Throughout the years the NZMS team have digitised many illustrations and artworks for children’s books, reference and New Zealand history books. The most common material we digitise for children’s picture books are collections of watercolour artworks by talented and creative New Zealand Illustrators, Researchers and Authors.
Recently we have been digitising a collection from the highly acclaimed Author and Illustrator Gavin Bishop who has created illustrations for his book Cook’s Cook: The Cook who Cooked for Captain Cook set to be published later this year by Gecko Press.
Cook’s Cook follows the 1768 journey of James Cook’s H.M.S Endeavour with his ship’s cook, the one-handed John Thompson, as story teller. Through real recipes, events on board and the places the ship travelled on its way to the Pacific, the book tells multiple stories.
Here are stories of social class, hierarchy and race; stories of explorers and the people of the land; the story of one of the world’s most famous explorers told through a fresh new lens.
And of course, it’s a book about food: from Pease Pudding to Goose Pie and Shark Steaks, here’s how a resourceful cook fed a shipful of hungry sailors on their extraordinary adventure.
This beautiful book is full of information drawn from extensive research alongside evocative illustrations, released to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour’s journey. – Title Information, Gecko Press.
Seeing these beautiful illustrations in the office creates a sense of curiosity and wonder for our staff as they imagine the storyline the illustrations are depicting. Quite often we do not see the accompanying words with the illustrations so our imagination is set wild in the landscapes and objects within the illustrations.
Gecko Press is an independent and award winning publisher based in Wellington. We love their mantra – Gecko Press books are the antidote to sameness. They are built for readers who are inquisitive and understand that life is full of absurdities and incongruities. Check out the books they published here.
Our previous experience working with a number of publishing companies gave Gecko Press the confidence that we deliver a high quality service and digital file output.
“Working with NZMS has been a very good experience – we had a tight deadline and they worked really quickly to get the scans done and we’re happy with the result!” Rachel Lawson, Associate Publisher, Gecko Press
The illustrator works very hard to create intense and playful colours and we pride ourselves in our ability to transform originals into digital formats ready for printing and for young minds to discover. To ensure these colours are accurate we capture these illustrations on our colour profiled SMA Scanmaster 1.
Cook’s Cook: The Cook who Cooked for Captain Cook is set to be published in October later this year by Gecko Press to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour’s journey, keep an eye out for it in your local book store or library.
If you have a collection of watercolour paintings that you want to preserve and digitally capture for re-use, get in touch with our digitisation team.
Illustration (c) Gavin Bishop from Cook’s Cook: The Cook who Cooked for Captain Cook (published by Gecko Press, October 2018)