November/December 2002 Vol. 34, no. 6

The World in One Picture

Daniel St-Hilaire, Research and Information Services

The following is an interview with Marie-Louise Gay, the illustrator who created the images for The Fun of Reading.

Marie-Louise Gay, you studied at the Institut des arts graphiques de Montréal and at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. With a background like this, why did you choose to illustrate the world of childhood?

At first, it was not my true intention to illustrate children’s books. That idea came to me a little later. While I was still a student, I started creating comic strips and editorial illustrations for several magazines. Things suddenly clicked after I came back from San Francisco and was offered, completely out of the blue, the opportunity to illustrate a children's book. It was a revelation. But it took me many years to finally decide to devote myself entirely to this new passion, which is now part of my creative process.

I was amazed to learn that it wasn’t until your teens that you started sketching seriously. How do you explain such a late desire to draw?

As a child, it was reading that interested me most. I had no particular talent or interest in drawing. In fact, my lack of talent was obvious in my visual arts classes, and I had to constantly redo my drawings. At around 16, I started doodling in the margins of my notebooks during classes. My doodles grew through boredom into unconventional drawings, which gradually expanded to fill entire pages. Then, following my mother's advice, I decided to carry on with my studies at the Institut des arts graphiques.

You have also written and created plays. What place does illustration take in your dramatic works? Do you also draw the characters, the settings, like in your books?

It is very different. Illustrations complement my dramatic work. The text takes the most important place. I use illustration to help me create my characters and their surroundings, to see them moving as three-dimensional actors. Illustration gives a physical dimension to my text. I draw all settings, costumes and puppets. Craftsmen build them later.

You kindly agreed to illustrate the poster for The Fun of Reading: International Forum on Canadian Children's Literature, which will be held in June 2003 in Ottawa. Tell us about this beautiful illustration.

I wanted to create a happy, contemporary and vibrant picture. Since the poster addresses mainly an adult public who works with children, it had to evoke the fun of reading for both audiences. It had to contain fantasy, humour and well-developed characters in a dream-like and magical atmosphere that opens doors to imagination.

Each illustration bears its own signature. The illustration for the International Forum on Canadian Children's Literature shows children reading while seated at the base of a castle made of books carefully stacked up one on top of the other. It is true that these children look like the characters from my books. For the Forum, I wanted to draw an illustration addressing everybody, not just children. I did not want to tell a story like I do when I illustrate a book; instead, I wanted to reproduce a particular atmosphere, allowing the imagination to travel.

Does drawing a poster require a different approach from illustrating a book?

When I create an illustration for a poster, I work with a single picture. I do not need to make characters move through a story and therefore ensure a continuity of style, evolution of characters, or technique. My challenge is very different: I have to start a story and give free rein to the imagination of the person looking at the poster. I take pleasure in lingering over details, laying trails, evoking possibilities, until the illustration takes on a new dimension, an unexpected poetic force. It is the freedom to create a whole world in one single picture.

As we look at your illustrations, especially the one for the Forum, we can see that, for you, the essence is in the details. We are surprised and delighted to discover little details that had at first escaped us. When do you decide that the illustration is finished?

It is a very interesting question. I must confess that I have wasted many illustrations in the past, precisely because I did not know when to stop. It is difficult to find the decisive moment when you know it is time to stop. Every illustration is different, and my work consists in finding that delicate balance between the central element and the details I add to it.

Sometimes, before adding new elements, I draw details on pieces of paper: a rabbit, a snail, a striped sock. Then I put them on the illustration, like in a game. If I like the result, then I include it in the illustration.

You won't always notice it, but there is a lot of work in my drawings, I use several media, such as water colour, pastels, wood pencils, ink and, lately, collages. My collages, made with Japanese paper, add another dimension to my illustration.

During the Forum, you will participate in a roundtable about the place and originality of Canadian illustration in the world. Why do you want to discuss that particular theme?

What puzzles me is how we can define the nationality of a style of illustration. We easily recognize the difference between a Japanese and a Polish illustration, between an African and an Inuit work. Every country produces artists obviously influenced and inspired by the history, geography, artisan traditions, artistic, cultural and socio-economic trends of their respective countries, and also a mixture of universal artistic trends. How do we define the originality, the unique nature of Canadian illustration? And, as a matter of fact, how can we explain the striking difference between an illustration created in Quebec from another one created in the rest of Canada?