Errantry

Another tiny cut paper piece, given a simpler digital treatment than the last one. Still a fairytale, of course – towers in woods and girls talking to birds, while peculiarly ill-cut fox-things creep about on stems of flowers. As is their wont.

This instalment of the Dalek Game is for Maurice Sendak’s best book, One Was Johnny. I’m a fan of Alligators All Around and A Hole is to Dig, etc (and this one, of course) but this counting rhyme of an antisocial reader with too many unexpected guests was my first and remains my favourite.

It also explains a lot about Daleks.

In other news: Hello, I am still here! I have had a lot of speed-reading to do for upcoming jobs, and other things which shall be revealed… Also, I finished reading through my Large Amorphous Manuscript and breaking it into scenes, preparatory to editing it, AND I have almost finished a short story. I have not seen much sunshine.

A very tiny paper image, cut by hand with a scalpel and awl. The background and blue echo were added digitally. This is a test patch for techniques for several current projects, but the story is for a fairytale (all the fairytales) of lost chickens, and wolves, and roses.

This rare coloured instalment of the Dalek Game is for Robert Shearman’s short story collection Everyone’s Just So So Special (being read here by the Dalek) and was particularly commissioned by the Lair (Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannett) for their interview with the author, which you may (and should) read here: The Lair’s Just So So Special or here: The Lair’s Just So So [So] Special.

I do not know if either Robert Shearman or, indeed, a red Dalek owns this table cloth and crockery pattern, but one of them should.

An Illustration Friday picture! I am home sick and having troubles concentrating on words, screen etc, so coloured inks and hapless mermaids it is.

And here is a new Snow Queen blog header for July – trying a looser colouring style over pencil.

This instalment of the Dalek Game is for H G Wells’ The Invisible Man, the only Wells I have read the whole way through (made it up on Verne).

In related news, apparently Tesla invented the Daleks, as well as everything else.

In other news:  Sue Bursztynski has been hosting a series of excellent behind-the-scenes posts on the stories in Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear. They aren’t tagged, but they start on 30 June, and you can work forward from there. It’s a sort of director’s commentary, with input from the authors and both the editors, and I’ve loved reading them! The post on my story, “Kindling”, is here, and has pictures: Kathleen Jennings Kindles

This instalment of the Dalek Game is for The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, because I love it. There is such a wonderful survey of styles and eras (the dresses of the 30s, the cell phones of the 80s), such sly odd wit, such artists as Addams (of the Family) and de Seve. I like sitting down with a cup of tea and spending a few quiet minutes flipping through it.

(If you don’t recognise this incarnation, the Dalek is based on Eustace Tilley, from the first cover of the New Yorker).