Liz Pichon
About Author
Liz Pichon studied graphic design at Middlesex Polytechnic and Camberwell School of Art in London. She then worked in the music industry for Jive records as a designer and art director, organising photo sessions and designing record and CD covers.
After deciding to go freelance, her work has been used on many different products all over the world. From beach towels for Marks & Spencer to fabric, calendars, mugs and games. She worked with Camden Graphics on several successful ranges of cards, some of which are still selling today.
Liz then turned her hand to children's books. My Big Brother Boris, published by Scholastic in 2004, won the Smarties Book Prize Silver Award. The Brilliant World of Tom Gates was Liz's first fiction book for older children.
Liz currently lives in Brighton with her husband and three children.
Author link
www.lizpichon.co.uk/home.htm; tomgatesworld.blogspot.com; lizpichons.blogspot.com
Interview
THE BRILLIANT WORLD OF TOM GATES
SCHOLASTIC UK
DECEMBER 2011
The Brilliant World of Tom Gates won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and we have been speaking to author (and doodler) Liz Pichon about her second Tom Gates book, Tom Gates Excellent Excuses.
Pichon returns to Tom Gates' world to write about his next school term. Look out for gold star thieves, a rock band, toothache and auditions for the school band...
Q: You're a graphic designer by trade - what's the strangest thing your designs have ever been used on?
A: I heard that one of my designs was used on hospital fabric so I had images of people coming round from an operation and seeing this weird design of mine in front of their eyes. I'm also looking at an egg cup right now that features one of my designs.
Q: What's the hardest thing to draw?
A: I don't consider myself to be brilliant at drawing and I've always struggled with hands and feet, so I'm sure that that's why I developed the style I have where I don't have to be accurate. Also, everything I do takes me a long time.
Q: Did you always know you'd be working in illustration and design?
A: Not at all. If you're good at creative stuff and drawing at school, you have no idea how that can turn into a career and you're not encouraged to do it.
That is something I've had a real reaction with at schools I visit, when I tell children that they can end up doing this as their career.
Q: How do you encourage young people to get drawing?
A: Quite often I'll get teachers and students to bring in a pencil and paper when I'm doing events and we do a Tom Gates style drawing.
Children are quite amazed that their drawing looks that good and they realise that you don't have to be an expert drawer to be creative.
I also like putting young people's drawings onto my blog, and they can be quite amazed at how good their drawing looks online.
Q: What other things do you like making?
A: I do lots of making! I can get quite carried away with Fimo modelling clay and find myself making earrings and other things, I also like making paper flowers. In fact I'm happy to join in with anything my daughters are doing...
I also like gardening and right now I'm in my shed (where I do my writing) ready to throw things at squirrels that are nicking all the bulbs I've just planted. It's as if my garden has just turned into some kind of squirrel take-away!
Q: How did you get into illustrating children's books?
A: Someone saw my work and asked if I'd illustrate a picture book and I still do quite a lot of that work.
In fact the Tom Gates world started as a picture book idea. I thought it would be nice to do a kind of scrapbook, 'All About Me', with doodles and bits of text and pictures of their pets and so on.
I did some doodles and publishers liked the idea but there wasn't enough of a story for it to get published, so I wrote more of a story about a really bad summer holiday and put it into an exercise book, which people seemed to like.
The whole thing took me four or five years to finish, but with a lot of thinking time too.
People compare it to Wimpy Kid but I hadn't heard of Wimpy Kid until my agent happened to mention it. I'd like to read the books, but not until I've finished writing the Tom Gates series.
Q: How do you create the pages with the writing and doodles?
A: I hand draw all the drawings in pencil and then scan them onto my computer and then I can move them around and fit them in with the text. I even have a font that matches my handwriting, so I can type in the text, which is great.
I am always amazed by how few changes my editor and the designer make - even to the cover, which I drew out completely by hand.
Q: Is anything in your life like Tom Gates' world?
A: I have two teenager children - so yes! But I also remember things from my own childhood that I use in the stories.
When Tom is embarrassed by his dad picking him up from school in terrible clothes, for example - well that was me.
I remembered coming back to school after a week-long trip and the girl in the seat in front of me saying, 'Oh shame, who is that tramp?' and my heart sank because I just knew it would be my dad - and it was.
He had come to pick me up straight from the allotment so he was covered in mud and his trousers were tied up with a piece of string!
Q: What kind of books did you like when you were a child?
A: I can remember one of the books I liked, it was a book about a bear called Mary Plain. I remember that Mary used to write letters to her other cubs and the books had these journals and doodles which I loved.
When I am writing the Tom Gates books, I couldn't imagine having the text without the doodles and it was the same with the Mary Plain books, they fitted so well together.
I also loved drawing when I was a child - I have kept some exercise books and they are full of doodles and I have a pencil case that's covered in drawings.
Q: How many Tom Gates books will there be?
A: There will definitely be three books, one covering each term across the whole school year. I have plotted out lots of events for Tom - school photographs, the dentist, class reports and so on, and I've drawn all his classmates and given them all back stories.
I'm just finishing the third book now, Everything's Amazing (Sort Of), which will be out next autumn.
Excellent Excuses (And Other Good Stuff)
The Brilliant World of Tom Gates
