June Calendar: Firebirds (feed the stars)

Firebirds for June! A few white ones in there, as a nod to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 

‘m working on a series of bird illustrations for my MPhil novella “Flyaway”, so it was practice for that, as well. You’ll see one or two Australians in there.

The asymmetrical shape is to allow the design to fit into a repeating pattern. Here’s a glimpse (dodgy late-night photo!) of how it was constructed (Julia Rothman’s introduction to repeat patterns is a useful explanation).

As ever, the calendar is brought to you with the help of my excellent patrons, who get previews, process shots and stationery, among other things, from $1/month – if you’d like to join and support the calendar (and the soon-to-return Dalek Game!), it would be a lovely birthday present:)

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May calendar: Selkies!

Selkies for May!

These calendars are brought to you with the help of my patrons on patreon.com/tanaudel, and if you’d like to contribute, or are trying to think of a birthday present for me (it’s in May!) joining Patreon would be a great way to do it. Levels start at $1 a month, and there are many extra behind-the-scenes things, as well.

The colours were tricky for this one. Selkie pictures tend to be very muddy brown or too green. I worked towards these colours after consulting a number of William Morris designs and several photos of seals on beaches at sunset.

The page can be printed coloured or to colour yourself, from the files below. And please do consider supporting the calendar on Patreon!

(Oh, and the Angela Carter foxes are up on Redbubble as individual stickers and many other things)

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“The Heart of Owl Abbas” – now on Tor.com

My very odd short story “The Heart of Owl Abbas” is now up on Tor.com!

Art by Audrey Benjaminsen

The story kind-of-sort-of-maybe exists in the same world (or continuum of worlds) as “Kindling” (in Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear and Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012) and “Skull and Hyssop” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #31 and Prime’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015).

Huge thanks to Ellen Datlow, editor for Tor.com, and Angela Slatter, story doctor extraordinaire, for all they contributed, and to publisher and art director Irene Gallo who let me have Audrey Benjaminsen’s beautiful art. I think it’s the first time a story of mine has been illustrated by someone else and I think it is remarkable. I keep staring at all the little details. Thanks also to Noa Wheeler, copyeditor, who gamely catalogued all the careless inventions and copy-edited with an ear for the weird structures, and to Jodi Cleghorn who kickstarted me into writing this particular project when I was focussed on drawing.

Also, a word to the wise: baroque stylings exponentially increase editing difficulty. Thanks here to C.S.E. Cooney who is the sort of person you want on your side to find replacement words that slot into a particular matrix of sense, feeling, alliteration and anachronism. And also to Amber Gwynne, who diagnosed me with semantic exhaustion.

 

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Hugo Finalists!

The 2018 Hugo Award finalists have been announced. The list is full of wonderful professional and fan creators, publishers and critics – and I’m one of the artists! But the whole slate is marvellous, and you should check them out:

Best Professional Artist

• Galen Dara
• Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
• Victo Ngai
• John Picacio
• Sana Takeda
• Kathleen Jennings

April Calendar: Magic Mirrors

The April calendar is brought to you, as ever, by my delightful patrons, who keep art in my life when the exegesis is nearly due. (Patrons also get the calendar early).

This month I decided for magic mirrors. I don’t quite remember why, but here we are. I had several ideas, but they kept turning into Dissertations Requiring Comprehensive Research on Aarne-Thompson Classification Systems. So I stripped this back, kept it pretty multi-purpose (there are a few specific references, of course), and tried to add a hint of Gorey. I particularly like the bat.

It is in two colourways: a nice wine/plum, and a horrible peasoup green which is one of my favourite colours because it reminds me of Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow. (By the way, if you like Ruth Park, Australian literature, creativity, writing history, etc, I highly recommend Ann-Marie’ Priest’s small, delighted, indignant book A Free Flame – and there’s a podcast episode here with the interview that made me buy it: Avid Reader Podcast).

So here they are, printable for personal use, whether pre-coloured or to colour yourself.

 

The Creature Court returns…

Here is the finished banner illustration I made for Tansy Rayner Robert’s Creature Court Kickstarter campaign, which is now live!

The campaign is to fund the reprint of her previously published Creature Court trilogy (full of flappers, Rome-esque cities, animal magic and vicious skies), along with a new novella. I will be designing the new covers, as well as this banner and an enamel pin.

March Calendar – Be Bold, Be Bold…

This month’s calendar, brought to you with the support of my patrons (who get it early, and you can too!) is for the folktale “The Story of Mr Fox“: “Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that thy heart’s blood should run cold”.

Mr Fox has no actual foxes in it, a feature in common with one of my other favourite folktales-with-a-rhyme (“the bough did bend, my heart did break, to see the hole the fox did make”). That one is about murderous university students, at least as I heard it, although there are many variations on the theme. But it had been a while since I drew foxes, and I wanted to update my fox-and-flowers designs. I’ll add some of these to my Redbubble store once uni deadlines ebb a little.

The picture is also, of course, an homage to the authors who do such marvellous versions of this school of stories, such as Angela Carter and Angela Slatter.

The full, printable calendar images are at the bottom of this post – pre-coloured, or to colour in.

In other news:

Patreon support has just crept into New Dalek Territory, which means I’m restarting the Dalek Game! It’s just for supporters on Patreon (at all levels) for now, until I build up a reserve.

Also! The clockwork birds from February’s calendar are up on Redbubble, with the original version, one with a dark background, and a blue and white variation. They are in my queue to add to my Spoonflower shop, too, but…  I have an MPhil to finish.

And here is the calendar!

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