An extract from ‘An interview with Julie Vivas’ Scan vol 23 no 2.

Scan: What techniques do you use to develop the characters, particularly Grandma Poss and Hush in Possum magic?

Julie: I could spend months on developing a character, The drawings go back and forth to the publisher and the author. Creating the characters is a main task because they carry the story .Originally, Mem Fox wrote Possum magic as Hush the invisible mouse. Mem created Hush as a mouse around 1978 but no one wanted to publisher her as mouse. Mem and I had no experience and we were not working with a publisher at that time. When the publisher, Omnibus Books, took on Hush the invisible mouse, they tested it on book sellers who felt it would be more successful if the characters were Australian animals. Mem rewrote the story and I began again with new characters. I started with real possums, going to the night house at Taronga Zoo, drawing brush tail possums in every position until I got a feel for their body proportions and how they moved. I looked at injured baby ones at the Zoo hospital, too. Then I felt a bit braver about inventing my own possums. The invisible thing was tricky to think about but something as basic as using a broken line seemed to work.

My possums were simplified, their bodies were big spheres and heads were small spheres with triangular faces, tails and arm and legs were used for expression.

When I hung Grandma up by the tail I could see how she worked. In this form, not looking like real animals, you ease them through their bike riding and their umbrella boating without it jarring too much. The human emotions that the possums are going through are possibly easier to cope with in their visually unreal form. Early in the process, I realised real possums’ eyes are so big they take over. I felt that they took attention away from everything else in the picture, so I did adjust their eyes and this was another step away from reality.

Scan: In Possum magic you give the animals a human personality without detracting from their native appearance.   What processes do you use to develop these characters?

Julie: The words make the animals human in the first place. There is a line you can easily cross visually where the animals can lose their integrity. I do it and correct it all the time. Because they are not real possums, they can have some human characteristics. The characters can carry more emotion because they are not real

possums. They are almost in the form of a cartoon, which makes it easier to exaggerate expression. The detail of the fur and eyes etc and colours would add to their animal character.

Scan: Possum magic uses subdued colours. How do you choose the colour palette for a book?

Julie: I was afraid of large areas of strong colour, colour roughs help me decide, as the characters come into another life when the colours are applied. Using blues and purples in the fur seem to give relief from the expected brown and grey. The shape is so important, and I didn’t want anything to distract from that. Everything changes in a drawing when solid colour is used. The use of darker grey for the koala helps convey the weight of this character. It is often difficult to get the balance that I had in the drawing when I start to paint.