Can we talk about your character Kitty?
The character “Kitty” is representative of me. She is my alter ego, and I strongly identify with her.
When I decided to write and illustrate a children’s picture book, it seemed natural to me to create and build my character on my alternate self.
Kitty as a character was a matter of simply drawing on my own quirks and complexities, and then artistically embellishing them.
The character Kitty has oblique similarities to me in terms of physicality, psychology, behaviour, and thought, and embellishing her was a lot of fun.
Kitty has
- a long body (although not tall, I’m very uncoordinated in life and often think of melf as all arms and legs!)
- pink hair (I wish I had pink hair and own some pink wigs!)
- big emerald green eyes (mine are brown but I wear green contact lenses!)
- always wears a tutu and sporting leopard print somewhere (I don’t always!)
- loves hats, especially her leopard hat (it’s true, I love that hat!)
I had a visual depiction of Kitty in mind and went about recreating this image on my canvas. I did this by photocopying two of my artworks, using the face from one and the body from the other, bringing them together using an art montage technique.
Kitty’s image needed to be one I could confidently and consistently recreate on each page she appeared on. Her body needed to be one that I could easily and artistically manipulate.
A neutral expression was for two reasons. I felt that a face with no obvious facial expression would provide opportunities for children to discuss, explore, respond to and understand emotions, both their own, and others. I also didn’t want to have to work on Kitty’s facial expressions every time. I wasn’t sure I could manage that artistically.
And that is how Kitty, one of two key characters in my story, came into being. Kitty is Karyn’s alter ego, and Karyn is me and I have anxiety.