keep things simple! I’m very happy with the balance at the moment. I can’t imagine anything better.’
