I have made new art for Sunday Morning Transport! Four logos interlaced into a larger silhouette image.
The reveal and an interview with me about the process is here:
Announcing New Sunday Morning Transport Artwork from Kathleen Jennings!
NOTES AND EVENTS: Darryl will be on the Brisbane Goes Wild panel at the Brisbane Writers Festival this Sunday 14 May (with Coen Hird and Margaret Cook, chaired by Amanda Niehaus). Very unfortunately for me it’s at the same time as my Australian Gothic writing workshop — it does look like such a good panel. And on this Friday 12 May I’m giving an artist floor talk at the QUT Art Museum (Gardens Point) about the silhouettes I’ve done for them.
Through the good offices of Fiona Stager of Avid Reader, I met Darryl Jones, urban ecologist, who was looking for an illustrator for his urban ecology memoir, Curlews on Vulture Street.
Here is a very fast timelapse of the cutting process!
Curlews on Vulture Street is hilarious, charming and fascinating, and I was eager to illustrate it. It was about birds, which I enjoy illustrating (the compact bodies, the fluid movement, the personality, the variety). It was all about the places and species I knew, many of which (brush turkeys and curlews) were occupying my garden while I sketched through the manuscript. I wanted to read the book anyway, for my own writing research for a project I will tell you about soon! And it presented some artistic challenges.
First, Curlews is definitely not fantasy, which is my usual field — especially for silhouette work. I love the fairy-tale connections of silhouettes, which I drew on (for the fairy-tale/Gothic adjacencies) in Flyaway. (I’ve written more about illustrating Flyaway over on Tor.com — also, for those in the USA, the US edition is now out in paperback and at the moment it’s on sale on Kindle).
Second, I’m not a science illustrator — I’m a narrative illustrator. Story and movement take precedence over accuracy.
But Darryl was keen to keep an element of that storybook quality, and I wanted to play with that line between accuracy and excitement. I had to be true to his writing (even removing elements from the sketches when they got edited out), and create identifiable birds, while also framing and tinting the story. and scientific delight. So there was a pleasing puzzle for me: how to keep my style while keeping the sense of wonder thoroughly non-fictional.
Third, the structure of a non-fiction book isn’t at all like a novel. Instead of braiding imagery into a long story-structure, foreshadowing and complementing it, I would be highlighting and framing incidents and episodes, with varied locations and casts. But the pictures would have to work together to create a handsome, coherent book.
I decided the best way to keep a through-line with a hint of ornament and enchantment was to decide on the composition first. I sent Darryl suggestions, and for the chapter headers we settled on a whiplash S-shape, set into a defined rectangle.
The shape, together with floral details, echoes 19th-century design. But on and around that, I could balance specific details: the sail-shaped tail of a turkey, the coils of cane chairs and spiral notebooks and cages.
It was a joy to illustrate, from puzzling out how to get 3d wire netting to ‘read’ clearly in silhouette, to the freedom of cutting out a sequence of tiny stand-alone birds to function as dividers within the chapters.
Here’s part of the frontispiece, ready for framing. This is my favourite illustration.
And it genuinely is a delightful, funny book — I gave a copy to my dad for Father’s Day, and he almost cried with laughter, recognising birds and situations.
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These calendar pages are made possible by patrons, who get them a little bit early, along with alternative colourways, and other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel. It is also supported by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: ko-fi.com/tanaudel.
I was thinking about objects that fit perfectly in the hand — just the right weight — and pocket-pieces and lucky charms and cheap old plastic brooches and pendants from cereal boxes…
Some of these are based on ones I’ve seen pictures of (art deco cicadas), or have (the cat in plastic, a bat in silver, a hedgehog-gnome from a Kinder Surprise), or love (the faïence hippopotamus). Others (the bear, the hound, the cormorant) just felt like they belonged in a story.
As usual it started as tiny sketches in my notebook:
Most importantly, a faience hippo (apparently there are over 50 known examples of blue faience hippos, a joyful thing to exist in the world).
For those who like to see the very rough construction lines — here is a short timelapse video of the sketch I used as a basis for the inks (done in Procreate on the iPad). For a while the cormorant was going to be a duck, and I went through a few frogs.
I used that sketch as an underlay on my lightbox, and inked the art with a brush (#10 round, I think) and Dr Ph. Martin’s Black Star Ink:
Then I scanned the inks and coloured them in Photoshop. Supporters on Patreon also received an extra colourways.
I am planning a repeating version of the design, and will let you know when it is available as prints, etc.
And below (for personal use) are the printable versions — pre-coloured and to colour in yourself.
You can contribute to the calendar (and get it and other behind-the-scenes things early) at patreon.com/tanaudel (starts at US$1/month) or tip the artist (me) a few dollars through Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/tanaudel. Either is greatly appreciated! And of course many previous designs are available as prints etc on Redbubble and Spoonflower. Also, I have a very infrequent mailing list for occasional updates/major announcements: Mailing List Sign-Up
Here is the scratchboard Dancing Jack I designed for Laurie J Marks’ classic fantasy of mysteries and magic, automata and riverboats, is out of print no longer!
Now back in print, from the acclaimed award-winning author. Memories of loss drive Ash of Ashland to take her dog and leave her farm, to seek out the fate of her brother’s children. But she is taken hostage on a renegade riverboat and is forced to travel against the current, toward the past, where a lost king, lost friendship, and lost power offer danger and hope for the plague-devastated land.
Dancing Jack is officially available on 18 March 2023, but you can pre-order it now via Kindle and Smashwords. It is such a beautiful, enchanted, flowing tale.
Laurie asked for the eponymous paper Dancing Jack — but the details were still to be worked out.
As usual, I began by reading the book, sketching elements that appealed to me, seemed thematically central, suggested movement, and would suit both the shape I was working in (the Dancing Jack instead of the rectangle of a book cover, since the commission was for the figure himself).
Here are some extremely tiny details — you can see them to the left of my thumb in the photo above.
Out of these, I refined the various districts of the body, the pose, and the balance of black and white (in pencil). I scanned those in and printed them in a few sizes, so I could pick the version that felt most sensibly sized for working on scratchboard.
I rubbed pencil on the back to transfer it down — you can see here that I taped the sketch to the top of the board so I could pencil it in sections without losing my place. This kept things cleaner, and avoided lines being rubbed away as I worked. Then I inked each section and scraped the design out, referring back to the sketch.
The board I used was Ampersand Claybord, and the pigmented inks were applied with a marker. (I do sometimes use pre-inked boards and/or brush ink, but this technique I learned from a workshop Nicholas Delort gave.)
I like those almost block-print style roughnesses and remnants around the edges, so I deliberately overink areas just to scratch them back.
And here is the final Dancing Jack, of death and roses, life and seasons, crowns and rivers.
You can preorder Dancing Jack now via Kindle and Smashwords.
And while you’re waiting, why not catch up on the Elemental Logic quartet, now all available from Small Beer Press (print and digital).
If you do get them in print, those designs interlock. (I posed about them here: Elemental Logics.)
These calendar pages are made possible by patrons, who get them a little bit early, along with alternative colourways, and other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel. It is also supported by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: ko-fi.com/tanaudel.
It has been a while since I played with the “Twelve Dancing Princesses” story, and I’d recently been flipping through some books of European costume history, so here are the ladies!
They began as digital sketches.
But I inked them with a brush, before colouring them digitally.
If you want to see the sketching and inking process, here is a timelapse. The digital sketches are drawn in Procreate on the iPad; the inking is on Canson illustration paper with a round brush (#8? maybe?) with Dr Ph Martin’s Black Star Matte Ink (usually I use Winsor Newton for drawing), and a light box/light pad.
The video switches from digital to ink at about 2.10.
Patrons also have access to a more muted full spectrum, and some lovely soft greens. And I’ve also attached the yellow-and-white version because it was the original idea, and for the sake of some 1970s murder mysteries involving reproductions of ancient Greek pottery that I had on in the background while sketching.
And below (for personal use) are the printable versions — pre-coloured and to colour in yourself.
If you like these and/or like supporting artists, you can contribute to the calendar (and get it and other behind-the-scenes things early) at patreon.com/tanaudel (starts at US$1/month) or tip me a few dollars through Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/tanaudel. Either is greatly appreciated! And of course many previous designs are available as prints etc on Redbubble and Spoonflower. Also, I have a very occasional mailing list for occasional updates/major announcements: Mailing List Sign-Up
This observation journal page is a variation on a previous activity.
The week before, I’d been playing with the concept of a story behind a story, as a way to strengthen a draft or unfold an existing story. Here, I was trying to apply that to illustration.
I adapted the activity by instead asking: If I remove the [primary/obvious] purpose, what remains?
Of course, I discovered I’d simply reinvented “breaking an image down into its component shapes”.
But doing that does create a basis for building something back up into new shapes and possibilities, and revealing alternative, less-obvious purposes.
A more directly creative (as in, I made things out of it) activity was: Drawing the people glimpsed from the corner of your eye. But the mental exercise of this approach felt like a (mild) workout, and it was an intriguing way to hold an object in mind and at arm’s length, and look beyond the obvious.
Writing/illustration activity:
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Something wonderful and shining just arrived from Fast Printing!
It’s a set of foil-printed bookplates for book signing, for Angela Slatter.
So shiny!
These hind girls (and Angela’s books) were also the inspiration behind the July calendar:
Here’s a quick glimpse of the process:
The lesson I did learn was probably not to work quite so large for a bookplate again — it took up most of a sheet of A4 paper, and I had to adjust some of the tinier details for printing.
Dancing in the dark…
For comparison, here is the full art, side-by-side with the bookplate. And I am delighted with how it turned out.
Two more project-review pages of the observation journal.
For previous examples see the project review category, and for a list of questions I ask, see Questions for Project Reviews.
The first was for my silhouettes for Chain of Iron by Cassandra Clare (the process post about those illustrations is here: Art Process — Chain of Iron).
I identified two important lessons on this project:
The next review is for the portraits I did for the Queensland Literary Awards. My interview about those is up on the SLQ website: A Conversation with Kathleen Jennings.
A few key lessons from this:
I also learned a few lessons about project reviews generally:
For other posts about project reviews, see the project review category, and for a list of questions I ask, see Questions for Project Reviews.
Support and/or follow
If you’d like to support art and writing and posts like this about it, here are some options:
I’m still charmed by this little forest I cut out. There are areas I’d tidy and balance and things I’d add, if I do something similar again, but it’s such a satisfyingly complete little grove (for the advantages of that, see Little Groves).
It was for a tiny illustrated story for the small (wonderful) tier of patrons who receive them in allegedly monthly emails (on average it works out that way). I’m collecting a pile of little tales in the hopes of doing something with them, although I’m not sure exactly what yet — their dimensions and styles are very various. Some are one line, some are several hundred words, some are poems, some are instructions.
But they are a wonderful place to just play.
Kathleen Jennings 