Clever Chameleon - Barefoot Books 2005
Book summary
Clever Chameleon is my first picture book, which I wrote and illustrated. The story follows Elephant as he tries to find his friends as they play a game of hide and seek - but he finds this tricky as the animals are cleverly camouflaged! Published by Barefoot Books in September 2005, and also as a Korean edition.
Story development
The idea for Clever Chameleon was inspired by a combination of 2 projects on which I was working during the 3rd year of my BA (hons) Degree studies in Design: Illustration. The first project was themed Secrets & Magic (a project set by the university) and the other was my self-directed study towards my dissertation research on Wildlife Art & Conservation. Clever Chameleon evolved from these two themes - as I began to think about the secret disguises which creatures use in the wild to hide and blend into their surroundings alongside the wildlife art and conservation issues which I was researching.
Alongside creating artwork based on these projects, I began to write little poems about the unique camouflages of different animals. I have always enjoyed writing poetry, and find it the way of writing which feels most natural to me. In all, I worked on the story over a total timescale of about 18months to 2years. With Clever Chameleon, the idea of the animals playing hide-and-seek finally linked the poems together within a storyline that I felt young children would enjoy, and I worked closely with Barefoot Books before arriving at the final text. As with almost all my writing, an educational theme often inspires an idea, as my own growing interest in animals and the environment filter into my work.
Creating characters
To develop the main characters of the story I used photographic reference and video footage, gathered reference at Chester Zoo, and my imagination of course!
Artwork
My finished artwork is generally mixed media. I have always enjoyed working with different materials and like to use a variety of working methods to create my illustrations.
My first book in print!
Clever Chameleon was published in autumn 2005 in the UK and America. Later, a Korean edition was published too.
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