Meet Alice Oehr!
Hi Scribblers,
Our newest book Off to the Market has been out for a little while now here in Australia and in the UK, and we’re so happy to be sharing the love for markets and fresh food through the book! The unique format of the book itself was also a fun challenge for the Scribble production team, and we’re so happy with how it’s turned out.
It’s been a joy to bring Alice Oehr’s love for markets to life in this book, so we asked her a few more questions about her artistic process and inspiration for the book. Read on for her insights!
Meet the author-illustrator
Alice Oehr is a graphic artist from Melbourne. Her distinct colourful style incorporates her love of food, pattern, collage, and drawing. Many of her ideas have made their way onto textiles, homewares, magazines, and books.
Off to the Market is her first children’s book.
Firstly, congratulations on publishing your debut picture book, Off to the Market! How have you found the process overall? What are some of the main things you’ve learned in your foray into picture books, especially as compared to your other work as a more traditional artist?
I really took my time with Off to the Market. As a trained graphic designer, I’m used to working to a brief and tight timeline, but this project allowed me a lot more freedom to really experiment with how the book should look and feel. I worked closely with Miriam (my publisher) to define the illustrative style and tone of the book, which was really enjoyable. There was so much about markets that I wanted to put into the book from my personal experience, so it was also a matter of editing what was going to fit!
“For me, the market is an absolute visual feast.”
Making this book felt closer to making art than my experience of making a book normally, as I had a lot of freedom for how it could look. In my experience, books for adults are far more geared towards appealing to a certain group of people and fulfilling a brief, whereas in this case the work was a celebration of something that really just had to look good and be fun. The only thing I had to alter in my process — and something that I haven’t had to consider before — was the tone of the words in the book. I love playing with words and expressions, but we needed to remove some of that wordplay to make it more appropriate for children.
On that note — welcome to Scribble! Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your background?
Great to be here! I began in graphic design at RMIT in Brunswick and began freelancing from there on — it’s been almost ten years now! Fairly early on, I began to specialise in illustration and things kind of took their natural course from there. I fell into doing books pretty much straight away and had a couple of art exhibitions; printmaking — mainly silkscreen printing — is a really big passion of mine. Our book was born when those two things kind of came together. I made a body of work about the way fruit and vegetables are packaged at the market called ‘Freshly Wrapped’, which celebrated the beauty of fresh produce whilst drawing attention to how it’s all labelled and wrapped in plastic and mesh a lot of the time. Miri attended the exhibition and thought there was a book in it!
“There is so much fun and beauty to be found [at the market] through looking at all the colours, learning about the food, and chatting to people who you find there.”
Your passion for the market really comes through in the book. What is it about the markets that you love so much?
Honestly, visually I love all markets and have visited them every time I’ve travelled. It’s often the careful displays of produce as well as the items themselves — often exotic — that capture my attention. Piles of durians and mangosteens in Singapore, perfect boxes of strawberries in Japan, bunches of white asparagus and individually tissue-wrapped oranges in France, stacks of figs in Italy, pineapples up in Queensland… the list goes on.
I’ve spent a lot of my life in a small town in France and the weekly market in that village was a social experience as well as a practical shopping one. That market and its vendors and visitors certainly informed the book, while also reminding me of my local market in Richmond, which is quite multicultural. I have the relationships with people there too and visit every week to do my grocery shopping.
My mum took us to the Queen Vic Market most weeks growing up, bribing us with a hot jam donut in the times before we were particularly interested in shopping and cooking. We enjoyed the fresh air and walking up and down the aisles before visiting the deli. We still try to go as a family every month or two, though now we all bring our own bags to shop for our own homes!
What was your inspiration behind writing Off to the Market?
As well as this emotional & nostalgic connection, for me the market is an absolute visual feast. Even without a goal in mind, I spent years photographing moments at the market — fruit box graphics, perfect arrangements of fruit and vegetables, colours, dogs, people’s outfits. I wanted to put all these visual pieces into the book, alongside the messaging around shopping local and getting to know the people who grow your food. It’s also just fun to go to the market and learn about food and cooking and I would love for more kids to have the experiences that I did with markets growing up.
“Even without a goal in mind, I spent years photographing moments at the market — fruit box graphics, perfect arrangements of fruit and vegetables, colours, dogs, people’s outfits. I wanted to put all these visual pieces into the book”
Can you share a bit about your artistic process with us?
I spent a long time working out how this book should look and feel, as a children’s book is kind of the holy grail for an illustrator. I wanted the illustrations to contain a lot of texture, as well as paying the proper testament to the vibrant overload of colour that is the market. We knew the pages would contain a lot of green and bright colours from the produce and the boxes and signage that you find at markets, so we included a fluoro ink in the mix to really give the illustrations some punch.
I created most of the shapes out of paper which I then put together as a collage with layers of texture through pencil, pastels, and ink. I added line work and some patterns and then pieced it all together on the computer, which allows another level of freedom to play with the layout.
What is one thing that you hope people will take away from the book?
I hope that people who pick up Off to the Market can also discover the joy that is the ritual of going to the market to buy your food. Aside from the practical task of getting groceries, there is so much fun and beauty to be found through looking at all the colours, learning about the food, and chatting to people who you find there.
