Pathways Year 2 Round-up

We did it! The 2023-24 cohort has just finished their second and final year of our Pathways Into Children's Publishing programme.

It's been a year so full of incredible experiences from meeting and getting to know our mentors to working with publishers to illustrate stories written by some of the best in the industry.

We had far fewer workshops, classes and info sessions to allow space to work on our last literature brief (it was big one!), we also worked through the ups and downs that came with the very sad news that Pathways would not be able to continue on, following our programme.

It's been a busy year but after everything, our cohort rallied together to raise funds, supported by so many fantastically generous and supportive people to hold an exhibition of our final projects at London Book Fair!

Looking back to January 2024, I was ready to go for another year of Pathways and couldn't wait to meet my mentor and start literature brief 5, but first we had some workshops and classes to finish off.

Creative Phase 5

The programme started in January with Creative Phase 5, our last few workshops and classes to finish off the programme. This was a book cover illustration class, we had to sketch out VERY quick ideas based on a story about vines taking over a city - The Wildvine Chronicles.

Mentor

We were on the edge of our seats waiting to see who our mentors for the year would be. I was beyond excited to hear that I would be mentored by the amazing David Roberts!

I remember being a little nervous for our first meeting, I'd heard him on Steven Lenton's podcast - Studio Mate Steve, and have obviously been a fan of all of his work for years, so it was the opposite of what they say about meeting your heroes when he turned out to be incredibly kind, so very generous with his time, expertise and advice.

He helped me work through my literature brief 5 project and was so supportive while I navigated that challenge as well as the juggle of simultaneously working on a very exciting commissioned project at the same time.

He was open, honest and could not have been more friendly and approachable. I feel very lucky to have had such a wonderfully warm welcome to the children's publishing industry, I have heard multiple times over the course of the Pathways programme and generally in the world of children's books that it is the friendliest, most supportive industry, but meeting and being mentored by David, I realised it really was.

Literature Brief 5 - Walker Books

We were asked to choose one story for an audience that we felt resonated with ourselves and the kind of work that we wanted to make. We were then given the opportunity to choose an additional story to illustrate, though it wasn't compulsory to work on two projects.

I initially chose Spread the Word by Smriti Halls and afterwards, The Thingamabob by Polly Ho-Yen as my additional project. Though shortly after doing this I received the very exciting news that I'd won the commissioned project that was something I was really hoping for. It did mean though that as much as I wanted to illustrate a chapter book as well as a picture book and the commissioned project, I would have to be realistic and drop one and it made sense at the time for that one to be my choice of second, additonal project, The Thingamabob by Polly Ho-Yen.

Which meant I had Spread the Word by Smirti Halls to focus on for Pathways. I would be working with the incredible team at Walker Books who would be reviewing our projects at each stage - rough, linework and colour, assisted throughout the project at seperate meetings by our mentors.

I started by creating some very rough, free sketches of character ideas, some greenery and plant life.

Then moved on to developing the sketches into characters.

Deliverable 1

Once I knew who the characters were I started thinking about how they would move through the story, page turns and what each spread might look like working with the text. I sketched out a rough thumbnail layout and some cover ideas.

I spoke to David to get some feedback on these before sending them off and when I was happy with where they were at, they were sent off to Walker as 'Deliverable 1'. We had a Zoom call with feedback on the progress of our projects, the Walker team were supportive, encouraging and re-energised me at every stage of the process. I went back to the drawing board armed with helpful feedback, advice and enthusiasm about my work!

Deliverable 2

I progressed to line work and colour roughs, by starting to draw up the first iteration of the entire book. I sketched out some rough work, developed the linework following the Walker team and David's feedback and was ready to send off 'Deliverable 2'.

Deliverable 3

Finally after another round of fantastic feedback and advice from the Walker team and David, I moved on to the colour artwork and got ready for the final submission; deliverable 3. We were asked to submit only four of the spreads and the cover in colour.

We were given some final written feedback from the Walker team after our literature brief 5 work was complete, it was such a great experience working with them and I couldn't have asked for a better mentor, team or project to end my Pathways programme.

It has been a very busy, exciting year full of professional and creative development, I am so grateful to everyone at Pathways for creating so many opportunities to speak to and work with so many incredible publishing professionals, to the 23-24 cohort of incredibly talented Pathways illustrators, to the Walker team and my mentor, David for their patience, support, encouragement and enthusiasm about my work.

Over the course of 2024 with Pathways, this year's cohort has completed:

• Professional development workshops and classes

• Completed literature brief 5 - illustrating a book to completion, four colour spreads and a colour cover

• Working with a publisher to complete a book project

• Working with a one-to-one mentor

The Pathways programme has been an incredible opportunity and has been such an exciting foot in the door to the children's publishing industry. I am so grateful for the experiences, opportunities and people I've met over the last two years.

We finished the programme with an exhibition of our literature brief 5 work at London Book Fair, it was an amazing few days, you can read more about it here.