A sneak peek into the wonderful world of Ruby Wright, where she shares her journey with a mix of sensitivity and humour, including a collection of bonnet-wearing toads, mischievous tigers, and the occasional rhino.
How did your creative journey begin, and what inspired you to pursue a career in art?
My mum is a sculptor and my dad is a photographer and they were constantly creating, so from an early age I knew I wanted to be an artist. I glided into art school without making any sort of plan and only questioned what to do next after I graduated. I had a kind of creative and made almost nothing for a decade. It wasn't until having children enforced a break from my proper job that I found the courage to start my creative career.
Do you have a favourite book that influenced your style or inspired you to start illustrating?
When I was a kid I loved Maurice Sendak's books: In the Night Kitchen, The Sign on Rosie's Door and Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present were my favourites. Sendak is funny and strange and his work is so atmospheric and dreamlike, so when I started trying to be an illustrator I also tried to make strange and dreamy work, but it's really hard to pull off without making stuff that is super dark. What I should have taken from his work was his brilliant eye for observation, because it wasn't until I started drawing regularly from life that my visual language really started to develop.
What other influences - whether they be artistic, cultural, or personal - do you incorporate into your work?
My biggest influences now are from the world around me: my children, their school, the people and urban wildlife in our neighbourhood. I sketch a lot, especially when I go to a new place. I watch films for inspiration when I'm thinking about composition, sometimes I'll sit and watch lots of films and draw from them. All this is like building up a mental database of material which comes out later in my illustrations. Yesterday I drew a baby toad in a bonnet and it felt so familiar to me, I think I have memories of rescuing toads, holding them in my hands, and memories of my kids when they were babies and how they crawl in the same way. And I have a memory of a frog in a bonnet from these lovely old Happy Families playing cards so I think it's all about actively remembering. When I was a kid I was obsessed with adverts, particularly those stupid shouty ones for food aimed at kids. I love a bit of pop culture, I like my work to have an air of stupidity about it. Maybe one day I'll get some of the Sendak darkness in too, and that might feel like a magic combo!
What is your process for collaborating with authors to bring their stories to life visually? Do you have any favourite experiences?
Publishers like to keep authors and illustrators separate so I've mostly collaborated with authors at a distance, and then it's a case of hoping that I've done justice to their beautiful words. However I'm making a book at the moment with my partner who is a scientist. I love working with him because he'll say "what do you want to draw?" and then he'll write something that fits around it. And then I'll do some more drawing based on his words, it's an unusual way to work and a really lovely collaboration.
Are there any particular themes or topics you enjoy exploring in children's books, and if so, why do they resonate with you?
I really love to draw the everyday and the minutiae of domestic life because it's so familiar to me. And I love to try and illustrate things that are really just in the imaginations of my characters. I don't think kids distinguish so much between what's real and what's imaginary and so you can have enormous fun with that.
How do you balance keeping the illustrations playful and fun while also conveying the deeper themes or messages of the story?
I like to give my child characters emotional freedom so quite often they express sadness or frustration, and I think of my illustrations being safe places where difficult emotions can be expressed. And the adults in my books so far have been very good at understanding and holding the child's difficult emotions. So there's a framework there that I hope feels secure. So you have these difficult emotions but in warm and safe environments, and those are super fun to draw. I love drawing all the details of the home that make it feel like a happy place. I quite often put my main characters in clothes that have animals on them, and when the character is feeling worried the animals on the clothes look worried. When I was a child people said I was over sensitive. I think we've now realised that it's only ever a good thing if a little child can express their emotions, however painful they may seem.
How does your sketchbook play a role in your creative process, and do you approach sketchbook drawings differently than your finished work?
My sketchbook is the single most important part of my practice, though it looks quite different from my finished artwork. Through my sketchbook I study the world and build up that database of characters and places that I rely on when I'm sitting in my studio labouring over a book. I did make a book recently that feels much more like my sketchbook, it was mostly drawn in pencil on paper, and I loved working that way, although in practice a finished illustration is anything but spontaneous whereas a sketch is the definition of spontaneity so I had to try and cheat my brain into thinking each image didn't matter as much as it did! And it was very laborious indeed and much harder to tinker with later in photoshop!
Are your drawings primarily created from life, or do you also draw from memory and imagination?
Everything in my sketchbook comes from observing the real world, though sometimes I amalgamate two scenes or people, and sometimes add remembered elements if I think that will make the drawing more interesting. Everything I do in my studio is imagined, though I often steal things out of my sketchbook and reuse them in illustrations. And if I have to draw a dinosaur or a dolphin I'm afraid I have to glance at google images.
If you could collaborate with any fictional character for a day, who would it be and what would you create together?
When I was little my dad gave me his copy of Eloise, which was written in the ‘50s and is about an incredibly naughty and imaginative six year old who lives in the Plaza Hotel with her nanny. I would like to hang out with her in the Plaza - she knows all the staff, so we'd have special access to the kitchens and the post room, the laundry rooms, and I could do a lot of drawings while she created mayhem.
Can you share something about yourself that might surprise most people?
When I was seven I was pissed on by a tiger at a circus. It lifted its tail and did a giant piss all over me. A woman in a posh looking coat laughed and then the tiger pissed on her too. We couldn't get the smell out of my coat so it had to go on the compost heap.
See more from Ruby Wright:
Instagram: @rubywrightlino
Website: www.rubywright.com