Inspiration - khanga fabric in Zeki Loves Mummy & Zeki Loves Daddy

ISBN: 978-1-907825-347

ISBN: 978-1-907825-330

I am SO blessed to work with two amazing illustrators; Ros beardshaw for Lulu and Ruth Hearson for Zeki.
They are so creative it blows me away! Their influences are wide and varied and I open my email in excited anticipation every time I get a piece from either one. We work hard to have lots of details for readers to discover (we went wild in the recent pair of Zeki books, as you can see here).

It has been wonderful to see the khanga patterns become part of the influences and source of inspiration for the art for these books.

The Khanga above provided Ruth with a wonderful inspiration for the patterns on the fabrics for Zeki Loves Mummy and Zeki Loves Daddy.

With love as the central theme, Ruth picked up the heart motif and worked it into Mum's pjs, pillows and blankets...
(the blue blanket in particular has the contrasting sized pattern of Kanga). Even the sofa has a subtle heart pattern.

The traditional Tanzanian 'guinea fowl' motif is there too - Ruth has beautifully positioned the hearts on the cushion behind Mum inside these lovely shapes.

This is one of my favourite images - how cute is Zeki!! And just look at Mum's robe - it's not just the heart pattern but the way Ruth has captured the Khanga's large and small contrasting patters - the mji and the pindo.

Not to be outdone, Daddy too has towels and cloths covered with hearts (and with contrasting-sized patterns).

And there's wonderful use of the gunea fowl motif here too - the green cushion behind Dad's head has hearts positions beautifully inside. While the fawn-coloured cushion has the contrasting mji and the pindo.

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