Fiona Woodcock
About Author
Fiona Woodcock grew up in Leicester and always wanted to draw. Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art she has been working freelance in London on animated films, commercials and illustration work.
She likes to draw with a tipp-ex mouse, children's blow pens, cutting stencils and printing.
Her first picture book Hiding Heidi was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016.
Author link
www.fionawoodcock.com/; @FionaWoodcock ;
Interview
HIDING HEIDI
JULY 2016
SIMON & SCHUSTER CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Hiding Heidi is an assured debut by author and illustrator Fiona Woodcock. The story, about a quiet girl who is so good at playing Hide and Seek that she finds herself forgotten by her friends, is beautifully illustrated using patterns, textures and line drawings.
On each spread, Heidi is camouflaged into her surroundings - whether those are sunflowers, boat sails or orange trees. But her ability to hide means she is forgotten by her friends and she realises that joining in with others' games can be just as much fun as playing her favourite game.
We asked Fiona to tell us more about her move into picture books, and her story HIDING HEIDI:
Q: Have you always wanted to illustrate children's books?
A: I knew from an early age that I wanted to do something with drawing and I studied Graphic Communication at the Glasgow School of Art. We did a lot of illustration projects and drawing and I was taught by author and illustrator Mick Manning. The course was very ideas-based, we had to think about what we were communicating, what was the idea behind your work.
I ended up working in film, mostly dramatic, illustrative short film projects like Raymond Briggs's The Snowman and the Snowdog, where I was lead assistant animator. I 'became' Raymond Briggs for that project but I continued to work on my own artwork to develop my own style and I had a few ideas for books.
Q: Where did you start with Hiding Heidi?
A: I had done some pattern-based paintings and I decided I wanted a character who was in a patterned world. I did some initial images, including the one of Heidi sitting on the sofa, disguised in the flower pattern, and hiding in the sunflowers. Then I worked with my agent, the Bright Agency, to develop the story from those images, and then with my publisher Simon & Schuster.
Q: Was it difficult to establish Heidi's character in the story as she is a quiet child - who likes to not be seen!
A: Yes, she is a world expert in hiding and she is a quiet child, but there is also a fun playfulness about her. At the end, even when she has decided to join in more with her friends, we still see her blending in to her surroundings. That is who she is and she keeps that, she is Hiding Heidi. I visualised and drew her quite quickly but it was her disguises that captured her personality.
Q: How did you decide what her different disguises would be?
A: I had quite a few ideas of what would work well in a story, like the children bouncing on the space hoppers. I looked through old photographs for ideas, for example the retro climbing frame. I have a photograph of me, my brother and my mum poking our heads out of a climbing frame in a park, and I used to love playing with my space hopper. Towards the end Heidi comes out on roller skates, so she's liberated from being still in her hiding places.
Q: Do you think that children will also enjoy finding Heidi on the pages?
A: I like having a level of interaction with the page and although she's so easy to find, it can still feel quite rewarding for the child to do so. There are also things in the story that I hope they can relate to and talk about with the person who is reading it.
Q: In the story, Heidi hides so well that she misses all the fun from her birthday party. What does she learn by the end of the story?
A: She's learning how to fit in - not literally by hiding but she's learning how she fits in with her group and how to relate to them. It's that lesson of give and take, discovering that we can't always do what we want to do. It's a hard lesson to learn because we all love doing what we're good at. She's learning that her friends have things they are good at and that they have their strengths as well.
Q: How do you work and what do you use to create your illustrations?
A: Although the book has a fairly minimal feel to it, there are lots of drawings that went into making it. I start by making lots of drawings and a lot of the colour work is created by hand.
I wanted a woodcut feel to the images, so it needed to be textured, and I do love old screen printing techniques and used those as my inspiration, so the pattern work was a lot of fun. I tend to use rubber stamps which I cut out for different textures, and I use stencils, and some elements are charcoal.
I combine all the different effects on my computer. For the spread with the orange tree, for example, I created a page of 'oranges' which I scanned in, rearranged, and then combined with the charcoal elements in the images. The children are drawn in pencil and I create their outfits separately. It all comes together like a collage.
Q: You have created a distinct image for the cover, rather than using one from the book. Why did you decide to do that?
A: I decided I wanted to have a sunflower on the front because the book is coming out in the summer and I thought this image captured Heidi's slight cheekiness. I went back and forth with the art director, we kept filling it with more and more colour and experimented with the type. I'm glad we did, I'm really pleased with the finished cover image.
Q: Will you be creating more picture books?
A: Yes I'm working on my second book for Simon & Schuster, it's called Bloom, and I would really like to do more picture books after that. I love developing the ideas and I'm turning down offers of animation work for now!
Q: What advice would you give to adults to encourage children to be creative?
A: I've always found my most exciting work comes through play so I'd just encourage children to play, experiment with different materials and get messy!
Hiding Heidi
