Date Published: 1st September 2020

 

How to Raise an Elephant, the 21st book in The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, has a new cover look – and it is gorgeous!

 

Diane Rendle is a modern colourist. Her painting is warm, vibrant, and filled with life. When I saw the painting she had done for How to Raise an Elephant I was immediately struck by the way in which she had somehow captured the feel of Mma Ramotswe’s world. But she had done something more, finding just the right colours for an African sky heavy with rain – one of my favourite skies. It is a joyous picture – a picture filled with the feel and possibilities of Africa. It is a lovely work of art. – Alexander McCall Smith

Every now and then, publishers need to refresh the look of a long running series and this is such a moment for The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. We hope that you will agree that the new cover look is simply stunning. Diane Rendle is the artist behind the change with her cover image for the latest book in the series, How to Raise an Elephant. I visited her in her flat in Edinburgh and we talked about her experience of Africa and her illustration style:

WHEN and HOW DID YOU COME ACROSS ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH?

I came across Alexander McCall Smith’s writing when his No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book was first published. Having been born in Africa, with three or four years spent in Botswana, it struck a chord with me and my sisters and we have followed the series for many years. I felt he perfectly captured the mood and the character of the people, and the stories brought back fond memories of the lovely characters I knew and the happy years spent there.

I was aware that ‘Sandy’ had bought two or three of my paintings over the years. He bought one from the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh many years ago. I think I remember writing a letter to thank him, and told him him that I had lived in Botswana.

I had a solo show in March this year at the Open Eye Gallery and on the opening night was told that McCall Smith wanted to meet me. We had a lovely long conversation which covered our mutual love of Africa and its people, and how important it is to us both to do justice as much as possible to the African people. He asked me if I had ever done book covers or if I had considered it. I didn’t want to presume he was thinking of asking me to do one, but he did suggest that we get together over lunch and that there was someone else he wanted me to meet.  Unfortunately the idea got scuppered by the country going into lockdown shortly afterwards, so I didn’t expect to hear anything. I was therefore delighted to be contacted in July by McCall Smith’s art director from Little,Brown Books asking me to design the latest cover from his No.1 Detective Agency series. I had several Zoom meetings with Duncan Spilling; one memorable three way Zoom with Sandy and Duncan, where we discussed my colour roughs and Sandy selected one to be worked up to final artwork. Although I am a gallery artist, it felt completely natural taking on this commission and I was very happy to be asked.

TELL THE READERS A LITTLE ABOUT YOU…

I was born earlier than expected, in a dispensary, in a small hill town called Kilosa in Tanzania.

My father left the UK to take up a Ministry of Agricultural post in East Africa, along with my mother and my two older sisters. He had a French mother and an English father, and my mother was from Derbyshire.

In the early years we would frequently accompany my father on safari for long trips around the stunning landscape visiting the local tribes, setting up camp in the wild.

He had a gift with languages and he very quickly picked up Swahili, and loved to converse with the local people. He quickly began to teach Swahili to visiting Europeans, Russians, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, Greeks and  wrote a very successful Swahili language book which is still in print today.

Every four years or so my father would take up another posting. After Kilosa we lived in Tengeru near Arusha, then Dar es Salaam where he taught at the Agricultural College. Finally we moved to Gaborone, Botswana to continue our African adventures when I was a teenager.

Botswana is very different to Tanzania. It is a dry arid land, home to one of the worlds largest salt pans and Kalahari bushmen and their wise ways. The landscape is peppered with boulders and ‘kopis’ which are stone hills often inhabited by giant monitor lizards, and is graced by the fat characterful Baobab trees, which according to local folklore have been uprooted and planted upside down. Its wide and open horizon of earth and sand is mostly bare and coloured in various shades from creamy pinky white to ochre through to burnt sienna and covered by the most enormous expressive sky.

I would spend hours studying the amazing insects and plants, the unusual sights and sounds.

Throughout my time growing up in Africa I remember being especially drawn to the people;  the statuesque poise and beauty of the women carrying their babies wrapped up in colourful Kangas, balancing enormous objects on their heads without any problem. I would trail paths trodden by people on my bike, following the sounds of their transistor radios playing wonderful soukous music, that would lead me to little villages. I would find a tree to hide behind so I could watch the children running about and the women rhythmically pounding their maize, the chatter and the banter, and the women cornrowing each others hair into the most amazing hairstyles and patterns.

And so I fell in love with the the African people, their warmth humour and big hearts – and I have been an avid admirer of their music and culture ever since.

AND YOUR CREATIVE JOURNEY?

When I was six or seven I missed about a year of school because I was quite sick and I remember being passed from doctor to doctor until they found out what was wrong with me. I spent a lot of time by myself; I always drew a lot, and had a very vivid imagination. That combination and situation, I think, definitely set me forward on a creative path.

I have always preferred drawing and painting people in imaginary settings – somehow reality hasn’t excited me so much – and within that I always return to Africa in some way. Yet I have always wanted to tread a less literal path, one which is harder to pin down, allowing the viewer more freedom to interpret an image. Over the years I have gone down other avenues, exploring more classic themes, but I have always been naturally drawn to the heat and the dust and felt it to be more true to myself.

We moved back to the UK when I was 16. Having lived on the road for years in government housing, my parents realised they needed to lay down some kind of security for their future and ours – and attend to the business of buying a house.

I studied Illustration and Graphics at Hornsey College of Art, then worked for a short time in London before joining a design consultancy in Edinburgh. I worked there for a few years before settling down to have a family first in Northern Ireland and then the Borders of Scotland, where I began to paint.

When I paint, I keep the blinds on the windows of my studio permanently down because I find the Scottish countryside distracting and not compatible with my subject matter. Its very important to create an atmosphere that will bring the ideas to life, especially in the early stages – and so African music blares away! I paint with the rich colour palate of Liquitex acrylic paint onto linen covered boards or quality plywood.

My first exhibitions were in Dumfries and Kirkudbright in Scotland, then shortly afterwards I began exhibiting with the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh, and have had a close relationship with them ever since. I have exhibited in various places such as Stonehaven and Dundee, and down south in Eton, but my natural home has come to be the Open Eye Gallery.

LATER VISITS

I took my husband to Africa for our honeymoon for a month, where we spent time travelling all over Kenya visiting many familiar places on local buses, trains, taking small airplanes up north to the highlands, and of course trips to see the wildlife – and also snorkelling along the beautiful coast, sailing in large traditional dhows and little outriggers with local fishermen on the crystal clear turquoise seas.

When our children were old enough, we took them to Zanzibar a few times, which also became the topic of several of my exhibitions. More recently I had a trip to Swaziland, when my sister lived there.

The journey to this new cover look for UK editions: