Children's Books // New Talent Category Winner
WIA2016
Mice In The City
Ami Shin is Korean illustrator and studied an MA Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. She always carries her idea book and sketches things that flash through her mind. She has participated in many collaborations including the project of Macmillan Children’s books. She dreams of drawing pictures that would stimulate children’s imagination towards novelties.
About Entry
‘Mice in the City’ is a silent book with no text that lets the audience observe and feast their eyes while freely exercising their imagination. There are drawings of mice visiting interesting buildings of London.
Website/Portfolio Address
amishin-illust.com
Brief
To create a picture book as a final project for my master’s program.
A love of small things like miniatures, I came to draw ‘Mice in the City’, which had no text for it to let the audience observe and feast their eyes while freely exercising their imagination.
Materials
Pen on paper, Photoshop.
Research
I planned to draw mice in funny buildings in the city. And when I got ideas related to mice, I would jot them down or sketch them.
Process
At first, I was going to organise the whole plot before I drew mice in the building. Then, I came to think that I would present small tales in a little bit of a different way. I began to fill the building with ideas and sketches that I had brooded on.
Resistances
I also thought that I might need text for it. However, I made up my mind to go without text and draw scenes that occurred to me each time. At the outset, I used various colours. Yet, I came to find the pictures a bit too complex. I simplified the colours so lines would upstage colours.
Insight
While I was drawing this, I felt like time was at a standstill. Memories from my childhood – the tiny and beautiful cultures in the UK – I combined my childhood with the English culture. I was really happy while I was drawing this picture. I think perhaps the part of my childhood was the richest time of my life.
Distraction
I really wanted to eat a piece of cake when I had to draw the part of mice and sweets at night.
Numbers
1695 mice, 27 cats.
Afterwords
Before I heard good news from the competition (AOI), I had no idea how many mice I had drawn, and now I know how many (honestly, before I wrote this bio, I counted the number of mice I drew on 10 pages and was surprised). I saw that mice were continuously rendered from the tip of my pen. If I get a chance, I want to draw mice in a different version, in a different place. I won’t stop drawing mice.