Since the release of Mr Darcy The Cat and The Matariki Glow, I’ve been overwhelmed by questions about the illustrations! As a picture book illustrator, I take this as one of the greatest compliments that people are so enamoured by the art, and curious about my process. So, let’s talk about it… Not how long it takes to illustrate a picture book, how much it costs, or what I use to create the art (it’s Procreate for iPad, but I can tell you more about that another time). I want to share with you how I pour my heart and soul into every book I illustrate, and how that translated into the final artwork for this book.
The first thing you have to know is that I illustrated a book at the beginning of 2023, and this book was the first step to creating Mr Darcy’s book, even though I didn’t know it at the time. This book was a memorial book, a way for the author to share memories of her late husband with her growing family. My client had the wonderful idea to include a tūī on each page, as the bird symbolised a special connection to her children’s father for the whole family.
We explored this symbolism throughout the book, tūīs flew in the sky, kept watch from the trees, and even appeared in the forms of clouds, shadows, reflections and tattoos. A more wholesome version of Where’s Wally? if you like.
So, fast forward a little and Dr Janice Belgrave shared with me the most beautiful story of her cat, Mr Darcy, falling asleep under the glow of the Matariki stars and learning all about how other cultures around the world had viewed the star cluster. I remember reading it and thinking, Please let me illustrate this! As a bit of a crazy cat lady at heart, it was extra special, but really, the story itself swept me away and my mind was racing with ideas for months before we officially began the process of bringing Mr Darcy’s magical story to life.
If you’ve read the book already, you know the story, but if you haven’t, here’s the gist (put much less eloquently than Janice puts it), Mr Darcy is drawn out of his house one night by the glow of the sky, he falls asleep under the stars and dreams of far-off lands (and some closer to home!)
So how do the tūī tie in? Well, early on, I decided that I wanted to work the Matariki cluster onto as many pages as possible in Mr Darcy The Cat and The Matariki Glow! And, in Mr Darcy’s dreamscape, it was essential to me that the stars featured in every spread, even if it wasn’t literally the stars, because many of the scenes take place during the day.
The end result is a series of Hidden Matariki (like a Hidden Mickey, but cooler). In Egypt, it's the stars in the sky; in China, it's the fireflies around Mr Darcy; in Greece, it's the stones on the right-hand side of the page; in Japan, it's the cherry blossoms above Mt Fuji, and in Aotearoa, it's the waves around the boat. There are at least 15 Matariki clusters for kids to find throughout the book!
Also, another wee "Easter Egg"; on each page of the dream sequence there is something that belongs to the next destination Mr Darcy will visit, in Egypt, it's the lantern tassel in the phoenix's claw; in China, the stones from the Greek ruins along the Silk Road; in Greece, the cherry blossoms; in Japan, the seagull. Similarly, before he falls asleep on the roof, the sky has the glow of one landmark from each place Mr Darcy is set to visit; the pyramids, the dragon, the citadel, the boat, and The Great Wave.
Mr Darcy also has a guide take him through each place he visits - he meets a Bengal cat in Egypt, and she comes to China where he meets the Ragdoll, she leads him to Greece and the ginger short-haired cat takes him to Japan where he meets the Japanese Bobtail who comes back to New Zealand with him… And these cats all come together at the end but I don’t want to spoil it for you!
Fun fact: there are at least 50 different cat drawings (a lot of them are Mr Darcy in different poses) just in the internal pages of the book, and this is not including the cat pattern endpapers! Many of the other cat characters are real cats whose photos were sent to me while I was working on the book. I put a call out for people’s cat photos and boy did people deliver! So Mr Darcy’s friends in the book are cats he knows in real life, his neighbours, Janice’s family’s furry friends, plus my fur babies, my friend’s fur babies, and the cats of all of the wonderful people who sent me photos when I needed more reference images. If that was you, thank you and I hope I did your feline friends proud!
This book was an enormous labour of love! And us illustrators don't often get to leave a dedication, but if I could, I would dedicate the art in this book to everyone who's ever loved a cat, and especially everyone who's ever loved a black cat, because I know they aren't "just black cats" or “The Black Void” and I hope this book helps other people see it too!
If you’d like to read Mr Darcy The Cat and The Matariki Glow yourself, grab a copy through my shop and I’ll send you this beautiful book, signed by yours truly and imbued with all the crazy cat lady magic I could pour into it!
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