My Book Corner is very honoured to be a stop on The Mist Monster blog tour.
The Mist Monster is Kirsti Beautyman’s debut picture book. It’s utterly sublime. Wonderfully atmospheric, thoughtful and gentle it’s one of those picture books that leaves you reflecting on it long after your reading has finished.
Moving house can be a tricky time for little ones, it most definitely is for Penny. She’s really not sure, until Dad points out she needs to treat it like an adventure and delves into the boxes for Mum’s explorer hat… but then oops! Peanut the dog grabs it and runs outside into the white mist. And so unfolds a magical adventure, enveloped in the magic mist as Penny chases after her hat. She eventually finds what she is looking for… and her hat!
A gorgeous tale, with so much going on in those exquisite illustrations. Mum is featured in photos on the wall, but doesn’t appear as a character within the main story, a talking point for observant readers. The magic of the mist monster, and the emotions of Penny are keenly captured in the illustrations.
And… as a wonderful treat for My Book Corner readers we have a lovely sneak peek at Kirsti’s process showing how her illustrations changed along the journey-
From Picture Hooks to Final
There are some images that have changed a lot between exhibiting at the end of Picture Hooks scheme in 2017 and the final book which I finished illustrating late 2018, but also there are a few things that have stayed the same.
The top image is a piece that was exhibited in the National Gallery Scotland at the end of the scheme in September 2017, and the bottom is the title page of The Mist Monster. This is one example of how my ideas for visuals stayed the same, but I refined a lot of my textures and characters as I was learning as I went throughout the creation of the book.
I like the idea that we never stop learning, and I’m hopeful that the skills I use currently will continue to develop whilst also being work that makes me happy to create!’
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