Interview with the Illustrator: Talking to Tessa Janes about Unexpected Gift

Recently, 10 Publishing released a new children's storybook and companion activity book for Advent entitled Unexpected Gift by sisters, Annie Kratzsch and Tessa Janes. Unexpected Gift helps children to understand the wonderful truth that at Christmas God became a baby. The activity book contains 25 activities to make as well as 25 Bible verse ornaments to decorate. As you make each activity, the Christmas story becomes hands-on and tangible. Recently, I was able to ask Tessa about what it was like to illustrate the storybook and activity book. Here are her answers to my questions.

Jared: How did the idea for the Unexpected Gift storybook and activity book come about?

Tessa: In a similar way to our first book together, Just Nicholas, my sister and I were looking for a way to celebrate the season of Advent with our young children and decided to come up with it on our own. We wanted something that was engaging and fun, but simple for families in a season that is already jam packed. Our young children didn't have the patience for or interest in long readings or complicated projects, and we didn't have the desire to do daily lesson planning and supplies shopping. We began tossing ideas around for what we thought could make a meaningful Advent practice for families without being overwhelming. We came up with something that could be as simple as one sheet of paper, crayons, scissors and tape daily, but could be built upon, customized for individual families' needs, and used year after year. Annie suggested that we also do a companion storybook to provide more depth and connection, which I hadn't considered but made perfect sense.

Jared: The medium you used for this storybook seems really different from the watercolor, pencil, and ink you used in a book like Just Nicholas. What are you working with now, and how has the illustration process changed?

The wise men were warned in a dream about King Herod.

Tessa: The illustration for the storybook was really guided by the design of the activity book. We wanted the books to be companion books, so we needed them to be as consistent as possible. It just made the most sense for both to be done in a vector based illustration program. I was really able to learn a lot of fun techniques through this process that I hadn't used before. I did initial thumbnail sketches on paper, then scanned in larger sketches to work from digitally. I had a lot of fun doing all the nighttime scenes; especially the dreams and announcements. It's really a magical and engaging story.

The angel came to Joseph in his dream and explained that the baby is God.

Jared: How does illustration work differ when you move from working on a picture book to working on a book of paper crafts?

Tessa: It was a very different process for me this go around. I needed to pay more attention to design for the activities than I have had to for storybooks. Since the activities needed to be functional and consistent, it made sense for me to do everything digitally whereas I've mostly worked by hand in the past. This also allowed me to make changes more quickly and easily, which I had to do a lot of as we tested out our activity sheets. Each sheet has an ornament with a verse that goes along with the story for the day, an activity template to cut out and use, as well as instructions and additional text. That made for some tight squeezes on the page.

Jared: Were there any craft ideas that just didn't work? Or that your kids decided they didn't like?

Tessa: Yeah, there were several that I really wanted to work and just didn't. We really wanted the crafts to be as three dimensional as possible. The first snowflake activity had directions for folding and cutting out your own snowflake from the activity page, but since we used card stock to make the crafts sturdier, the paper was just too thick for little hands to cut once it was folded. We also had a snowman craft that involved cutting out strips of paper and making them into three paper globes and building a snowman to demonstrate the Trinity. It was really fun for me, but not my girls. It just didn't fit into our plan for making every craft accessible for every skill level and age. We settled on a simplified version of both of those activities for the book. I also really loved the paper shoe activity that we had for St. Nicholas Day on Day 5. We decided to take that out since not everyone celebrates St. Nicholas Day. I think every craft we decided on is simple and fun, and we included a resource section with all of the suggestions for expanding that we came up with as we tested the crafts so that you can make it as individual and intricate as you want.

Jared: Do you have a favorite craft? If so, why is it your favorite?

Tessa: I think my favorite craft is the Christmas tree. It's so simple, but it’s three dimensional and so open ended. Everyone’s tree turns out completely differently every time which is so fun.

Jared: What did God teach you through the process of working on these Advent resources?

Tessa: As we were working on this material a couple of Christmases ago, our pastor, Lisle Drury, preached a sermon on the importance of the incarnation. We realized that this doctrine was at the center of what we wanted to focus on with this project—that God, who made everything, made himself a human: “God surprised us by becoming like us so that we could know him.” (p. 29) That’s a huge concept that we feel like the daily creation of crafts helps to flesh out. Furthermore, once we understand the incarnation we respond to it. In the storybook we see how each character in the nativity responds, “Okay, let's go” or “No! Stop this.” Working through this really helped me to reflect on the incarnation and my response to it. It gave me something specific to grapple with that I probably hadn't that specifically in the past.

Jared: I love that, Tessa. That’s an important truth for kids and adults to wrestle with every Advent season. How do we respond personally to God drawing near? Thanks for sharing your time for this interview. Readers, you can pick up Annie and Tessa’s storybook and activity book at 10ofthose.com.