If I had had any image in my mind, it was some kind of street carnival with a bloke in a bear suit.
It looked like a family having a holiday in Cornwall. Second, I couldn't figure out what they had to do with a bear hunt. First, they were such beautiful pictures. The editors peeled back the sheets, and I was stunned. I added a forest and a snowstorm.Ībout 18 months later, I was taken into a darkened room and in the middle was a table, and on the table a pile of large homemade sheets of thick paper divided by coloured tissue. So I invented some words for the sounds of going through grass ("swishy-swashy"), or mud ("squelch-squerch"). So I did.īut the way I performed it didn't work, and it wasn't long enough. The editor of Walker Books, David Lloyd, saw me perform it and said it would make a great book. I heard it first in the late 1970s and started to put it into my one-man poetry show. The story seems to have been a folk song that circulated around American summer camps, sometimes with a lion instead of a bear. By permission of Walker Books, Ltd Michael Rosen, writer He actually recognised himself and the original now hangs on his wall.Īnother of Oxenbury’s illustrations for We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. I modelled his posture on the final page on a friend who had depression and whose shoulders dropped when he walked. It occurred to me three-quarters of the way through that the bear was all on his own in the cave, and might have wanted some company rather than to eat the children. The great challenge of illustration is how to convey emotion economically. I go to a cafe every day, and sit and watch passers-by, and I draw on this remembered gallery of postures and expressions when I'm working. The rocky beach where the bear's cave is was inspired by a holiday in Druidstone in Pembrokeshire. I modelled the muddy scenes on the Suffolk mudflats where we have a boathouse. Finally, I came up with the idea of having black-and-white drawings when the children were contemplating an action, and colour when they were actually doing it. The structure of the story was quite challenging. I got so involved I didn't want to break off to show anyone. Usually I submit preliminary sketches that are made up into dummies, but for this book I did it all in one go.
#The bear and the dragon copyright page free
He is the last person to inflict ideas on people: he gave me a free hand. Michael and I didn't meet until after the project was finished. I modelled them on my own children. I didn't want adults around because they tend to stilt the imagination. Everyone thinks the eldest one is the father in fact he's the older brother. Michael had said he envisioned it as a king and queen and jester setting off to hunt a bear, but I immediately saw it as a group of children. What's wonderful about it is that nothing is described in a way that restricts you. By coincidence, Michael Rosen and his editor knew the song, too, realised it would make a good children's story and, without knowing about my record cover, asked if I'd do the illustrations. I first heard the story when the Scottish folk singer Alison McMorland recorded a traditional song about a bear hunt and asked me to design the record cover.
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