Well, after Elena Pavlova, I couldn't help but share, even though it always seemed a little schizophrenic to me to do an interview myself, but like a true owl at night and a lark during the day, this is how "Wild Animals of the City" came into being.
Milena Radeva tells…
The background: I live in a house near Sofia, it borders (as we used to say in geography) with a beautiful forest to the north, a lush meadow to the east and a neighbor with chickens to the west. When I was little, I spent every Saturday and Sunday here, and the summers were endless. I hunted butterflies, chased beetles, jumped after grasshoppers and dreamed of having a squirrel as a pet. I watched them go along the “squirrel highway” from the forest to the walnut tree and back and I didn’t even realize that I didn’t have them, but they had me, because I lived in their house.
The idea: The idea came from the incredible Elena Pavlova, who called me late one Friday afternoon and said “Do you like illustrating animals?” But how could I not, I have always dreamed of making a determinative, drawing birds and bugs, searching, learning, reading about animals. “I want to!” I said, and a few months later I received a manuscript that I had no idea how much I would be happy with. And there it was! It came to life.
The stories: The stories came to life on their own as I drew each whisker, tail, wing and foot. And it wasn’t just about animals, but about the stories that each one told about itself and shared with Elena, with me… with you – its reader. The stories are actually theirs – of the three mice, the nine turtles, the three foxes, all of them, who sometimes have no one to listen, no one to help them, and they can’t go to the doctor themselves, nor say “my foot hurts” or “my wing hurts”. Sometimes we are the ones who have to stop and listen to their stories, because these are the “Wild Animals of the City”.
How to illustrate a book: Brush by brush and spot by spot. Slowly. It is very important to read the text first. Many times. You read slowly. You read quickly. You think, remember, write down, imagine it, experience the book and then read it again. Because you are indebted to the story, to its author and to yourself as its illustrator. You are careful. If it says five, you do not draw three. If it says blue – you do not draw pink. You check that you are not making something up, that you are not drawing an animal, a place, a story that does not exist. You breathe with every stroke of the brush, because every whisker on the muzzle, every hair on the tail and every feather on the wing are important.
You never like the final result, but there is a moment when you have to say to yourself “The end! It is done!” and this drawing takes on a life of its own in the book, and then in the children’s hands and minds, and we all remember it in different ways.
What happens after the drawing: Each illustration finds its text and together they become a whole on the page. After the paging, the book goes to print and then to the stores, and in the end you lose track of it. Sometimes it meets you in unexpected places – in the bookstore, while you are looking for another book, on the playground, while some child is showing it to his friends, in the library – while you are waiting for the librarian to bring you some album by a great artist. After the drawing, only good things follow about the book, and the illustrator… he starts the next book – “Wild Animals of the City 2”.
You can order the book from our online store – https://shop.bulgarian-illustration.com/
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