Let's Talk Illustrators #298: Marije Tolman

I am so pleased to share my interview with Dutch author-illustrator Marije Tolman here today! We're focusing on her newest book Quill the Forest Keeper and the stunning and unique techniques she used to create the illustrations. Please enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at Marije's process!

About the book:

"Long, long ago it was so busy.
Nobody had time to stop for a moment.
Everything and everyone had to be higher, faster,
further, bigger, prettier, more!"

Thus begins Grandpa Hedgehog's story of the Rush Era. A time not so different from our own, where everyone was constantly on the move and no one had time to stop for a moment, even to care for the forest. Everyone except for a tiny hero named Quill. Can this gentle soul teach the rushing world to stop and smell the flowers before it's too late?

And check out the endpapers:

Let's talk Marije Tolman!

LTPB: Where did the idea for Quill the Forest Keeper come from? How long have you been working on the book?

MT: Quill was pinned up on my studio bulletin board for quite a while! My daughter Liv (then 11) had to write and illustrate a Greek myth for a school project. She came up with a character she called Egalus, a combination of “egel”, Dutch word for “hedgehog”, and “Neptunus”. Egalus, a little hedgehog with a trident like Poseidon’s or Neptune’s, manages to set the impossible in motion to protect the forest. Every day he cleans up the forest and carries the litter on the prickles on his back. I found it such a moving character. “One day I’ll make a book of this,” I thought, and I pinned the sketch up on my bulletin board. When the promotional organization for Dutch books invited me to make a picture book for Children’s Book Week with the theme “Giga-Green”, I already knew where to start: with Liv’s sketch. Egalus is also the title of the original Dutch book.

I worked on it for four months. That’s a personal record because usually I work longer on a picture book. But I didn’t get much time for this commission. It was a paradoxical process: how do you make a book about paying attention to your surroundings, but do it as fast as you can.

LTPB: What did you find most difficult in creating this book? What did you find most rewarding?

MT: It was a challenge to avoid making the book moralistic. I wanted to keep it hopeful, cheerful, funny and slightly poetic instead.

The story is a plea for living mindfully. The animals run and fly to and fro without looking around. Quill tries, step by step, to break through the madness of his time. I’ve concealed that message a little because I don’t like to be preachy. This commission was primarily about the joy of reading, that’s what Children’s Book Week is for, to promote reading. But if you’re making a picture book that’s going to be seen by so many adults and children, I also find it important to do something with the era we’re living in. Hopefully I will help to get something moving, if only slightly.

Quill is an industrious little animal, always busy tidying the world. He has a determined expression and wears a Parks and Gardens safety vest, proudly holding his trident. Quill’s story is presented as Grandpa Hedgehog telling his grandson about the “Rush Era”, an intense time in the past when everyone was busy. While the animals around him race to and fro, Quill carries on imperturbably, cleaning the forest, the mountains and the sea. In the drawings you see him bravely collecting litter and carrying it on his prickles. When the burden becomes too much, he falls over and is left struggling on his back like a beetle. Suddenly the world comes to a standstill. The animals realize that it can’t go on like this. I found it important for it to be a hopeful book. That’s why I chose to make the “Rush Era” a primeval past. The animals now live together calmly and peacefully. That keeps the book light and airy and allows readers to focus on the details in the pictures. Like a hurried bird that’s always looking at its watch. Or a puffin taking selfies.

As Children’s Book Week is a large national campaign to promote reading in the Netherlands, the book automatically attracted a lot of attention in the media and bookstores, for which I am very grateful. The original print run of 38,000 sold out completely in three weeks. I cherish all the children who have come to love Quill and I hope that the book can light a little flame here and there, to start the fire of reading pleasure.

LTPB: How do you keep your process fresh with every new book?

MT: Each book is a new search, an expedition to discover the right atmosphere and technique for the story. I always work analogue, with my heart and soul, directly onto paper, with lots of passion, pleasure and enthusiasm.

I try to keep myself fresh with morning and evening rituals in nature. I really need nature. It gives me fresh energy. I start every morning with a walk with our dog Ravi along the beach or through the forest. When I arrive at my studio, I first water the plants and flowers in the garden. For me, this is a way to ground myself, a ritual to get close to myself and my drawing table. So the work I make can stay as authentic and autonomous as possible. That’s why I work non-digitally, without a laptop or phone. When I’m drawing I turn off everything. The only sounds are music and an electric pencil sharpener.

Traveling is another important source of inspiration. The book I’m working on now is set in small abandoned mountain villages in Spain and Italy, places I walked through earlier this year with my eyes peeled and my camera charged.

LTPB: Are there any topics or stories in particular you’re still hoping to explore in the future?

MT: So many plans and dreams! Always the feeling that I don’t have enough time because I have so many plans in my studio. For me collaboration is also a very festive process. Like the books I made with my father, Ronald Tolman, or the books of Youp van ’t Hek, Daan Remmerts de Vries, and Edward van de Vendel.

But I also love working with De Bookstor in The Hague, the Netherlands’ most beautiful bookstore. We’re currently working together with two friends on a new brand of chocolate for De Bookstor, with magnificent illustrated wrappers, where even small original drawings can be hidden in some “golden” chocolate bars. The chocolate will be launched this autumn. I really enjoy varying long-term investigative processes like picture books with short, snappy commissions.

Besides the books I make, I’d love to do a theater set one day, or an animated film, that would be amazing. And I have a deep wish to explore Panama for a picture book, and Japan!

LTPB: What did you use to create the illustrations in this book? How does your process change from book to book?

MT: The illustrations are a combination of a graphic technique (Risograph printing) and mixed material drawing using pen, ink, pencils, gouache, acrylic, pastels and water colors. Risograph printing is comparable to silk-screen.

For Quill the Forest Keeper I took a lot of photos of nature: forests, dunes, the sea. Along the west coast of the Scottish Highlands I photographed deserted mountain landscapes and small islands, bare rocky mountains to give the atmosphere of a primeval past. I used the photos as the backgrounds by printing them as Riso prints then drawing the characters on them. Meanwhile I wrote the story that goes with the pictures.

I first used this combination of techniques in Little Fox. For Little Fox I went into the countryside with the idea of sketching fabulous landscapes. On my racing bike with a sketchbook—the best thing imaginable. Slowly I traded the sketching in for photography and had more time to cycle farther, literally expanding my horizons.

This technique is much more complicated than you might think. It has to work as a whole, it has to form a single world. It’s only when you start drawing on one of these backdrops that you know how it’s going to turn out. The right depth, composition, playfulness, dynamism or quiet contemplation. They’re all hidden in the background, but where...

Once I’m sitting at my drawing table, I’m off. I disappear into my drawing. Drawing, erasing, experimenting, discarding, investigating new things. With Riso prints it’s almost impossible to erase things (you erase the ink of the print too), so it’s often a question of all or nothing. Taking a deep breath and keeping going. Working on, being led by your own curiosity, hoping for a surprising effect. And sometimes, on good days, you just soar. And then I can hardly wait till I’ve woken up the next day to see if the things I’ve done are right. It’s a kind of indescribable magic, whether something works or not, why it works or doesn’t work. That’s why I have a firm belief in the craft of our profession. The more you make, the better it gets, and the more you understand what the best autonomous approach is for you and the book at hand.

Since discovering this technique I’ve made a whole archive of possible photos for future picture books. At the moment I’m working on a picture book where many of the photos from the archive have suddenly turned out to be suitable. Putting the Riso prints in the right order for a new book is very cinematic, like film editing: cutting and pasting settings and scenes to form a single, convincing film.

At the moment I like working with mixed graphic printing techniques and drawing materials the most. The combination of graphic printing and drawing gives a pleasing contrast between solidity and vulnerability. People sometimes say you’re as good as your last book. I don’t always agree with that. But I do try to make each new book the very best I’m capable of at that moment. You could call it merciless drawing. Having no mercy on pencils, pens, ink and paper, because with every new project I feel tremendous curiosity and a need to prove myself. That sounds strict, but I mean I feel inspired and driven. It just happens to be most beautiful profession that exists and I’m desperate to show that in every book.

LTPB: What are you working on now? Anything you can show us?

MT: At the moment I’m working with lots of pleasure on a big new picture book. It will be a combination of Riso prints, photography, graphic work and drawing. I can’t show anything yet, but I can let you know that the main character is a goldfish.

I’m working together with the fabulous writer Daan Remmerts de Vries and the book will come out in Dutch with Querido Amsterdam in 2025.

LTPB: If you got the chance to write your own picture book autobiography, who (dead or alive!) would you want to illustrate it, and why?

MT: Quentin Blake. It’s thanks to him that I started drawing. His work is a timeless, humorous source of inspiration.

A big, big thanks to Marije for taking time to answer some questions! Quill the Forest Keeper publishes TODAY from Levine Querido!

Special thanks to Marije and Levine Querido for use of these images!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, visit my policies & disclosures page