Puisín

Laura De Burca recently talked to SCAMP about her latest children’s book, Puisín.
Puisín is a storybook for kids aged 6+. It is based on the pet cat who belonged to Sadb, the author. He sadly died on Christmas Eve (he was a fluffy 17 years old). I worked on the illustrations for maybe two years in stints. Between us both, work and other projects slowed the process.

Sadb is my oldest friend, so the communications were fluid between her and I, in regard to ideas and styles.

We did another book together called Cleití Órga a couple of years previous (published by Coiscéim) about a small bird named Peadar, who makes a cameo appearance in Puisín! This book I found much easier to illustrate, as all the images were imagined, but with Puisín there was the need to achieve a likeness, so as not to do the beloved family pet an injustice!

They were all done with polychromo pencils, inks, watercolours and some collage work, on squares of smooth heavy paper. I would always have a few on the go at one time. The text describes a very active and mischievous cat, but Pangur was very docile and sleepy in reality, like most of his ilk. It helped to have the cat
stay with me, which he did for two weeks when Sadb’s family went on holiday. I tried coaxing him into dynamic poses with pieces of bacon. I had a low success rate! but he was lovely to draw, still as he was.

A child reviewed Puisín on The Late Late Toy Show this year, which was fun. The boy was a little hyper, but very cute. He caught a glimpse of himself on the monitor, and, like all children on that show, got stage-fright. So it could have gone better! He did say he liked it, and managed to utter that Mí mí was the name of the other cat (Sadb’s neighbours moggy).

Pusinín is a hardback, it has 16 illustrations and costs only €12. Both of Laura’s books are available at www.litríocht.com
‘Puisín’- Leabhar Breac ISBN 0 898332 275 & ‘Cleití Órga’ – Coiscéim 2004-24

You can see more of her work on flickr

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Illustration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.