Words and Pictures with Rebecca Cobb

Find out about her inspirations, how she creates her gorgeous illustrations and 'that' new Netflix Christmas film

Rebecca Cobb graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2004. She is a bestselling author and illustrator and has collaborated with the Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson, Richard Curtis and Orange Prize-winner Helen Dunmore.

Rebecca was the winner of the 2013 Waterstones Prize and has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award.

We were so excited to ask Rebecca lots of questions about her work, especially as the new animated festive film That Christmas came out on Netflix earlier this week. It was based on a book of the same name that Rebecca illustrated written by Richard Curtis - to find out all about that and where Rebecca gets her inspiration from, how she works and her advice to aspiring authors and illustrators, keep reading…

Why are words and pictures important to you?

Oh wow, I think I could write an essay about that! But to give you a short answer, words and pictures in books are the first medium that we give children for experiencing and learning about the world so they are hugely important and formative. The children’s books that I grew up reading have inspired and influenced me for the whole of my life.

How did you go from having an idea for a story to getting your first book published?

I got my first commission to illustrate a children’s book while I was at the end of my third year at university after responding to a competition. It was really helpful to have a published book in my portfolio so soon but I did not get much more children’s book work until a few years later.

I spent a long time working on improving my portfolio and sending samples of my work to publishers whenever I had something new to show. After working with local publishers Mabecron Books illustrating a picture book by Helen Dunmore, I was taken on by Helen’s agency and this was a huge turning point for me.

I showed my agent, Louise Lamont, a bereavement picture book that I had written and illustrated called ‘Missing Mummy’ and she submitted it to publishers, which led to me being taken on by Macmillan Children’s books.

Did you always want to be an illustrator/author?

As far back as I can remember I have always drawn and made things. I grew up looking at books and drawing pictures with my mum and then I started writing and illustrating little books and stapling them together.

At school I would spend more time illustrating my work than anything else, and I was occasionally told off for this! I didn’t realise until I was at college that you could make a career out of it and I feel incredibly lucky and grateful that this is what I have ended up doing.

When you write and illustrate your own books, what comes first, the words or the pictures?

It can be different with different books but usually the pictures come to me first. Sometimes there might be a few sentences that feel like they go with an image as it appears in my head but quite often the words are something that I work on afterwards.

I usually write in the first person and the fun of this is that it allows you to play around with the relationship between the words and the pictures. It is a biased version of events so the character may leave details out of the story but the illustrations can show these extra details or even contradict the text entirely, which can be funny.

Is making children's books your full time job? Has it always been your full time job or have you done any other work alongside it?

I am very lucky that I do get to make children’s books as my full time job but it took me about 7 years of working part time in shop jobs alongside my illustration work to get to the point where I could do this full time. I think that what made it possible in the end was starting to write my own picture book stories.

Do you have a work routine? If so, can you tell us about it?

I usually start the day by getting our daughters ready and off to school. We are very lucky that the walk to school is a beautiful one, across fields and along tree-lined paths, and it is often my favourite part of the day (although it can also be the most stressful too - trying to make sure that we get to school on time, haha!)

Then I work at my desk until the end of the school day. I do not have much more of a routine than that - what I work on depends on what is most urgent at the time. Usually a mixture of answering emails, updating social media, planning events, and working on my illustrations and stories.

If I do not get enough work done during the school day than I will go back to my desk in the evening after the girls have gone to bed and carry on for a few hours. I try not to work at weekends because of my family but when I have a deadline approaching I usually end up with a crazy few weeks of working every minute that I’m awake to try and get everything finished.

What are the best bits, and the hardest bits about creating children's books?

The hardest bit is to be creative under time pressure and to get the work finished on time.

The best bit is when you hear about children reading and enjoying your books which always makes the difficult bits feel worth it.

I also love the moment when you get sent a final copy of a book that you worked on several months ago and you have forgotten all about the struggles of creating the work and it just feels really exciting.

Where do you get your ideas from?

I wish I knew! I spend a long time looking for them sometimes but other times they can appear suddenly and unexpectedly.

I think that my childhood memories or the things that my children do and say are often a big part of my story inspiration. Sometimes drawing or writing without thinking can trigger story ideas because an interesting character might turn up on my paper.

The new animated festive film That Christmas comes to Netflix on 4th December. It's based on a book of the same name that you illustrated written by Richard Curtis. We'd love to know more about what it's been like having a film made of one of your books. Did you have any input into it being made? Or get to see sneak peaks before it's released?

Yes, I can’t believe it! It has been quite a few years since the idea was first talked about and I have had to try not to get my hopes up or think about it too much in case it didn’t work out. But now it is all finished and about to be released on Netflix and Ed Sheeran has written a song for it and I think it might be actually real!

There are three picture books that I worked with Richard Curtis on: THE EMPTY STOCKING, SNOW DAY and THAT CHRISTMAS, and Richard and Peter Souter, who have written the screen play, have very cleverly woven all three of these stories together for the film. To celebrate, Puffin have just re-released them as a lovely new edition of all three books bound together which is called THAT CHRISTMAS AND OTHER STORIES.

It has been really fascinating having a glimpse into the animation world and I’ve been blown away by the huge amount of skill and hard work from so many very talented people that goes into making something this big. It was so interesting to see the early character sketches and storyboards which consisted of thousands and thousands of tiny thumbnails. And I have been lucky enough to watch it at several points during the process and see it transform like magic from sketched black and white frames to fully rendered 3D colour animated scenes. And then to hear the amazing all star cast of actors’ voices gradually be added in, along with the music, was really special. The whole thing feels like alchemy to me and I can’t wait for everyone to be able to watch it!

How do you create your illustrations? On paper or a computer? Can you talk us through your process.

The first stage of illustrating a book is to draw character sketches and work out what everyone in the book will look like, by experimenting with different characters and then different outfits and colours.

Next I will draw a storyboard, which is a mini version of the whole book, in little squares on a sheet of paper. This helps to decide what will go on each page and how to divide up the story so that it reads nicely and the page turns are in good places.

I will then draw full size rough drawings of each page, and then quite often re-draw these several times after discussions with the designer and editor, and author (if it is someone else’s story rather than my own).

When all the rough drawings have been approved I create all my final artwork on paper. I use a lightbox to trace my rough drawings onto my watercolour paper. I usually draw my line with ink and then I colour it in using coloured pencils and watercolour paints.

Can you tell us what you're working on now?

I am just finishing the final illustrations for a picture book written by Sarah Crossan called ‘A Totally Big Umbrella’ which is about anxiety and the way that it can hold you back from experiencing the joy in life. I’m very excited to be illustrating Sarah’s words because I am a huge fan of her work and love the way that she writes. Also, I am quite an anxious person so I can really relate to the main character in the book.

As well as this I am also just starting on the illustrations for another story by Mariesa Dulak which I am very happy about because I loved illustrating Mariesa’s debut story ‘There’s a Tiger on the Train’ so I’m feeling very lucky to get to work with her again on another picture book!

What inspired your latest book A Wild Walk to School?

As I mentioned earlier one of my favourite parts of my day is the school run. But while I am worrying about the time pressure not to be late for school, the girls are completely oblivious to this because they get lost in elaborate and imaginative adventures along the way.

I love the way that children can create games out of anything (fallen leaves, a low wall to climb along, a bump in the road) and I’m always fascinated in the way that children view the world in comparison to adults.

Our daily walks to school seemed like a perfect example of this juxtaposition, where my priorities are very different to my children’s.

I thought it would make a funny book if I could show both points of view of this journey, which is an epic adventure full of excitement and peril for the children, while the mum is unaware of the erupting volcano/huge precipice/sleeping giant and is more worried that their uniform might get dirty and that they might be late for school!

What advice would you give someone who wants to write or illustrate their own children's book?

I think that the best way to start is to read a lot of children’s books. And then to do lots and lots of drawing and/or writing and to choose subjects that you love and really enjoy - I think my work always looks better when I have had fun with a project.

Listen to and take on board any advice or constructive criticism that you can get and don’t take it personally, but at the same time don’t follow advice you strongly disagree with - everyone has different opinions but it is your work, so you need to be happy with it.

Very importantly don’t give up. It took me a long time before I could illustrate full time and I almost gave up at one point but I am so glad that I didn’t!

You can find out more about Rebecca on her website, follow her on instagram or bluesky.

Naomi is currently offering three hours of picture book mentoring to an underrepresented writer based in the UK. You can find out more about it here and take a look at all the other submission opportunities for writers and artists this month here.