My first illustrations were printed in Vesyolye Kartinki. When I was about six, I wrote a grand epic called The Adventures of a Bagel and illustrated it myself. Now I understand that what I had made was a comic strip rather than a novel, or even a novella. But at the time I considered myself almost a Leo Tolstoy. For a long while I even kept beautiful postcards from Vesyolye Kartinki. Incidentally, my younger son also tried his hand at creating a comic novel called Three Carrots and a Shashlik. I think his title was more successful.
Back in the days when the Children’s Art Gallery was being created, during our international internships with children, and later during my postgraduate studies, I realized that drawings by Russian children differ from others precisely in their illustrative, perhaps even descriptive, quality — a quality characteristic of Russian literature.
In other words, illustration is something both adults and children understand. Illustration is interesting, and it is almost in our genes.
Once, while I was still studying at the institute and had to earn a little extra money for milk, I was asked to make several pictures for a reference book on rare medicinal plants. At the time I was friends with my neighbor Natashka, whose daughter was two months younger than my one-year-old son. Natashka worked at a factory, was on maternity leave, and was very envious of my future “dust-free” profession.
During the day I looked after my child, and as soon as evening came, I sat down at the table with my rare plants. Drawing them was both pleasant and interesting. Having finished the first illustration, I went to the publishing house, leaving Natashka with the two toddlers.
“Yes,” the publisher said, examining my picture. “Good. Beautiful. Just add a little yellow here.”
I rode home and spent the next night adding yellow.
“That’s another matter,” the publisher boomed. “Quite another matter. And here, on the right, you need to introduce a touch of violet.”
The next night I violet-tinted the right-hand side.
Then there was something else, and something else again. There were several pictures, and the nights were sleepless.
“No,” Natashka said, “we have it better. You come in, work your shift, and go home.” And she stopped envying me. Of course, “who is happy in Russia?” is quite a question, but that is how the story went.
Incidentally, a year or two later our book received a gold medal at the International Book Fair in Moscow — but that is another story altogether.
