May
18
30 Years on: A Canoe in the Mist
I like anniversaries, especially when they concern my illustrations! So here's another fond memory - this year is the 30th anniversary of the publication of Elsie Locke's A Canoe in the Mist.
This was my third commissioned book contract, after Jeremy Strong's Fatbag (A & C Black) and Roger Collinson's Get Lavinia Goodbody! (Andersen Press), both first released in 1983. Like them, it was a commission for black and white text drawings to a novel. Unlike those titles however, both of which were fun, humorous books requiring comic drawings, this new commission was a dramatised narrative of real events during the catastrophic 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera in New Zealand.
Canoe in the Mist follows the story of two girls during the eruption.
This was my third commissioned book contract, after Jeremy Strong's Fatbag (A & C Black) and Roger Collinson's Get Lavinia Goodbody! (Andersen Press), both first released in 1983. Like them, it was a commission for black and white text drawings to a novel. Unlike those titles however, both of which were fun, humorous books requiring comic drawings, this new commission was a dramatised narrative of real events during the catastrophic 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera in New Zealand.
Canoe in the Mist follows the story of two girls during the eruption.