Why haven’t I seen any fair demons? : Illustrator

Who will give a children’s book illustrator a job?
You (said disdainfully),  are not supposed to look for a job. It is a profession, you are a professional, and all that you are supposed to do is ‘offer your services’. You do not do a job, you get an assignment. Yes, there are publications and they need illustrators, but look at some of those in-house illustrators with regular jobs churning out the same kind of illustrations day in and day out. It’s better to not get into this profession keeping a  nine-to-five routine in mind. Sometimes you might get an assignment from a newspaper, an ad agency, the government of India and various ministries, and sometimes you will have to illustrate for children. All this makes the profession more interesting. You have no time to develop a set formula. You have to start from scratch each time you get something new to do, thinking of new ways to communicate with your audience.

Can any artist become a children’s book illustrator?
Ask some big author if he or she would like to write for children. Some might say no while others might fail miserably. That’s the case with children’s illustrations. It is a highly specialised area. You have to first know how to draw and paint, learn to communicate in the language (of art) itself. You have to understand forms, colours, textures — what kind of feeling you want to communicate and if the representation is proper or not.

Also, you have to create something that children would love to see. If a child gets scared of something you have drawn and shuts the book, then you are a failure. An illustrator has to be careful about what he is drawing. He is giving something to a person who is about to grow and will grow with all the things you give him. If you give poison that tree will be poisonous. If you give nectar the tree will grow with a lot of goodness in it. The artist should, as far as possible, try to accentuate the inner beauty in the macabre, make it more human. Don’t make a child develop a hatred for something. Now look at poor Surpanakha (in Ramayana). She might have genuinely fallen in love with Laxman, but what does he do? He goes and cuts off her nose. And why? Because she is portrayed as ugly, dark… There is colour discrimination. I certainly don’t remember having seen a fair demon.

The challenges?
Publishers should return our original work and we should hold the copyright to our work. There are no royalty statements. Often, they don’t give us our dues. Unless they make it a lucrative profession, the best talent won’t come.