Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford’s new colouring-in book Magical Worlds was published this month. We escaped into the book’s ‘fairytale worlds and intricate magical vistas’ to speak to its creator.

Magical Worlds
By Johanna Basford
Published by Ebury Press

Congratulations on the release of your latest colouring book, Magical Worlds. How do you approach each book project? How does the creation of a colouring book work?

Thank you! I say this with every book launch, but I really do think this is my best colouring book yet! Ideas for new books usually come at odd times… for Magical Worlds it was as a I was driving to climb a Munro and I spotted a picturesque little castle nestled amongst some trees on an island in the middle of a loch. This sparked the idea to create a whole colouring book of these charming little worlds.

All my books are drawn by hand on big sheets of paper, firstly sketched out in pencil, then redrawn in ink. I love the whimsical charm of a slightly wobbly hand drawn line – it has more character than anything computer generated!

I spend a few months in my studio, drawing all the pages, then when I have 100 or so bits of art, we start to put a book together!

What was your inspiration in becoming an illustrator?

I just always loved drawing! When I was little I was constantly drawing and I always dreamed of going to Art School. I’m one of the those very lucky people that has managed to turn their passion into their career.

What was your first artistic memory?

Painting my first wall mural! I was 3 years old and my Dad had been sealing the underside of our beat up old car with thick, black tar paint. He’d left the paint pot and brush in the hallway and wandered off to do something else. Along I came, saw the black paint, the white hallway wall and decided I needed to paint a mural! Amazingly, I didn’t get into any trouble for this first piece of large scale art. I don’t think my Dad escaped as unscathed though!

What drew you to colouring books?

My signature style of drawing when I left Art School was hand drawn, black and white illustrations. I worked as a commercial illustrator for a few years creating artwork for clients like Starbucks, Absolut, H&M and Nike. Often the Art Directors I was working for would joke that my drawings would make great adult colouring books… and so the seed of the idea was planted! A few years later I was approached by an editor and asked to create a children’s colouring book, but I wanted to create something with more finesse and detail, similar to the artwork I was making for my perfume and champagne clients. So the idea for beautifully detailed adulted colouring books came to be.

You’re a Guinness World Record holder! Tell us about this achievement.

I hear from people often that the blank sheet of paper scares them a little. So I thought what better way to inspire others to pick up a pen and draw, than tackling the world’s biggest blank sheet of paper! The reality was that it was 12 frantic hours of drawing on my hands and knees in the sports hall of my old school, desperately trying to cover the 500 square meters with inky florals and butterflies. I was VERY relieved when I finally finished and had set a new Guinness World Record!

What piece of advice would you give to illustrators starting out?

Draw lots, aim high, have grit and be kind! Drawing is a skill like riding a bike – the more you practise, the better you get. It’s good to be a bit ambitious and push yourself outwith your comfort zone, otherwise you’ll never get to find out what you are capable of. Grit is important as real life can be full of knock backs and disappointments. You need to learn to pick yourself up again and keep going with gusto, even when things feel tricky or slow. And always, always be kind.

Magical Worlds by Johanna Basford is published by Ebury Press, priced at £16.99.