The Week Junior Book Awards - Shorlist

 Today I was excited to discover that Wee Unicorn has been shortlisted for The Week Junior Book Awards 2024 in the picture book category.

Very exciting

I'm in very good company too.  I admire so many of the other authors and illustrators. Here's the short list:

You can see the full shortlist for every category by clicking here. 

Wee Unicorn is available wherever you buy your books. Hopefully a lovely local indie bookshop. But if you don't have a local bookshop then you can buy it here.

Wee Unicorn - Colour Palette

As someone who loves printmaking I have always been a fan of the limited colour palette. My previous books have all featured items in whatever colour they needed to be but Wee Unicorn is different. I knew I was making a fantastical world and decided that would be the perfect environment to use heightened colour.

In the months prior to making the book I'd been doing a lot of sketching using only two or three coloured pencils. I was used to working in a limited way, and I loved the challenges it created.

I had one other reason: I knew my book was going to feature a Loch Ness monster style creature. Now, I live in the heart of Loch Ness monster country and there's a very distinctive colour I associate with it and many of the books about it. You can see it right in the middle of this Emily Mackenzie poster. Four rows down, four across: she calls it 'Nessie'.  

I wanted to avoid this colour. I wanted to make something contemporary and visually different so I decided to get rid of the green. Of course, I can create a green with my blue and yellow but I wanted to use it sparingly and definitely not for Ness. I also started sketching ideas for the book over winter when many of the greens were gone. We have so many burnt oranges, deep burgundies and purples in our landscape that I wanted to celebrate. When I started sketching the book I used these four colours.  

A peek in the sketchbook

And I really liked them. When it came time to make the artwork for the book I did wonder if they'd be too overwhelming so I did a test page. This is a quick test on my Ipad to see how the blocks of colour might look.

Next I did a proper layout with the textures I was planning on using.

 

The larger image are the colours I ended up using. The smaller was an alternative I explored. As you can see they're incredibly similar but the turquoise was a little bluer, the pink a little brighter. And although these shades worked nicely, the secondary colours they created weren't as good.

These are my four final colours.

I used these four colours and layered them to make the secondary colours. If you imagine each colour is a layer of coloured glass it makes more sense to understand that when two of them overlap a new colour is created.  

You get even more variation when you start layering three or four of the colours together.  Here are a few different combinations from the book.

I like that the cover ended up being a nod to the colour palette.

I'm really pleased with the way the book turned out, and I really enjoyed working this way.  I'd love to do a book with only two colours someday.

Wee Unicorn is available to buy now. Click here for links.

Or you can look for it at your local library.

Wee Unicorn - Character Design

The weird thing about living in Scotland is that there are unicorns everywhere.  On flags, as statues, and on coats of arms, but after a while you stop noticing them.  They're our national animal.  Here are a few of the Inverness unicorns.

Before I wrote Wee Unicorn I hadn't given them a lot of thought.  And I'd unfairly been a little dismissive of them lately.  There seemed to be unicorns everywhere. 

Normally when I write a book I come up with the character first.  For Wee Unicorn I'd been discussing Scottish folklore ideas and creatures with my editor and so I didn't actually have a character yet.  The first challenge for me was to see if I could draw a unicorn (at all!) but, more importantly, one that felt like mine.

My immediate worry was that unicorns are horses, and wise illustrators know to avoid these because horses are hard to draw.  But all of my main characters are very young, they're the equivalent age of the child reading the book, so they're often small too.  Lesson one: small horses are easier to draw than tall ones.  Manes are harder to draw than you'd expect.  These are the first sketches I did. 

It's hard to describe what I'm looking for when I do these.  I'm obviously looking at things like face shape and proportion, trying to make the most appealing version I can, but I'm also looking for personality.  A drawing that is not just a drawing but that has a little bit of life in it: a character.  It's one of those know it when you see it sort of things.

You can see I'm experimenting with textures, the mane, the first inkling of a scarf, and I'm adding little bits of information that will eventually make up the story.  I don't really know anything about character design but I always draw mine in different moods and situations.  My character design always ends up being how I figure out what the book is about.

Here I've moved on to playing with colour and working out what a Wee Unicorn might actually do all day.  There were many things to consider.  Does my character use their hooves like hands?  Walk on hind legs?  I wanted her to be essentially horse-like, but that does limit what the character can do, especially one so small.  I kept hearing talk of unicorns being magic but it made no sense to me.  I didn't understand how they were magic, what their powers were or why.  Funnily enough, this became my way into the book.  I decided to write about a unicorn who was very small, loud and not magic, even though everyone expected her to be.  I wanted her everyday qualities, ones that were taken for granted, to be what was truly magical about her.  Once you know who your character is they are easier to write about.

Even though I'm experimenting with markings you can she's almost the Wee Unicorn from the book.

I knew my backgrounds were going to be very vibrant so I wasn't too worried about Wee Unicorn being pure white.  I thought she'd stand out nicely but I did want to give her a little something.  I thought a scarf would be a nice detail.  You get a lot of movement in a scarf if your character is running or the wind is blowing.  It's a nice pop of colour and it's cold in the highlands too.

I wanted to keep it traditional looking so I made my version of a Fair Isle knit.  I chose the crown as a motif because unicorns are seen with a crown around their necks on the coat of arms.  I wanted to add a little nod to that.

Wee Unicorn is published by Hachette Children's Books and is available to pre-order now.

Please support your local bookshop or an online indie if you can.

Here are a few places you can buy it CLICK HERE