News / Arts
Children’s illustrator grows big ideas in a local backyard
Coburg artist has gone from animation to illustrating books
Poppy Searle
COBURG-based artist Laura Stitzel draws on her local neighbourhood when she brings stories to life through her intricate and thoughtful illustrations.
Her latest project, The Big Backyard Plan, is a children’s book written by Kirsten Ealand, and it explores sustainability and community through her bright, detailed images.
The Big Backyard Plan follows Azumi, Theo, Bree and Jack, four kids whose families live in neighbouring houses. The best friends want to knock down their fences so they can all share one big backyard. They just have to convince their families.
Stitzel began her career in animation, and has worked in the television industry for over 15 years, creating background art and character animation for Emmy award winning shows like Arthur, Peg + Cat, Space Chickens in Space and Ginger Snaps. She illustrated her first book, The Adventures of Catvinkle, eight years ago and has illustrated another seven books, and written two picture books of her own.
Stitzel spent four months working on the illustrations for The Big Backyard Plan. She began with sketching rough illustrations digitally and then used a combination of pencil and watercolour for the final artworks.
She says it was tricky to get the perspective right for the houses and backyard so to accurately depict them, Stitzel built miniature models of the home out of cardboard and paper straws. Through taking thousands of photographs and making adjustments to the miniatures, Stitzel was able to perfect the angles and details, bringing the interactions between the book’s characters and their environment to life.
Stitzel began the process with drawing the families. She had plenty of artistic liberties about the appearance of the families and their backgrounds up to interpretation.
Stitzel wanted the four children to be from diverse families.
“Theo has a younger sister. Zoomy has two dads. Bree is from a single parent household, and Jack is from a multi-generational household,” she said.
Once she had the families, she was able to imagine their houses and gardens.
“I was able to design their backyards and their houses according to what I thought was suitable for their family.”
She drew inspiration from local houses and gardens around Coburg.
Stitzel wanted to show how the garden changed and grew as the families and their backyards became more interconnected.
“I think that a nice way to show that sustainability is working is when wildlife is making its way into a space”.
Plants continue to grow throughout the story, and get bigger as the backyards become one, and Stitzel added more butterflies and bees and native birds to show how the garden was thriving.
“I love to add in little animals wherever I can. I think that’s a really fun thing for kids to find in the book – and the kind of thing that you maybe don’t notice on the first read.”
Stitzel has found her own shared community in the apartment building where she lives.
“I do have some friends in the building, and we’re communal in a way. We help each other look after our gardens and our pets.”
She extended her search for community by working on the book in a coworking space in Brunswick.
“I do love working in a communal space. It is lovely to share ideas with fellow artists and have some encouragement as you’re working illustrating.”
The Big Backyard Plan is published by Affirm and is in stock at bookshops including Brunswick Bound.
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