This beautiful book, written by Curtis Manley and illustrated by me, was published in January 2024 by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. It captures the story of a child’s hike with their family from campground to the summit of Oregon’s South Sister Volcano and back. The story is told entirely in haiku.
Climbing the Volcano is a non-fiction picture book, about a very real place—a vast, serious, and extremely varied geological and ecological environment. This was my inaugural foray into non-fiction illustration, and it required me to really expand my sense of what I could do as an illustrator. More than once as I got started I wondered, am I the right person to illustrate this book? Can I do this? Mine was a steep learning curve, much like the hike the book describes.
I started by visiting South Sister and hiking up as far as I could in a day. I went with my husband and my dogs, and Scott, a dear family member who graciously hosted us and hiked with us. A gorgeous clear sunny day showed us South Sister in all her glory.
Having taken lots of photos, and collected amazing photos from Curtis, I sketched at home and wondered: how will I draw these millions of rocks and boulders?! And, how will I convey the sense of awe I felt when visiting South Sister Volcano? How will I show the extreme contrast of scale in this place, from tiny toad to massive volcanic crater? How will I show all of this from the point of view of a small child? What a wondrous challenge!
And then I discovered and experimented with collograph printmaking. I glued pumice and other gravelly things to cardboard, spread ink on them, and then ran them through a little craft press. Collograph turned out to be the perfect way to create all the different textures at South Sister Volcano.
I put myself into the shoes of the child visiting this amazing place with their family, and drew what I thought they would experiece as revealed in Curtis’s wonderful haiku poems describing the journey, up and back.
And over many many months, I made my sketches into art, collaging my pencil line drawings with collograph prints and digital paint, all finished using Photoshop.
I am very proud of this book, and so honored to have been asked to collaborate on it with Curtis Manley, Neal Porter and Jennifer Browne of Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. I think we did a great job.
I hope you will have a look and enjoy the journey as much as I did, up and back.