I admired Jane Brocket’s photographs long before we began working together on her lovely (and clever!) series of children’s books. She has quite a collection of photos to draw from as she creates her books. However, there are times when just the right photo doesn’t yet exist. I’ve blogged before about the cover design process for Spiky, Slimy Smooth, but Jane shared a new behind-the-scenes story about the egg photo recently on her blog.

She wrote:

When Danielle, who designed the book so brilliantly, asked for a new slimy picture, I cracked masses of eggs in an egg-box on a bread board on my bedroom windowsill ‘studio’. Unfortunately, the whole lot slid off the board as I was coming down the stairs balancing egg boxes, board and camera. One dozen broken eggs with their shells are definitely super-slimy, and I did think of photographing the mess for the book, but the light in the stairwell isn’t ideal.

I’m sorry Jane didn’t take a photo for posterity (and the blog), but I can just imagine it! To find out more (and see more wonderful photographs), read the rest of Jane’s blog post here.