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Windows into illustration: Wen Dee Tan


Wen Dee Tan’s debut picture book Lili, about a little girl who finds it hard to fit in due to the nature of her hair, has already attracted a great deal of attention. Her style lends itself to animation and movement as demonstrated by Lili with her fiery red hair and the book was longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award and is on the shortlist for the new Klaus Flugge Prize. Here she explains the thinking and ideas behind the book.


I


developed Lili as one of my projects on the MA in Children’s Book Illustration course in Cambridge School of Arts. People have asked me what inspired the idea of a flame-haired lass. I


couldn’t say, except at that time I was brainstorming ideas for the project and thought that such a character might be ‘cool’. Right on the heels of that idea, the next visual image that came to me was friends roasting marshmallows in her hair. It was one of the first few images I sketched around the idea, and it was this image that convinced me to stick with the character.


At this point, I had no story, no plot, and no ‘message’, just a character. I began sketching things that might happen to a girl with a head of fire, while considering the useful and destructive characteristics of fire. Subsequently, I had a jumble of Lili’s possible life experiences in little vignettes, and pages and pages of half-finished storyboards. I struggled with this for some time. Eventually it was during a walk back from Tesco’s one day that I had an epiphany: all the little scenes of everyday life arranged themselves into a sequence in my head which ended with the marshmallow scene. I finally had my story!


Even early on, I knew that Lili’s hair was the main focus. There was no question in my mind that it had to be monochrome images with her hair the only colour on the page. I experimented with how her hair should look, and what materials would be most suitable. When I tried oil pastel on the spread where Lili’s hair almost fills the whole frame, I knew that this was the way to go.


6 Books for Keeps No.219 July 2016


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