Former engineer finds promising career writing children’s books
JOHOR BARU: An exploration of her creative side some six years ago has turned former engineer Zanariah Salam into the children’s book author and illustrator she is today.
The 46-year-old, who was an oil and gas engineer for over 14 years, said she stumbled upon her artistic flair while looking for something new to learn in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I resigned from my job in 2018 because I wanted to give myself a career break and explore other things in life.
“Two years later, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. I shifted my focus to exploring new things I could do indoors since we could not go out at that time.
“One day, I came across a social media post about a free online class on making picture books for children and was intrigued by it. That was how it started,” she said in an interview recently.
Zanariah said she was immediately hooked and decided to explore further on her own.
“It was a one-off class that was around two to three hours, but it was enough for me to learn the basics and spark my interest to learn more.
“However, I have one problem. I can’t really draw that well. So I had to look for ways to use my other talents to create the picture book.
“I later found out that I could use collage to create the picture book.
“Instead of drawing, I had to cut pieces of paper into different shapes, colours and sizes and put them together to create the picture book,” she said.
Zanariah said she always knew she had a creative side but never really had the time to explore it.
“I enjoy taking photos, but I cannot really draw like a real artist.
“So, when I found out that there were other ways for me to come up with illustrations, I got very excited and continued coming up with more pages.
“I watched a lot of tutorial videos online to help me with my craft, allowing me to eventually publish the children’s books,” said Zanariah, who has written and illustrated 15 children’s books, including five self-published books, using the collage method.
Apart from producing children’s books, she also collaborates with agencies and companies to carry out workshops on using origami to create illustrations.
“I guess since my background was in engineering, my skill set tends to be more on the technical side, and I am glad that I can still use it.
“There may be others like me who are keen to come up with picture books but do not really know how to draw well.
“Instead of giving up or pushing ourselves too much, there are actually other ways for us to explore our creativity through the skills we already have,” she said.
