Delighted to create the illustrations for Hello In There Wee One book that will be gifted to parents to be in Dundee at their 16 week appointment. This book is to help them imagine and relate to their baby before it arrive to help build a bond.

This project combined my love for Dundee, highlighting the positives as well as working with families and partners to create and identify imagery for the book that helps to support positive wellbeing.

Within the book there is an eight page story to read to bump.  Illustrations were inspired by the conversations and sketches with families and stakeholders at the creative consultation, I distilled the information and developed a concept.

I also managed to sneak in added extras like the monkey stealing the letter off the information board that you might spot in the city centre and the wooden elephant made up of cubes at the Botanic Gardens.

Creative consultation

I designed and delivered creative consultation workshops with families from Home Start Dundee, Dundee International Women’s Centre and Coldside families plus workshops with healthcare stakeholders. I used a mix of creative engagement techniques to gather all the information I needed in a way that was fun and engaging.

Front Cover and end papers

For the front cover I created a medley of imagery in a repeat pattern that reminded me of the cute baby textiles.  I was keen to include as many of the participants drawings in the book so designed a simple circle design filled with their line drawings.

Activity/Advice Part

Penguins became a theme within the story and to make it more readable I developed icons for tips for parents using a penguin character with an egg at its feet and tips from the baby with an egg with a fluffy penguin bursting out.  

The book offers advice and places to add your own personalised record of pre-birth bonding. Illustrations helped echo some of the advice and act as prompt for activities. A mix of participant drawings and my quick drawings fill these pages.

People involved

Being part of this project allowed me to work with international author and illustrator Natalie Russell who supported the project from her role as lecturer in Illustration from DJCAD, University of Dundee.  We worked together on the words of the story, and it was a delight to be able to show my work at development stages for feedback. Gavin Reid helped place all words and illustrations together and Winter & Simpson produced the books on lovely quality of paper. Vicky Armstrong (University of Dundee Psychology and Art At The Start) was instrumental to making this project happen with fun and enthusiasm.

There were many professionals were involved across Midwifery, Health Visiting, Family Nurse Practitioners, Infant Mental Health, Speech and Language Therapists, and Social Work teams from across different organisations, NHS Tayside Infant Mental Health, NHS Maternity, Dundee Health & Social Care Partnership, University of Dundee, Dundee City Council, Art At The Start. This project was funded by UNCRC Innovation Fund and the CORRA foundation.

I loved this project as it aligns to my core values of nature and wellbeing, connection to the world around us and enjoying the simple things in life right here on our doorstep, linking with play, curiosity and gratitude. You can see a full copy from the NHS Tayside website

THANK YOU for reading my blog. If you’re interested in my mission support positive wellbeing by playfully applying colour and pattern to help connect people to the world around them and some of my previous commissions for public art commissions for hospitals, cultural venues and public spaces.  You can see more about some of my projects here.