{"id":1226,"date":"2025-05-14T08:45:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2025-07-31T14:07:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T04:07:52","slug":"the-dynamic-dub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/2025\/05\/14\/the-dynamic-dub\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dynamic Dub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Story By Christian\u00a0Di\u00a0Leo<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cover Photo by Ryan Low<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dub Leffler is a well-known and highly regarded Indigenous Australian Author and Illustrator, celebrated for his powerful contributions in children’s literature. Dub is a descendent of the <\/a>Bigambul and <\/a>Mandandanji people of southwest Queensland as well as being of French, Syrian, and Irish heritage. Leffler brings deep cultural resonance and storytelling tradition to his artwork, often exploring themes of identity, reconciliation, and belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning his career as an animator and muralist, Leffler transitioned into illustration, where he has truly made his mark. He has illustrated over 25 books, collaborating\u00a0with renowned authors such as Sally Morgan, Ezekiel\u00a0Kwaymullina,\u00a0and Bruce Pascoe.\u00a0Some of my\u00a0personal favorite\u00a0illustrations\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0done come from a book\u00a0called\u00a0Strangers on Country<\/em>, a collation\u00a0of multiple short stories\u00a0that explores\u00a0mixed perspectives\u00a0of\u00a0Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal people. His Illustrations\u00a0really contradict each other by showing the difference in feeling and emotion in different images.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Today, I was lucky enough to see Dub come in and give a talk to my\u00a0class. Over the course of the lesson he explained many interesting\u00a0techniques and facts about illustrating and writing, and we were lucky enough to\u00a0see some of his\u00a0outstanding\u00a0sketches and artworks he brought, along with some images of the tools he uses to create his art. Something interesting I discovered about Dub\u2019s illustrations is that he uses coffee and salt to get designs on his artworks. I\u00a0found this odd as coffee and salt are not typically used in art, which makes Dub unique in his own ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what was harder, writing or illustrating, Dub\u2019s answer was\u00a0quite fascinating.\u00a0He said \u201cWriting is easy, Writing is\u00a0very easy. Whenever I fill out forms, it was always filled with boring stuff. Illustration takes a long time, but\u00a0at the same time,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not a job.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0me getting paid for what I love.\u201d\u00a0He also\u00a0stated that good illustrating leaves room for imagination. This means that an illustration should capture the main point of the\u00a0story and leave enough room for your imagination to do the rest.\u00a0Something else Dub brought up was that he believes we owe a lot to other cultures for developing\u00a0English.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Overall, Dub Leffler is an amazing\u00a0author, illustrator and person who uses his unique background to share stories\u00a0and create creative artworks.\u00a0Dub should be well respected\u00a0by\u00a0all with his kindness,\u00a0knowledge\u00a0and\u00a0care.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q&A with Dub Leffler<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following his lesson in had the opportunity to speak with Dub one on one, and here\u2019s what he shared:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q1. What got you into illustrating? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What got me into illustrating? Reading encyclopaedias? \u2026 And especially children’s encyclopaedia, which I still have –\u00a0it’s\u00a0a Childcraft series, and all those encyclopaedias have amazing illustrations in them. And there was even a picture, it was the very first picture I saw of an actual illustrator and that I realised, oh\u2026 well you can\u00a0do that for a job!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q2. What is your favorite book? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, my favorite book. Apart from the gospel. I have\u00a0these favourite stories. I love Fors and especially fables from other countries. So,\u00a0yeah, I do see value\u00a0in it, I like to look for the value in every story,\u00a0which is nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q3. Who is your favorite author? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Favorite author. That’s a good question. That’s a good question. Favorite author. Well, these are my favorite books. I actually like Paul Guillo. He wrote The Alchemist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q4. What is your favorite illustration you’ve ever done? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh,\u00a0favorite\u00a0illustration. Well, I do like the ones in Strangers in Country<\/em>, because that was their true stories and it’s an\u00a0honour\u00a0to be able to illustrate true stories, sort of the history of Australia. I\u00a0also\u00a0like the illustrations that I’m doing at the moment for a book called The Drivers<\/em> that was written by Leah\u00a0Hersel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q5. In Strangers of Country, what is your favorite story and why? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u00a0do\u00a0love the story of Nis. I love it because he actually wrote it himself, he wrote it down himself, and there are there are some amazing photos of him when he had been living there for so long and how he had changed and it shows a different part of Australian history, which everybody should know in Australia\u2026 and I do know that his story is\u00a0quite\u00a0well known in France. Better than here.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q6. What is your message to kids who aspire to be illustrators? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practice, and… not just the art, but practice being the best person you can be. Because then you\u2019re able to bring that to your work. And treat others as you would like to be\u00a0treated.\u00a0It sounds\u00a0very nice. Just remember that\u00a0there’s\u00a0so much that\u00a0you can do with illustration. Keep in mind\u00a0illustrators and\u00a0artists\u00a0have\u00a0changed the world.\u00a0We’ve designed\u00a0ships and buildings and cities and cars and computers\u2026 long before they actually exist.\u00a0So,\u00a0we are creators in that sense.\u00a0So,\u00a0you think about it that way, that\u00a0it’s\u00a0important,\u00a0it’s an important\u00a0job that\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0feel like a job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story By Christian\u00a0Di\u00a0Leo Cover Photo by Ryan Low Dub Leffler is a well-known and highly regarded Indigenous Australian Author and Illustrator, celebrated for his powerful contributions in children’s literature. Dub […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-litfest","category-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1227,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}