Lefft
Picture Book Author & IllustratorPaddy Donnelly
The Last Seaweed Pie
My last book to be released in 2021 is ‘The Last Seaweed Pie’, written by Wenda Shurety and illustrated by me!
The Sea-ple live in the ocean and the Tree-ple live in the jungle. When the Tree-ple start to throw their waste in the sea, the two worlds collide. Then a young Tree-ple has an idea. A heart-warming story about ocean conservation and communities working together.
I grew up on the Irish coast, right at the edge of dramatic cliffs and rough seas. The sea is now one of my favourite things to illustrate, and I've also been fascinated with wildlife and the natural world since I was a child, so this book was an ideal project for me. I loved how there was a huge contrast between the two worlds and immediately thought about colour schemes and how I would differentiate between them. There were no descriptions for how the Tree-ple and Sea-ple would look, so the character development stage was a treat! I loved to brainstorm the various headgear I could give the Tree-ple to differentiate them, and the loose and jelly-fish like Sea-ple were so much to illustrate. I also try to use a lot of texture in my work and layer in lots of details, and there were plenty of opportunities for that in this tale.
And best of all, a donation of 3% of the cover price goes to the Marine Conservation Society.
It will be published on the 23rd of September 2021 by Storyhouse Publishing. If you’d like a copy please order already via your local bookshop, or it’s always available at the usual places online.
