A book I illustrated and I'm very excited about is coming out on the 5th October. It’s Little People, Big Dreams: Yoko Ono (Frances Lincoln 2021). In this post, I will share some of the artwork from the book and the inspirations behind them.
If you like picture books, I bet you have heard of Little People, Big Dreams. LPBD is a series of biography picture books for young readers created and written by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara. What makes the bestselling series extra unique is the use of a wide range of illustrators and I've been a big fan of the series. So, when my agent told me that Cuarto (FL is their imprint) and Maria wanted me to illustrate one of the LPBD books, it was a no-brainer. I said yes.
When I found out that the subject was Yoko Ono, my feeling was rather neutral. I was excited because she was a big name, but, apart from our nationality and similar long black hair, I didn’t particularly feel a strong connection to her. To be honest, I knew she was some sort of conceptual artist and a wife of John Lennon but that’s about it. Basically I hardly knew anything about her, but maybe that’s why this project became so interesting.
Along with the text, Maria gave me many visual references and quite specific suggestions for each spread. However, I felt I needed to do my own research in order to do justice to the story of a real person. My research mainly involved reading and watching Ms Ono's interviews as well as articles on her exhibitions and biography. I came across a documentary film, John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (Michael Epstein 2018), and I found it particularly inspiring.
JAPAN
The one thing I didn't need much research was the Japanese details of the first four spreads. I just used my own experience and knowledge. For example, I couldn't find any interior picture of Ono's childhood homes, but I imagined how they had been, based on my grandparents' homes and places I've seen to in Japan. Since I'm Japanese, I wanted to bring some authenticity to this book, and I really enjoyed drawing these spreads. They made me homesick!