I am so excited to share my interview with Aly McKnight here with you all day! I can tell that Aly is an illustrator on the rise from her book The Gift of the Great Buffalo––lots of great things to come from Aly soon! Check out her process for The Gift of the Great Buffalo, written by Carole Lindstrom, below.
About the book:
Before there was a little house on the prairie, there was a tipi on the prairie.
Rose is a young Métis-Ojibwe girl who has traveled far with her family for the biannual buffalo hunt made up of hundreds of other Métis families. The ritual of the hunt has been practiced for generations, and each hunt must see the community through the next six months. But in recent years, the buffalo population has dwindled, and after days on the hunt, there are no buffalo to be found. Can Rose help her family find the herd that will enable them to survive the long winter?
Peek underneath the dust jacket:
And check out the endpapers:
Let's talk Aly McKnight!
LTPB: How did you become the illustrator of The Gift of the Great Buffalo? What were the first images that popped into your mind when you saw Carole Lindstrom’s text?
AM: I was asked if I was interested in illustrating children’s books in July of 2020 and I was super nervous to even respond because the world felt like complete chaos and I wasn’t sure if taking on something like a children’s book was even right for me. But I received a few really persistent and encouraging emails from a few different people involved with GOTGB and felt like that was a good sign. So when I was asked if I finally wanted to read the manuscript for Gift of the Great Buffalo I just dove in head first and haven’t looked back since. And it honestly couldn’t have been a better fit for me. Within my art I tend to center it on human and nature relationships and even more specifically I focus a lot on bison/buffalo so this was literally my dream book!
LTPB: Can you talk a little bit about your research for this book? Were you surprised by anything you found?
AM: Carole, the author, was amazing with helping me research for GOTGB. She’s such a gem and I couldn’t have been more lucky to have her as a partner on this book. She sent me dozens of links with information about the Metis Tribe as well as some amazing book recommendations. It was a lot of information but I love learning about history so it was really just a beautiful time where I was able to immerse myself in old journals and photographs detailing Metis life. My favorite thing I read about was bandolier bags or octopus bags that are popular in Metis culture. I love purses, bags, and accessories so when I got to this aspect (because we definitely wanted to include some details like that in the book!) I was in heaven! The beadwork and color palettes that so many of the artists chose for their bags were stunning and live rent free in my brain.
LTPB: What did you find most difficult in creating this book? What did you find most rewarding?
AM: This was one of my first official illustration projects that I’d ever taken on. It was actually the very first book I signed up for but due to the COVID pandemic the process for this book was delayed a bit. The Metis Tribe is alive and well today and to be entrusted with portraying a part of their history was daunting so I was mostly scared of not being able to render certain things accurately.
The most rewarding aspect of creating the artwork for this book was seeing the flow of everything come together once I reached the final painting process. I feel like my illustrations and the historical elements fused beautifully to tell Rose’s story.
LTPB: What did you use to create the illustrations in this book? Is this your preferred medium?
AM: I definitely consider myself a watercolor artist. I’ve been using this medium for 16 years now and I’m still learning about it every time I use it. I love how organic and unpredictable it can be. A lot of the time I like letting the paint just show off and do it’s own thing but there were definitely a lot of pages where I had to control how the paint was laid out and how it needed to dry so that was interesting but I loved having the learning experience. With every creative project I take on there’s a unique flow to each one so the overall process is similar but the emotions and stories that every single one is telling requires me to experiment by testing new color combinations, playing with textures, layering techniques, etc. And I love that playful process.
LTPB: What are you working on now? Anything you can show us?
AM: I have a few children’s books underway! The next one should be coming out later in 2025. It’s a story by Rae Rose called The Sacred Stone Camp and is about the Dakota Access Pipeline, water protectors (young and old), and features Indigenous activist LaDonna BraveBull Allard. I’m very excited to see this book coming out in a couple months and hope people from all ages and all walks of life can learn and enjoy this important story.
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?
I love this question! I’ve never been asked this but the first person that came to mind is my daughter, Paoakalani. She’s always welcome at my work table and has been my partner in crime since the day she was born. I love how incredibly creative she is. She’s always painting, crafting potions, singing, and storytelling so I would be very interested in how she sees me and how she would choose to portray my life.
A million thanks to Aly for taking time to answers some questions! The Gift of the Great Buffalo publishes today from Bloomsbury Children's Books!
Special thanks to Aly and Bloomsbury for use of these images!
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