Yasmeen Ismail
Would You Like a Banana?

Children's Publishing

Commissioned | Professional

Why did you make this work:
I was commissioned by Walker to write and illustrate a picture book.The creative challenge was two-fold. I needed to write a compelling story and then I needed to illustrate it in a way that was exciting and original. Not only that, I wanted to try something new and fresh witgh my illustration. The text was written in conjunction with the sketching and both parts went through many iterations.

How was the illustration used:
The illustrations are a picture book called "Would You Like a Banana?" This was published in January 2020 and is now co-editioned in territories around the world.

How did you make this work:
I tried a new style with these illustrations. I was keen to incorporate photo collage and paper collage into the illustrations, which I did. I also used Gouache, Conté, watercolour, charcoal, pencil, coloured pencils, oil pastels and, photo and paper collage. I also hand wrote a lot of the typography.

Commissioner Name :
Denise Johnstone Burt
Commissioner Company :
Walker Books UK

Social Media:
twitter.com/YasmeenMay
instagram.com/Yasmeeny

Personal Website:
yasmeenismail.co.uk/
Agent Website:
https://thebrightagency.com/uk/childrens


Currently Based:
United Kingdom

Biography:
Irish-born, Bristol-based Yasmeen Ismail is an award-winning author, illustrator and animator. Yasmeen studied at art school in her hometown, Dublin. After graduating, Yasmeen moved to London where she worked on many different projects ranging from advertising and short films to children's publishing. After moving to London and running a successful animation production company and having worked in varying capacities within it (Director, Designer, Animator, Producer, Script-writer) Yasmeen found herself writing and illustrating picture books. From her experience with scripts and storyboards she is familiar with writing narratives and working with story lines, and is especially acquainted with editing her work and writing creatively within boundaries. In turn, and as a result of her animation background, her illustrations are bright, fluid and full of energy and movement. She has a love of watercolours, inks and paints and is moving into all sorts of other mediums. Yasmeen loves to experiment and expand in all areas of her work and is constantly trying new ways to improve her writing and drawing. She would love to make you laugh, have fun and enjoy her books. She tries very hard to make her books work well on all levels of story, prose, artwork and humour. She now lives in Bristol with her husband, their son and Betty the cat.

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