Momo's Doodle Den

Momo's Doodle Den

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Momo's Doodle Den
Momo's Doodle Den
Making of The Blue Umbrella
Making Of...

Making of The Blue Umbrella

Momoko Abe's avatar
Momoko Abe
Feb 02, 2023
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Momo's Doodle Den
Momo's Doodle Den
Making of The Blue Umbrella
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“The most magical things can happen even on the rainiest of days…”

When I received the text by Emily Ann Davison from my editor, I fell in love with it instantly. The Blue Umbrella (Andersen Press) begins when the blue umbrella mysteriously turns up at the door. The story evolves around the magical umbrella and the child who found it. She finds out the umbrella shelters everyone who needed it. In this post, I’m going to share the joy and challenges I had while illustrating this heartwarming story. 

The story is narrated in first person and there was no description of the child, not even their gender. I chose an East Asian girl for the protagonist because I had never done a book with an Asian / female protagonist before except Little People Big Dreams: Yoko Ono. I strongly believe we need more INCIDENTALLY Asian protagonists in children’s books (you can read the eye-opening CLPE Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature 2017-2022 here).

Concept artwork I sent to the publisher

Around the time I started working on this book, I was binging Stranger Things again. I particularly liked the costume and production designs in the season 3 so the 80s summer vibe had a big influence on the look of this book, particularly on the colour palette and characters' outfits. Having said that, purple and shocking pink aren't my cup of tea so I used slightly more muted colours - salmon pink, orange red, yellow, sea green and of course blue.

Pinterest colour mood board

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