Jill Moursund (1971) is an illustrator and children's book author, and has been a member of Tegnerforbundet since 2008. In addition to creating illustrations for time shifts and other people's books, she also writes and illustrates her own picture books. Jill Moursund's imagery is characterized by various collage techniques and a diverse color palette. In the illustrations, watercolor surfaces are mixed with digital and analogue drawings, photographs and excerpts from old weekly magazines. In a time-consuming work process, she cuts and glues the individual image elements to the desired expression. The results not infrequently evoke associations with 60s retro. Jill Moursund lives and works in Oslo. You can find more information about Moursund's work here .
TF: Jill, can you tell us a bit about your artistic work?
JM: I work as an illustrator and writer. In recent years I have mainly worked on books, mostly my own, but I also like to illustrate other people's texts. It's two completely different ways of working, and each is fun and challenging in its own way. I trained as an illustrator at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and for the first few years I worked mostly with magazine illustrations and book covers. However, I have always enjoyed writing, I would like to work with film and moving images, and for me the picture book is the perfect meeting point between these art forms. My first book, Cake, CAKE! was published in 2006 and my ninth self-published book is now just around the corner.
TF: How do you use drawing in your work? Can you tell us a bit about your working process?
JM: I use drawing all the time, just as I use words and text. They are completely connected: I can say something with pictures, something else with words, but only together do they form a whole, a language other than the expression in the pictures or the words I choose. I usually start with an idea, then there is as much drawing as scribbling of words. Then there is usually a period of pure text work before I start storyboarding, where I push text as much as pictures. Finally, of course, there are the finished illustrations, where one spread is not really that important, it is the whole, all the spreads, the images as a narrative series, that is important. I like to test, research and play with expressions, materials and techniques, just as I like to test different ways of telling stories, whether it is visual expression or narrative technique. Therefore, I rarely know where I'm going when I start, because it's also about the text, that different texts need different things.
TF: What inspires you? Do you work from a theme?
JM: It can be both the everyday and the fantastic. So my books tend to be both; I have a realistic setting, where the completely improbable still has a natural place. I usually start with an event that sets something in motion, for example, that Ester is moving (as in Stormfowl) or that Lara arrives on a South Sea island and is not allowed to go up to the volcano, but is instead looked after by a foreign babysitter (Volcano Island). I like to put my literary children in challenging situations. I kick their legs out from under them and see what happens. Often my main motivation is probably the magical realism element I probably send in. I like the fact that suddenly there's an improbably huge volcano animal standing there. Or that the fox on a sweater jumps out and is suddenly alive. I like the improbable to happen, and so I often let my imagination be the weapon with which to face the fire-breathing dragon.
TF: What are you currently working on?
JM: Right now I'm finalizing my next book, Esther and the Whale, which will be released in May. It's a sequel to 2017's Petrels. In it, Ester is moving house and she tries her hardest to avoid it, hoping the roof of the school blows off or at least she gets really sick. Over the course of the book, with the help of a blown away seabird, she manages to deal with the change she neither wants nor asked for. In Ester and the Whale, we meet her again after school has started. On her way home from her class trip, Ester sees a whale, but no one believes her. The ocean and space theme weeks will end with a performance. Safia and Kornelia want to be beautiful mermaids and dance, but they don't think Ester is fit for that. They don't want to be in a group with her, they just think she's weird. It's a story about being an outsider and having a huge friend who lives in the depths of the sea.
TF: What does drawing mean to you and your work?
JM: In film or theater, there is usually a set designer, a costume designer, someone who works with casting, someone with editing, etc. In picture books, I get to do everything myself! It's time-consuming but incredibly fun. I've always drawn, I tried to quit once, after high school when I started studying political science, but I only lasted a few months. Now I would be incredibly confused all over the world if I suddenly didn't have the opportunity to draw and create my own universes.
TF: Finally, can you tell us a bit about your work in Tegnerforbundet's sales department?
JM: These are works from two of my books, Storm Birds (2017) and Volcano Island, which was published in 2014. In the image "Starry Night" from the latter book, Lara and Iti the volcano animal are philosophizing about space and how strange it is that the stars are exploding silently. "The Road Trip" is from Stormbirds. Ester tries to disappear between mom's plants in the back seat, but it doesn't help, she gets the key to the new house anyway.
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