Aaron with the Yoto Carnegie Medal for illustration.
to be too vague, and my editor has to urge me to be more specific. But by being vague it opens the opportunity for different interpretations. The challenge is to not be so vague as to get lost. “The recognition of one’s efforts is a big deal. I watched all the other illustrators and thought they were all more entertaining. I don’t know how kid-friendly The Tree and The River is, so the fact that it connected with readers, I was flabbergasted. When they read my name out, I felt a chill run through my body like nothing I’d ever felt before. That was really gratifying.” The Tree and the River follows the journey of time and people in a single space. The landscape changes and develops under the touch of human hands. It was inspired by time spent living in Granada, in Spain, and draws on the history of civilisations growing, shrinking, and changing. “We lived in Granada for some time,
and I was amazed at the layers of culture, architecture that showed the evidence of different rounds of human beings – with different religions, different histories all having existed in this same location. “Every day on my walk to my studio, I’d
pass an old church that had been built on top of the foundation of a mosque, and before that, an ancient Roman ruin. It was hard to not be inspired by this idea. I wasn’t sure how to make a story of it, but once I realised that a tree could act as a silent, non-judgemental witness to all of the busy-ness of humanity, I knew I had my hook.”
Aaron formulated a narrative and created a series of sketches in 2014, explaining: “I knew that I wanted the tree to be the centre, it was a witness of seeing these things come and go. I did a
Autumn-Winter 2024
Photo © Tom Pilston
draft, and it never changed from that. “I had elements from each stage of human life, going through childhood to adulthood. I wanted it to take place over the course of the year with the different seasons and through the course of the day.”
The concept remained untouched for years as Aaron worked on other projects, but “one day I was looking through my sketch books and I saw those initial ideas and thought that there is something worth pursuing. This was around the time of the pandemic – a time when we all did a lot of reflecting.”
The Last Zookeeper is Aaron’s latest book.
When he came to translate those sketches to the page for publication, Aaron chose a method that had an underlying connection to the original inspiration. He created a 3D scene using hand crafted clay models, building and destroying for each new scene – re-using his materials and the overlaying on top of previous incarnations of the landscape. Each new scene was photographed, with lighting adjusted to reflect the time of day or a different season. Aaron then traced the new scene from the photograph and filled in the details.
PEN&INC. 5
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