I’ve illustrated this zine O tesouro de Cavendish in partnership with my friend Stella Elia, from BabaYaga collective, based on São Paulo city, in Brazil. Starting with her memories about playing and drawing under the kitchen table, she had the idea of making a zine about a pirate story that could also be a treasure map. Cavendish was the perfect character for it: a legendary real pirate that anchored in Ilhabela, city in São Paulo state, that means “Beautiful island”.

For the illustrations of the story, I used black ink to draw realistic images that could remember the classic adventure books.

The map is an artistic representation of Ilhabela, showing some of its natural attractions and local legends, with watercolor paintings inspired on maps of the Age of Discovery.

In opposition to the illustration’s aesthetic, we wanted to keep the zine form in a very simple and loose way, to encourage children to play and make their own creations with simple materials they have at home.

If you want to know more about this work and other BabaYaga books and zines, click here (in Portuguese).