Illustrator Nelleke Verhoeff shares how she thought up and created the wild illustrations for our animal-counting picture book Whole Whale.
When Barefoot Books asked me if I wanted to illustrate a new book called Whole Whale, I was immediately enthusiastic.
The book involves lots of animals and I LOVE to draw animals. And of course, I also liked the story a lot! It’s a very clever and original way to handle the issue of inclusion.
About Whole Whale
Written by Karen Yin
Illustrated by Nelleke Verhoeff
No one likes to be left out! Laugh along with the BIG book that fosters both kindness and mathematics. Young readers will giggle with delight as one hundred unusual animals try to squeeze into the oversized pages of this raucous rhyming tale. “But can we fit a whole blue whale?” is repeated throughout, as more animals join the melange. The humorously explosive ending features an expansive double gatefold. Educational endnotes list the 100 animals in the book.
I first learned the text by heart, so I really could feel what Karen Yin, the author, wanted to tell with her story. Online and in my photo archive, I looked for animal references and began to sketch them in my sketchbook.
Here are some first-page examples:
I was curious how they would look in color, so I also made pages with animals in color through Photoshop. I tried various poses of the animals to get to know them better.
I also drew animals I had never drawn before, like a mink, a skunk and a sloth. The sloth was a discovery for me! I didn’t know that animal so well since we don’t have it in our zoo and I have never seen one before. But I really love it! Such a great slow and easy-going character. We can all learn from it, I think!
I started thinking of an illustration concept for Whole Whale. It’s always a challenge to find the right ‘voice and style’ for a new book. The first sentence gave me the key:
“An empty page? It's time to play! The animals are on their way.”
It's time to play! So the animals came together in this book to play! I began to play with them too. I made big abstract shapes and balls in colour. Soon I saw various animals appear. I thought it could be a fun idea to vary the sizes of the animals for some playfulness, fun and variety. I began to add other animals and let them interact with each other.
The cooperation with the Barefoot Books team was great and very supportive (as always!). Almost every week, I sent my work-in-progress and the team gave constructive feedback. At some point, we came to the conclusion that the first pages of the book had to be more empty and silent. So I removed a lot of the animals I had drawn. This is what they call ‘killing your darlings.’ But it was better for the development of the story.
The pages first became like this:
Then they changed into this:
That was a crucial moment for the book and the story. From that moment on, all things fell into place. One of my favorite animals to draw, besides the sloth, was the sheep. I made her a real acrobat:
The elephant with his large trunk and the monkey and the cat with their long tails were also favorites. It gave movement and swung to the pages.
An important part of a new book is also the cover.
There were a lot of steps that we took before coming to the final cover. In the first version, the tail of the whale was way too small. We also tried various typography for the title. We tried different colours for the background — even a blue one! There are always so many possibilities, it can be difficult to choose. We finally chose the yellow version.
Because this book had to fit exactly 100 animals, I made schemes and lists to organize which I had already drawn and which ones I still had to do. Especially for the final party spread, it was quite a challenge to fit all animals, including the whole blue whale!
I made a little song and sung it often when an animal for this page was finished:
Weer een dier,
weer een dier,
weeeeeerr een dier!
In Dutch, it means:
Another animal,
another animal,
anooooother animal!
My favorite sentence in Whole Whale is:
“When everybody makes some space, one more can always find a place!”
And so it is! It was an honor and a real feast to illustrate this special children’s picture book!
About Nelleke Verhoeff
Nelleke Verhoeff started her career performing shows for children, but then discovered her passion for art. She has since illustrated several books and was a finalist in the Silent Book Contest at the 2018 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. For Barefoot Books, she has also illustrated The Bread Pet: A Sourdough Story. Nelleke lives in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
