June Calendar: Matchboxes or An Excited Sort Of Beetle

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’ve just had my birthday, and support for the calendar would be a very nice gift!

Onward to…

BEETLES!

SO, this began with the intention of working on “The Little Match Girl”, bounced off my Kindling cover art, got immediately sucked into the orbit of A. A. Milne’s poem “Forgiven” (a.k.a. Alexander Beetle) and now is also for Renfield.

Here is a slightly softer colourway, although I like the garish one above best — it reminds me of vintage tablecloths.

Here is the sketch and a very rough test of how the colours might work.

Here are the inks — I wanted slightly heavier lines than usual, in keeping with the sketch, so I used a ZIG Kuretake Mangaka brush-tip pen for the fine lines, and a very large Pitt Artist marker to fill in the backgrounds.

I’ll put patterns up soon (last month’s came up so nice! The Spoonflower swatches look gorgeous and I got a very silky-fleecy blanket of the multi-colour version via Redbubble.)

And below, for personal use, are coloured and colourable files (patrons get a few extra colourways and resolutions).

You’ll see that when colouring it, I selected some areas of pure black and colourised them to give different effects.

Supporting the calendar:

The calendar is a work of joy, but it also takes a lot of time. Here are some ways to help make it possible:

• 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!
• Buy a PDF colouring book of last year’s illustrations, from $3: 2022 Colouring Pages PDF
• 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

May 2023 Calendar: Books in flower

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.

May is my birthday month, so books it is!

When you are small and wish you could actually get inside books, the obvious advice is always to become a writer. But writers spend most of their time reading the same book (which they themselves wrote) 97 times. I love writing and wouldn’t change it, but the closest I’ve gotten to the feeling of climbing into a fictional world is illustrating everyone else’s.

(Patrons get a few extra colourways, including, this time, orange flowers, and a turquoise-and-white version)

Here is how the design began in my notebook. I wanted to play around with the style of the Cold Hands illustration, but see if I could do a half-drop repeat. Which I nearly got right. It works, but took longer constructing the pattern file than it should have. Lessons were learned.

Here is the sketch (left) next to the inks (right), drawn with a dip pen (Hunt Crowquill 102 nib and Winsor & Newton ink, as usual).

The multicolour version of the design is now up on Redbubble on cases, scarves, notebooks, shirts, etc. Spoonflower will follow (there are a few new designs up on Spoonflower now, and I will post about those soon.) UPDATE: On Spoonflower.

Supporting the calendar:

The calendar is a work of joy, but it also takes a lot of time. Here are some ways to help make it possible:

• 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!
• Buy a PDF colouring book of last year’s illustrations, from $3: 2022 Colouring Pages PDF
• 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

April 2023 calendar — talismans and amulets

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

Fairy-tale colouring book — 2022 art

The 2022 fairy-tale calendar line art is now available to buy as a PDF colouring book for $3 (or more if you like) from https://ko-fi.com/s/71c7bbbbe6.

Of course, you can also get the PDF and future calendar images (early and with bonus colourways) by supporting the project at patreon.com/tanaudel.

March 2023 Calendar — lost in the trees

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.

Here is the March calendar! I’d been wanting to try a scalloped design. They are often waves or shells, but the sketches evolved into trees — an assortment of mythical folks lost in a forest…

the sketch

(or perhaps on a Scooby chase through the shrubbery).

Supporters on Patreon got a few extra colourways (in this post):

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

February 2023 Calendar: 12 Dancing

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

All the 2022 calendar pages

Every month (with the support of patrons) I make a printable (and colour-able) calendar page. (You, too, can support the calendar, receive the files early, and get occasional alternative colourways here: patreon.com/tanaudel).

Here are all the designs for 2022:

To view the art larger, as a gallery/slideshow, click the images below.

Many of the designs had multiple colourways in the original posts (and a few extra for patrons). You can see those, and descriptions of the process, under the calendar tag or here: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.

I’ve also made a colouring book of the line-art for patrons at the stationery level.

Note: Want to support the arts? This calendar is made possible by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art (patron levels start at very low amounts!): 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. And many of these designs are available as prints, clothes, cases, etc on Redbubble, as fabrics and wallpaper on Spoonflower, and as prints in InPrnt. 

January 2023 Calendar — unrolling tales

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.

For January 2023, here is a calendar of various borders for a fairy tale. (I’ve included a turquoise version, in case the coloured image uses more black ink than you have in your printer.)

I’d been wanting to make a series of repeating bands that I could develop further for border edgings and ribbons, etc.

Two versions (with a turquoise and a paper-texture background) are now up on Redbubble as cases, scarves, notebooks, etc.

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 (not a newsletter), if you’d like to keep up with any major announcements: Mailing List Sign-Up

And happy new year!

December 2022 Calendar — Carousel

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.

Here is the December calendar! A carousel of various improbable animals, of course, because I was finishing it at the last minute (due to travel, deadlines, etc), and thought “what will be simplest?” and chose incorrectly.

And also because I like carousels. Not just the design, but the experience of soaring and swooping aloofly around a whirl of mirrors and metal and music, almost like flying without the imminent terror of my second-favourite ride, the chair-swings.

You can see the illustration process below:

• First, loose sketches in conference notes. At that point I’m following lines into an idea, then feeling out whether there’s enough to sustain a full design, and then using the page to collect enough animals and variations to play with/select from later.
• Then I start working out the layout — I’d been playing with an ogee shape for some other ideas, and thought it might work for a more formal arrangement of images. Here and on some following pages I worked out the rough dimensions I liked, and some ways to repeat/alternate within that framework. You can see several of the creatures are already in place here. I was still thinking of putting hints of mirrors and floor behind them, but in the end that made everything look too crowded, so I discarded that idea. Because I was going to put frames around the creatures, I discarded the ones which sat flat on the deck (e.g. the swan), because they’d break the pattern.
• Next, I used the mirror-assist tool in Procreate to simplify sketching the repeating frame. sorting out an ogee shape to contain the creatures, then sketching them (using the mirror-assist in Procreate to simplify drawing that shape), then inking it in layers, then deciding it looked rather nice without the curvy borders and leaving them out.
• Finally, I inked the calendar. I kept the border on a separate layer because I wasn’t confident the swooping lines would go down smoothly (and as it was, I kept sticking my thumb into the wet ink). It’s quite thick paper — 250gsm — but it’s on a lightbox here.

After scanning and tidying the inks, I went through quite a few colour schemes on the way to the cream design! Patrons got all of them, because I like to outsource my decision-making where possible.

I am adding this to the list of images I want to make into repeating designs, and will post when I’ve done that!

But for now, 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 (not a newsletter), if you’d like to keep up with any major announcements: Mailing List Sign-Up

November 2022 calendar — iconographies

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.

For November, and my sore elbow, here is a set of tiny motifs — I drew them half-size with a different pen than usual (a Kuretake Zig Mangaka flexible pen, instead of a Hunt Crowquill 102 dip pen), to spare my arm.

My heart is still with the dip pen, and I will return to it as soon as my elbow mends, but I do enjoy the graphic qualities of these images.

I was also trying to use a different colour scheme, but managed to circle back around to my old favourite blue and gold.

Patrons also got a bubble-gum and raspberry version.

I’m planning a repeating pattern, but I’m also in transit at the moment, so that will probably be a little while away.

Below (for personal use) are the printable versions — one pre-coloured and one 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 (not a newsletter), if you’d like to keep up with any major announcements: Mailing List Sign-Up