Spotlight on Matt Griffin
The author of the Ayla trilogy describes the Virtual Reality of his creation process.
My job title for the last nine years has been ‘illustrator’. It was always a dream of mine to have that title, and it was a long, oscillating, road to get it. The other title I craved, practically from infancy, was ‘author’, but rather than take the long, oscillating road to that, I filed it away in the ‘pipe dreams’ section of my brain, and kept drawing.
In fact the real dream was to combine the two – to create worlds in words and pictures, just as Tolkien had done in The Hobbit, infecting me with an overwhelming desire to do the same. Then, out of nowhere, that opportunity presented itself and I grabbed it.
In 2015, the O’Brien Press agreed to publish my debut novel, A Cage of Roots, and allowed me to contribute all of the artwork, from cover to interior illustrations to chapter headings to those little things that separate sections within chapters (technical term unknown at time of writing). They then agreed to publish the sequel, Storm Weaver, and only then, with two books to my name, did I allow myself the double-handle of author/illustrator, and it still feels strange to say it. Here is a little bit about the process of combining my two passions.
The story presents itself to me in pictures - not still images for me to illustrate, but moving ones for me to describe in the best language possible. When I talk to schools I tell the kids that it’s a bit like watching a movie, but really more like using Virtual Reality. I walk (in the real world) but I ‘see’ the story unfolding in front of me and I can pause it, rewind, look around, explore. Then I replay it so that I don’t forget, and when I get back from my walk I feverishly scribble down notes about what I saw. Then I write – that comes first.
As a professional illustrator, I’m used to working to briefs – clients give me an idea of what they’d like to see based on my previous work and the subject of their commission, and I respond to that. Sometimes the brief is very precise, and sometimes it’s vague –
these days I’m trusted to be able to come up with something on my own without too much direction (although I like working in both situations). For book interiors, I might be given an idea of what should be shown, and I then use my own intuition about how to compose that into a good picture. This intuition has been honed over the last nine years (and I’ll continue to hone it until they drag me screaming from my studio). For my own books, Emma Byrne, art director at O’Brien, and Susan Houlden, my editor/mentor/wrangler, are very open to my own ideas and I’m lucky to be allowed almost- free reign. ‘Almost’ because sometimes I might make an image that would scare the life out of an adult, let alone a young reader. So occasionally my initial ideas have to be contested. This is all done, as with every illustration commission, with roughs – loose sketches done in a notebook, or these days on an iPad. So I won’t have done too much work only to find that an image is deemed unsuitable.
16 Books for Keeps No.223 March 2017
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
