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February 10th 2022
Award-winning illustrator Maja Kastelic talks us through his illustration journey for new book Anthony and the Gargoyle, a magical wordless story from author Jo Ellen Bogart.
It’s always exciting to get a project proposal but this particular one was special in many ways for me. It’s been the first time I was asked to illustrate a silent book from another author; it had a suspenseful title full of suspense (what is a gargoyle exactly again, I had to check); and, it’s about Paris and Notre Dame, which I love.
I immediately felt the story to be moving and magical, and this is something I always appreciate and search for in works I choose to illustrate. I saw it as a tribute to imagination, sensitivity and kindness, generosity of true friendship and, of course, an homage to the city of Paris. It felt overwhelming from the very beginning but when I began to dive deeper, I realized I needed to think really well about the book’s structure. The plot line was rich and intense, there were many crucial moments, different settings, things that needed to be shown... and I felt I needed a lot of space and many visual scenes to tell Jo Ellen’s endearing story.
So I set the narrative into a sequence of many silent quarter-page to double spread illustrations, 118 of them on 48 pages to be exact. Visually, I wished to tell it in a sort of timeless, nostalgic way and a manner that would connect all those different settings and scenes - feeling of family home, children’s play, traveling, enchanting Paris and Notre Dame views... I was inspired and technically guided by numerous online references, both photos and videos, and I spent hours of looking and sketching from it to sense and convey the feeling of a city and the cathedral (which were impossible to visit at the time due to both pandemic and the devastating fire, that being another reason to make this book a bow to beautiful Notre Dame).
When the storyboard was all set and agreed upon with my wonderful editors, I found myself contemplating the look and the technique of the illustrations. I tend to use different materials for each project in a way that I feel can support the story. There were two dead ends here because the techniques I used didn’t feel coherent throughout all the scenes, and just when I felt most desperate (and was also very late regarding the deadlines, both of which are unfortunately very common with each of my projects), a little monochrome illustration happened when playing with gouache. It seemed right somehow, so I proceeded with painting all illustrations in black and white, building space with shadow and light, which worked perfectly for the architectural parts but just as fine for all of the other scenes in the book. I also felt its grey stony look suited the story about a little stone creature really well. However, the pictures still needed some vividness and colour, and after many ruined illustrations I finally gave up the idea of layered gouache painting, so illustrations were then scanned and coloured digitally.
It was a long process and the most extensive work I’ve done for a book so far but I also learned immensely about this search for expression and about maintaining concentration. It’s priceless to hear how readers feel about the little heroes of the story, that they can sense the Anthony and the gargoyle’s tender friendship, the joy they feel with each other, understand the longing and the sacrifice done in the name of love, get the feeling of magic and the excitement of travelling we put into the book. Passing these things on through a picture book is all a book creator could ever wish for.
Anthony and the Gargoyle is out now.
