Here’s a sneak preview of some work I have been doing for Orion’s Early Reader series – it’s a lovely story by Steve Cole about an owl family. These three bossy owl brothers were my favourite characters to draw. The book is due out later in the year – I’ll post more details nearer the time.
(but no Goldilocks). Here are some bears from a new idea I have been working on.
I’ve been enjoying rummaging with my father-in-law through his marvellous collection of Edwardian postcards this week – several boxes and tins-worth of fascinating social history, from seaside promenades to postcards home from soldiers in WW1. There are saucy ones, sad ones, cards with secret pockets out of which a concertina of tiny photos cascades, velvet inserts, embroidery, glitter and even a squeak in one. Philip sometimes used to use them for teaching, and they would certainly be a very inspiring source for writers of any age. I’m showing some of my favourites here…I love the bizarre babies’ banquet, where the little cherubs are feasting on plates of casserole washed down with red wine. The series of seaside clinches appeals as well (there are many more in that vein), and seem particularly amusing juxtaposed with the displays of fresh Yarmouth bloaters (has that fish been re-branded? Not something I’ve ever spotted in a fishmonger). My absolute favourite, however, is ‘Never start anything you can’t finish’ – now there’s a fellow you would want to spend the evening with!
Here’s another letter from the alphabet project I’ve been developing with my mum (the letter J can be seen here). Even though I rarely wear hats, I do find them fascinating and it’s hard to resist adding them to illustrations – but this time I had the perfect excuse to go to town with them.
Every now and then I like to make things in 3-D – it’s a good way of developing a character and getting to know it from all angles. Recently I’ve been writing stories about rabbits and had an urge to make one, and here’s the result. I started with a little plan in my sketch book to match the drawings I had been doing, then made a rough pattern out of scrap fabric and pinned it together to see if it would work. I had a lovely bit of grey velvet and some purple satin that seemed just right to line the ears and underneath the feet. Next I tacked it and turned it inside out to check it was still in order – at this stage I had to make a few adjustments around where the legs meet the body – tricky business, the gusset. Chain stitch made the mouth and nose and detail on the paws, and the finishing touch was the tail. I couldn’t think what to use and finally hit on the idea of an old sheepskin glove which had lost its partner – trim the fingers and turn it inside out, and it makes a perfect rabbit tail. The whole rabbit turned out rather enormous – you can see the scale when he’s standing on my desk! But a nice armful to hug. Maybe he will have a book or two to go with him one day…
Whenever I go somewhere new I like to visit art galleries, but best of all is when there’s an opportunity to see an artist’s studio, in full working order. Recently I had the chance to go to the Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro on the outskirts of Palma, Mallorca, where Miro worked for the last years of his life, in a purpose-built studio designed for him by Josep Luis Sert overlooking the Mediterranean. The studio is so light and airy and spacious, filled with colour, paint and brushes and unfinished canvases everywhere, mixed in with pinecones, stones and interesting old toys that Miro collected. There’s also a gallery, and another, older house where Miro also worked and drew out his new ideas for sculptures all over the walls.It’s impossible to visit without wanting to go home and pick up some brushes then paint something very large…or draw all over the walls. Very inspiring.
I’ve been working on a personal project lately with my mother – her words, my pictures for a giant alphabet book. The text my mum has written is so funny and such a joy to illustrate – here’s the letter J (for Jasmine Jerboa). I had great fun with this image collaging in some giant insects from an ancient French dictionary, and couldn’t resist adding a 70s-style thermos flask – essential equipment on any jungle jaunt, surely? I’d never looked properly at jerboas before – they are very endearing creatures, like miniature kangaroos.
Once a week I deliver an art class for under 5s. I love it when they come through the door asking “what are we going to make today, Jane?”. And it’s a great excuse to read books by some of my favourite fellow illustrators, and invent an activity that ties in with their stories. In the montage above are a very hairy pair of tusked mammoths inspired by Neal Layton‘s ‘Oscar and Arabella’ (I have one little girl at the class who loves to go crazy with the eyes), a mini 3-D landscape of a stream and stepping stones prompted by ‘Muffin and the Expedition’ by Clara Vulliamy, and some marvellous mobile homes that we made to go with ‘Home’ by Alex T. Smith. The jewel-eating-treasure-chest monster has yet to be written, I think…
I found out last week that the great children’s writer Allan Ahlberg keeps an ‘ideas box’. Whenever he is struck by a combination of words or a particular thought that has potential, he scribbles it down and posts it in the box, which then acts as a resource for future writing. Apparently, ‘The Jolly Postman’ spent some years in there before emerging as one of the most delightfully original children’s books of the last 30 years.
This struck me as a very good idea – so I have made myself an ideas box, and intend to fill it. I’ve collaged it with bits and pieces, some leftover from school workshops (Grace Carteret was a housekeeper at Ham House many many years ago), then given it a coat of PVA as an easy varnish.
I’ve put a couple of embryonic ideas in there to get it started, and might trawl through some old notebooks: this is where I normally note ideas, but inevitably forget them once the page has been turned or a new volume started. I’m thinking of it as a low-energy slow cooker – I’m going to let a few ingredients bubble away in there and see what happens.
When I was very little I was given a book called ‘Modern Tales and Fables’. Published in 1967, it had a thrilling colour wheel on the front and a crazy mixture of surreal Czech stories inside. From the sad tale of a singing dead light bulb to the boy who planted his grandfather and grew a tree full of new ones, I loved them – and the illustrations, by Vaclav Sivko, I loved most of all. There was a pull-out page where a hippo grew a giraffe’s neck, Victorian collage mixed with loose scribbles and a definitely somewhat psychedelic atmopshere to the whole book – it was the late 60s, after all.
More recently I tracked down another book illustrated by Sivko, though this time it’s in Czech so I can’t understand the stories. But I still love the pictures, very much. So here are a few favourite spreads to share…
