The Truth Commission is the first of my books to contain illustrations and I was thrilled at the opportunity to work with Trevor Cooper. He was a student in some of my creative writing classes and impressed me with his writing and artistic talent. I love the drawings Trevor created for the book and he very kindly agreed to write a blog post and answer some of my questions about his process.
Getting Truthy About Illustration…
Thanks for inviting me to do a guest blog post about illustrating The Truth Commission.
I will answer your questions as truthfully as I can, keeping in mind my answers seem to change from moment to moment.
You asked me how I approach the truth in illustrating a text. First and most important for me is having a text I feel connected to. In this case your story is so vivid with compelling characters and setting I related to. This gave me a lot to fire up my creativity! [Thank you, Trevor!]
From there I go into scribble mode and let my unconscious do the work by conjuring up as many visuals as possible. These are done as little bare-bones sketches on nothing more glorious than printer paper. Usually I will draw dozens and dozens of sketches before anything remotely interesting starts to emerge.
Once I have a few things that are beginning to work I will scan them in and pull them together by cleaning them up in Photoshop. The sketches you see in the book are actually terrible lies! They are almost all of them composites of many different sketches where I took the best parts and stitched them together in Photoshop. But in the end, the whole is hopefully better than the sum of the parts. In this case at least the truth can emerge from a pack of lies.
When it comes down to deciding which drawings to select for publication — which are most ‘truthful’ with the text — it really helps to have the editor, author and art director all giving good feedback! In this case Sharyn November (editor), art director Denise Cronin and book designer Kate Renner in addition to yourself, were all giving me notes. It really was a team effort and a process I learned plenty from.
You also asked me if I would ever draw or publish anything about my family members. Sure! They have a good sense of humour and seem to enjoy being talked about. In fact, my sister Emma has been using my family as material for her standup comedy routines for years. I think the difference between that and what Keira does is the nature of our family’s relationship. There is nothing malicious or exploitative about the jokes and it is consensual and friendly. And if I were to draw my family I would similarly ensure it was with their consent.
Am I inclined towards telling people the plain truth in my personal life? Not really, although I am a pretty terrible liar. I really don’t know what the truth is. I think we are all trying to figure that out. I guess I’m trying to stay quiet for now and ask a lot of questions until I have better answers.
You asked me which images I am most proud of from the Truth Commission. People seem to like the sketch of Dusk in her coracle.
illustration (c) Trevor Cooper
I do too, but I think I really have a fondness for the puppy snuggling the knife.
illustration (c) Trevor Cooper
What’s next for me:
I am trying to learn to put a website together. It is slow going, but I would like to learn how to do some coding. That seems like a good thing to figure out these days. Otherwise I have just been doodling or scribbling little projects and hanging out with delightful artistic people!
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Trevor Cooper is a graduate of Vancouver Island University where he studied visual arts, as well as taking creative writing courses with Susan Juby. This lead to his first published book illustrations in The Truth Commission. He lives in Vancouver.
I stole this photo of him from his facebook page. I’m sorry Trevor. For the record, this is the image from the book that makes me want to laugh out loud every time I see it.
illustration (c) Trevor Cooper
One day I hope everyone gets to read and admire Trevor’s noir re-working of a famous children’s tale. You’ll never see those characters in the same way again. In the meantime, thank you Trevor for your wonderful illustrations in The Truth Commission.