October 17, 2020- Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with our very own, Alex Goubar; we’ve taken questions from kids and their parents, about her book, The Magic Pumpkin Farmer and Alex has answered them! Her answers are in bold.
Q: The Magic Pumpkin Farmer is such a colourful book, what inspired the colours you used?
A: Something about bright exciting colours reminds me of magic, I imagine that magic is the opposite of dull. Kate, to me, also feels like the type of girl that would love bright colours such as these (it seems to match her personality!)
Q: What program do you use for illustrating books? What do you like most about it?
A: I used to use Paint Tool Sai, and now I’ve switched over to Procreate on the iPad Pro. What I love most about it is that I can take it anywhere, I’ve drawn book pages in many places and countries!
Q: How did you find the information on the princesses and what they wore as traditional dress from their respective countries?
A: I found information on princesses by doing lots of research on the internet and checking those facts with many sources.
Q: Have you ever grown magic pumpkins? If yes, what was magic about them? and if no, what would you want your magic pumpkin to do?
A: I’ve never grown magic pumpkins but if I ever do, I would want them to attract all of the neighbourhood cats so I could play with them!
Q: Which princess in the book is your favourite and why?
A: I think Kate’s cat is my favourite princess. Real answer? I am biased and I love the Russian princess because that is my heritage. However, all of them are super unique with such interesting backgrounds and outfits and traditions, they’re all awesome!
Q: Is that your cat in the book that sleeps on Kate’s pillow? Do you have any pets?
A: Kate’s cat is loosely based on Lacey (the author’s) cat Simba! I have two cats, one Hilander named Athena and one Himalayan named Willy.
Q: Kate was a farmer when she grew up, what did you want to be?
A: My aspirations have changed probably every month. I wanted to be a writer, an actress, an illustrator, etc. As long as creating was in my future I was happy.
Q: What was the hardest part to draw in the Magic Pumpkin Farmer?
A: All the princesses’ garments took a while to draw, but the Indian-inspired princess was the most difficult because of all her jewelry!
Q: How long have you been an illustrator for?
A: I would say as soon as I was capable of holding a pencil. Professionally, I started getting paid illustration jobs in the first year of college (as of 2020, 5 years now!)
Q: What’s the most favourite book you’ve worked on and why?
A: Panda the Very Bad Cat; Farm Frenzy was my favourite. I loved the farm theme and drawing all the cute animals!
Thank you, Alex, for answering the readers’ questions! Did you know that Alex is also the AUTHOR and ILLUSTRATOR of 2 books? The Celestial Squid and The Clouds Above Lamasol Island? How cool is that? Check out her collection of books here: