The idea of illustrating a book immediately appealed to me, and the first lines, "Did you know that all the seas in the world are connected?" instantly sparked many images in my mind. That was in May 2019.

That's how I created the first image, "Maleen Looks." That was the beginning of a project that would keep us, May Evers, the author, and me, busy for the next year. Making such a book is tricky. You have a rough idea of what the whole thing might look like. Then the text changes, and the images are adjusted. Or vice versa. New ideas come into play, changing the scope. Yes, and then the format too. And suddenly, the text no longer fits the image. Or the figure in the image is not in the right position, raising the question: which scenes need an image at all? And then: Should the image span across the double-page, or will it be a small image in a box? Suddenly, there were pages with too much text, real blocks of lead... and others with only a few words. In short: it was a long process, one we couldn't fully anticipate beforehand! For the next book, we'll definitely know how to do it (better) and, ideally, make a plan from the beginning that we stick to. (Difficult when two creatives come together)

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The biggest challenge for me as an illustrator was to bring a consistent style to all the different drafts. The more time passed, the more the drafts varied, and I wondered how we could make them all "uniform." I decided on a collage technique and the dominant color blue. It's my favorite color, and since the sea plays a big role in the story, it was a perfect fit. With the collages, the illustrations could be rearranged over and over. Many of the images are spread across double pages to fully showcase them, and hopefully, the text fits elegantly into the gaps!

Until the very end, the text was refined, and creativity could unfold until the last day. It was only shortly before printing that the decision was made to make the first image of the book also the last image in the story. Thus, you see the blue planet from the first page appear again at the end of the story, this time in red, the color of love.

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It is now finished. The book. But I believe we could keep working on it forever! It was a lot of fun, and the next idea is already waiting in our heads... Ingrid Hauff Painting

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