Illustrations for Rep Agency

12 Jun 2009

sedna1

sedna's blood that transformed into sea creatures

Illustrations I did for my portfolio with Yusof Gajah & Lingard Agency, Malaysia’s very first representatives for children’s book writers and illustrators. The agency is a partnership between Malaysia’s internationally renown illustrator, Yusof Gajah and Linda Tan Lingard, a local book publisher (Oyezbooks). I am among one of the first 10 chosen illustrators and all of us were given a task to illustrate a story during a workshop organised by the agency last Sunday. The stories and illustrations will be compiled as our portfolio. I Illustrated two stories actually but I don’t have the picture of the other one (How Frog Lost His Tail) as I have to submit it there and then. Didn’t bring my camera also. Took the second task (The Tale of Sedna) a day after the workshop so I was free to work on the illustrations at my own pace. Will submit these this weekend.

Will let you know how to contact the agency as they has start representing me as of Monday, 8 June 2009 for a year.

Here’s the story summary of The Tale of Sedna:

A long time ago, there were no seals or walruses for Eskimos to hunt. This is a story of how seals and walruses came to be. Sedna was a beautiful Eskimo girl. One day she married a handsome young hunter but he turned out to be a bird spirit. By lifting up his hands, they turned into wings and he could fly. He took Sedna to his island. Sedna’s father came to rescue her in his kayak. But the bird spirit caused a huge wave. Sedna’s father panicked and threw Sedna into sea. Sedna grabbed hold of the edge of the kayak but her frightened father stabbed her fingers with a knife. Blood flowed from her fingers and they turned into seals, walruses, whales. Today, the Eskimos pray to Sedna to release a seal or a walrus so that they could eat.

If you google, you can find various versions of the tale.