Ana Juan, illus­tra­tor of the unique children’s book Girl Who Cir­cum­nav­i­gated Fairy­land in a Ship of her Own Mak­ing by Cath­erynne M. Valente, is join­ing us on Cover Cor­ner today to tell us a lit­tle bit about her work.

You’re work has quite a dark, almost creepy atmos­phere to it, which I love. Do you try to tone that down when work­ing on children’s book projects, or do you find kids love that?

I am not ton­ing down  my art work, in fact , I have the feel­ing than I am ton­ing up lit­tle by lit­tle my work for chil­dren books…

How did you get into illustration?

I am an illus­tra­tor and I am sure than I’ve been an illus­tra­tor since I was a kid and I dis­cov­ered the magic world of books. An illus­tra­tor has to work as a wiz­ard, catch­ing the read­ers to bring them into a world where they can sleep awake. Dur­ing my pro­fes­sional life, I’ve learned how to walk on the edge of the line between the real­ity and the dreams. This line is so thin that often both worlds can get confused .

Is nar­ra­tive illus­tra­tion some­thing you espe­cially enjoy?

I love sto­ries and I love to tell them with images.

What chal­lenges did you face when illus­trat­ing the book?

First at all, to catch the atmos­phere, them and most impor­tant point, is not to explain once again the text, instead to recre­ated it and give another view over.

Did you have any con­tact with the author?

Usu­ally, author and illus­tra­tor they have no con­tact dur­ing the process of illus­trat­ing a book. I got some com­ments from the author but always via the editorial.

Were you given free reign on the illus­tra­tions or did you have a spe­cific guide­line to work to? (Did you get to read the book before hand?)

Of course, I am read­ing the man­u­script and some times more than once. From when you receiv­ing the text and to the final result the work process is very long and for some­one so impa­tient like me, it’s not easy. From the first read­ing of the man­u­script, to hold­ing the pub­lished book in my hands, usu­ally it can take more than two years.

Can you tell us a bit about your cre­ative process? What inspires you? How do you get your ideas down?

I stud­ied Fine Arts before and I have been very inter­ested about the his­tory of art. Old mas­ters of the Renais­sance and Flem­ish painters, like Veer­mer Cha­gall and  a lot of other artists. The cin­ema, books and pho­tog­ra­phy too …THE LIFE in fact.

Did you have a favourite char­ac­ter to draw?

Every­one of them has a spe­cial char­ac­ter and I am always delighted to see them grow­ing up.

Were there any artists/stories that you drew inspi­ra­tion from while work­ing on Girl Who Circumnavigated?

I can’t remem­ber any spe­cific influ­ence on source of inspi­ra­tion. I just tried to get the atmos­phere of old illus­trated books.

What do you think illus­tra­tions (in gen­eral) bring to a book?

Soul and magic

If you want to see more of Ana’s work, check out her web­site, where you can see more videos for sev­eral of the books she has worked on.

A big thank you to Ana for agree­ing to a short Q&A about her work.