Bertie and The Ginger Cat
So excited to finally reveal my new book Bertie and the Ginger Cat, written and illustrated by me and published by Red Paper Kite.
Animation by @jana_kaminski
“A heartwarming read of friendship and courage...that will have you completely enticed..”
This week has been full of those ‘pinch me’ moments when you can’t really believe what’s happening. What started off as an email from my agent Jehane on Christmas Eve with the wonderful news that the Australian publishing house Red Paper Kite wanted to pick up my idea of Bertie and The Ginger Cat, has now become an actual book! What followed was a huge learning curve of how to write and illustrate an entire story during the craziness of Covid. It all started with a few sketches , which then developed into a synopsis, thumbnail sketches of every spread and eventually a full story….
The sketching process allowed me to explore the characters in full - what age was the little girl, what was her name, what was she wearing? Initially she was too old for the audience we were aiming for. Her clothes needed to be tidy and suitable for a girl who rarely played outside. Billy too was a few different breeds before he became Billy! And the ginger cat needed to be friendly and not too fierce!
All the spread ideas needed to be mapped out in thumbnails so we could see how the book flowed. Sticking to the required number of spreads and words was one of the hardest things!
I should also mention that the little girl had a few different names at first including Libby and Lucy! Eventually Bertie was chosen, which is also the name of one of my best and oldest friends since University.
One aspect of the story of Bertie is how her life is quite flat and lacking in colour at the beginning as she allows her fear to prevent her from going outside and having fun. This changes when she enters the jungle of the greenhouse which is rich in both colour and experiences. When it came to choosing the colour palette I went with my old favourites which I use in many of my paintings. It was painted in gouache using Winsor and Newton paints.
Here is a colour sketch for one of my favourite spreads in the book when Bertie starts to become brave!
Another aspect of creating the book was designing end papers and the cover design. Guided by my publisher, Red Paper Kite, we also carefully chose the font and included some sketches at the end of the story to give readers an insight into the process.
And there we have it ! A little insight into the process of creating the book. Now I can sit back enjoy seeing complete strangers across the world reading and enjoying the tale of Bertie. It really is magical to read the posts people have kindly tagged me in on social media. How grateful I am to have had this opportunity and I really wanted to thank Sandra at Red Paper Kite, my agent Jehane and Brenda Gurr who edited the manuscript. It really was a team effort!
Bertie is currently available in Australia and New Zealand only. Please see the Red Paper Kite website for details.