Baby Bedtime

I first read the text for 'Baby Bedtime' in September 2011. My agent sent it to me without mentioning the author’s name. I knew immediately it was written by Mem Fox, and as soon as I started to read her words I began to see images in my head. I just had to bring them to life on paper! By Emma Quay (illustrator)

In my illustrations, I wanted to show positive images of books being a part of everyday life. While a parent and child are sharing this picture book, they'll see the elephant characters in the book also enjoying a bedtime story together. At the beginning of the book, there is a pile of books on the coffee table in the sitting room, and I also left a paperback on the rattan chair, to which the parent elephant will return once the baby has settled. I see it as my own gentle kind of pro-reading propaganda! By Emma Quay (illustrator)

I loved the fact that if I painted purple elephants, I wasn't being specific about whom my characters were representing — this could be any parent and child. And also... there are so many more ways to hug, with a trunk! By Emma Quay (illustrator)

I filled the images with the weave of linen, hessian and baskets, the patterns of printed fabric, lace, embroidery, knitting and crochet. A young child’s world is a very tactile place, and his or her experience of it is as much about touch as it is about sight and sound. I wanted to reflect this in my images, despite their being destined to be printed onto the essentially smooth and two-dimensional pages of a picture book. I hoped to convey a sense of softness, cosiness, warmth and envelopment through my choice of colours and shapes, the qualities of the drawn lines and the textured surfaces. By Emma Quay (illustrator)