The west Wales-based illustrator Hannah Rounding had the task of turning the simple rhymes of What Can You See? into images that would jump off the page to help young children learn about the world around them.

As she tells us here, she begins with pencil sketches before using water-colours to deliver the final images.

“I start with the text – that’s the starting point that I was given by Jason,” she says, explaining how she goes through, line by line, to see what images come to mind and to decide which colours to use.

“Lots of the inspiration and ideas came from real life and the world around me.”

Hannah used different approaches on different pages. “Some, I would do as one entire page on one spread together and then others, like the mountain scene, I would do the skiers separate and edit them in afterwards.”

A lot of her ideas for What Can You See? came from real life and the world around her. “This year we had a garden for the first time and decided to grow sunflowers,” she recalls, before revealing that the dog in the book is real too.

CLICK HERE – or below – to hear more about how she interpreted my words as beautiful, intimate, charming and lovingly tender images.

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