Kate Leiper brings a world of imagination to John O’Groats Book Festival
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A FAMOUS illustrator will invite Caithness adults and children to let their imagination run wild as she explains her work in the land of myths, fairy stories and legends.
Kate Leiper brings books to life with her brightly coloured artwork and intricate detail.
Her work has been published in numerous books, including illustrated treasuries of Scottish mythical creatures and of Scottish folk and fairy tales, both written by Theresa Breslin.
Leiper also works as a fine artist and regularly exhibits her work.
She will visit Caithness as one of the guests of the John O’Groats Book Festival in April.
The Edinburgh-based illustrator, originally from Lossiemouth, has since she was a little girl drawn everything around her.
In Caithness she will hold various workshops, including one on selkie stories for all ages. Selkies are magical seals that can remove their skins and take on human form.
The event at Lyth Arts Centre will look at seals and the tradition of selkie stories.
Leiper will also visit Canisbay and Castletown primaries. In one of the sessions she will team up with renowned Scots writer James Robertson, having worked with him in the past on their book The Book of The Howlat, about a young owl.
She said: “We will speak a bit about James and where he gets his ideas for writing and where mine come from for drawing. We’ll also do a bit about the Scots language and a little quiz naming birds with their Scots names.”
At Castletown primary, Leiper will do a workshop looking at character development called "How to draw your own dragon".
She said: “It’s not just about how the dragon looks but ways to make it look really big. Is it scary, is it mean or friendly, and where does it live? I’ll look at what you can do to show that in the drawing.”
Leiper is now working on the illustrations for the third book in the Treasury series.
The first two looked at mysterious selkies, bad-tempered giants, devious fairies, slithering stoorworms, mischievous brownies, fierce kelpies and even Nessie.
She said: “As a child I loved to pore over every detail of an illustration, finding a point at which I felt that I could almost step into the page.
“The first time I read a text is very important to me as it's while I'm interpreting the words that the seeds of an image begin to form in my mind and I gauge the overall atmosphere of the story.”
Leiper works mainly with pastels, ink and acrylic paint on cotton rag paper.
“I’m really looking forward to visiting Caithness," she said. "One of the things I really enjoy is doing workshops and visiting different places.”
John O’Groats Book Festival runs from April 5 to 7, featuring famous names in the book world as well as showcasing the work of local authors.
