August Calendar: Sprigs

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: ko-fi.com/tanaudel. 

This month’s calendar is an arrangement of sprigs and twigs and leaves and fronds. I’d been wanting to draw a little pattern/sampler of plants, and I had originally planned to colour these. I did prepare all the areas for colour! But in the end I fell in love with the effect of the linework on its own. I imagine them as black-work (or white) embroidery on a Tudor-style blouse, or something like that. I have, however, included a green option for you, for variety. 

I do plan to play around with a repeating pattern for this one. However, this week I have been being artist/writer in residence at Concordia Lutheran College in Toowoomba (my old boarding school), and pattern-making time has been limited (it should be a simple repeat, but I need to move a few leaves around to balance the design).

But here (for personal use) are the printable versions — one pre-coloured and one to colour in yourself. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 by buying me a coffee or two through Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel.

July 2021 calendar — Houses

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: ko-fi.com/tanaudel. 

I knew I’d be running late on this one (due to some project deadlines), and I also knew this was NOT the fastest design I had in mind, but OH WELL. I’ve been wanting to draw a pattern of houses for ages and it was a very pleasing design to work on. And I was able to put some Queenslander houses into it, and a few hints of stories.

That, for me, is one of the charms of book maps — not “here is the place where this story takes place”, or even “here is this sort of place…”, but “here are the sorts of stories that might happen in a book like this.”

And that applies just as well to a town as to other maps.

It is also up as a print and repeating pattern on Redbubble if you are in need of (for example), prints, phone cases, notebooks or dresses (or a jigsaw puzzle). It’s up in both colour and as a line drawing (if you prefer monochrome, or would like to colour in your own clothes).

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions — one pre-coloured and one to colour in yourself. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 by buying me a coffee or two through Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel.

June 2021 Calendar — Dragons

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: ko-fi.com/tanaudel. 

Dragonlets for the June calendar! Wriggling all over the place. You will notice distinct design homages to Smaug (as depicted in Tolkien’s drawings), particularly the tiny wings with a single anchor-point, and the three-pronged tail. It turns out tiny wings are MUCH easier to manage for decorative purposes. Others are more in line with my usual dragons.

Here’s a glimpse of the project’s beginnings in my notebook, where most calendars begin.

I was originally planning mermaids, for the Mermay illustration challenge, but we just had mermaids in February

I drew these to a grid, which was a puzzle, getting them all to fit — especially since I wanted some to go off one edge and back on the other (to better repeat).

There’s a printed grid under this sheet of paper, which I used as a guide — all the dragons take up 10 squares.

Once I’d sketched out the dragons, I used that set of dragons as the base for another set of sketches (each dragon filling the same space as its twin, but facing the other way. I put those together and darkened the sketches on the computer, then used a lightbox to ink the finals on clean paper before tidying and colouring them on the computer.

Hunt Crowquill 102 nib and Winsor & Newton black ink, on Canson illustration 250gsm paper

I’ve also wrangled it into a repeating pattern, which is now up on clothes, stationery, prints & etc at Redbubble! I will put it on Spoonflower, too. Oh, and the February mermaids are now up on Redbubble, too.

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 by buying me a coffee or two through Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel.

May calendar — Frog princes

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel — I’m extremely grateful for all your support.

Welcome to the May calendar! Frog princes, this month. It’s not a story that usually leaps to mind as one of my favourites, but it keeps recurring — I love the murky gleam of it, the promises, the consequences. It underpins “Undine Love”, and was one of my earliest repeating patterns and has infused my PhD.

But it’s a challenge, too — it’s an odd story, and greens and yellow are complicated to pair in art as pleasingly as they go together in life, and frogs’ hips are wildly improbable.

I’ve also wrangled it into a repeating pattern, which is now up on Redbubble! (I will put it on Spoonflower, too).

(The April calendar design is also now up on Redbubble and as a print on InPrnt.)

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 by buying me a coffee or two through Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel.

April Calendar: silver and gold

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel — I’m extremely grateful for all your support.

This is a collection of fairy tale imagery — part of a slightly larger collection, all inked with a no. 8 brush (just taklon) and Dr PH Martin’s black ink. I coloured them digitally and very simply, because it was almost 1am by then, but I love the feeling of old endpapers.

It was a good and educational brushwork workout. But also I have been setting up a new studio area and it was really nice to be able to just reach for all my reference material and leaf through it or turn it to the light, and incorporate the bits I wanted. I also like the calligraphic effect of the lines.

These are the inks in progress. They are on a light box with the pencil sketches on thin paper underneath.

Because the background was fully-inked, linework is a little difficult to extract, and retains some digital tracery, alas. Notes for next time, especially as inking the entire background takes a really long time.

Edit: This design is also now up on Redbubble and as a print on InPrnt.)

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 by buying me a coffee or two through Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tanaudel.

March Calendar — Rondels

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: paypal.me/tanaudel — I’m extremely grateful for all your support.

I was cutting it fine on this month’s timing, so I decided to do the most complicated of many ideas (the other main contender was a simple repeat of dandelion flowers and leaves).

As for this design, of stars & moths, grasshopper & dandelions, heron, crown, bees, spiderweb, goblet, fox, moon, cat, bouquets, and a snuffed candle — oh, I like self-contained worlds, and objects that could belong to tales, and old endpapers, and a sense of being watched, and silver-and-bronze, and blue brocade, and arrangements that could be the best sort of game… There are a couple call-backs to other illustrations I have done, including for Holly Black’s Folk of the Air trilogy, and Angela Slatter.

Pencils vs final

Edit: It’s also up as a print on Redbubble.

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 through the tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel.

February calendar — beside the seaside

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: paypal.me/tanaudel. 

Welcome to February! It had been a little while since I did a mermaid calendar (here’s a round-up of the last four years of calendar art). And for some reason, I thought I should hand-draw all those little waves. (They were all drawn in black ink — I changed the colours digitally). I’m still on a midcentury-inspired colouring kick (see also January).

Fish are one of the subjects I find unnecessarily effortful to draw. This time I decided I didn’t care about accuracy, and instead went for a Seuss/Baynes effect. I rather like them.

As you can see, I’ve drawn it to work as a repeating pattern. I have not yet made it actually repeat, mostly because I was working on my PhD confirmation presentation (first year milestone — the presentation was on Friday). I will put this up on Redbubble, etc, when the pattern is completed. So stay tuned if you’re into art on things!

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 through the tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel.

Edit: This design is now also up as a print and on some clothes, cases, etc at Redbubble.

2020 Calendar Art Roundup

Here is all the calendar art for 2020! Bees, library foxes, giants, crows, unicorns, groves, sewing equipment, Australian wildflowers, Regency games, a skeleton orchestra, mysterious plants, and a sky of starry animals. If you go through the calendar tag you can see close-ups.

All this art (and more besides) was made possible with the support of patrons on Patreon.com/tanaudel (from $1 a month) and those of you who threw a few coins in the tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel — thank you very much to all of you!

Many of these designs are available as prints and on phone cases, scarves, etc at Redbubble, and a few of them on fabric at Spoonflower.

I’m not sure what my personal favourite is. There are elements of all of them — the library foxes amuse me, and the tiny bee drawings make me happy, and there are small allusions and entertainments in all of them. I’m probably best-pleased with the wildflowers, because I was trying something a little different, and because I made it to celebrate the publication of Flyaway.

And here are the last four years all together (I was doing calendars before then, but I don’t think I did any round-up posts).

I just noticed that there’s a regular progression of one less bright month each year, so if I don’t take care, by 2022 it will probably all be dusky twilight.

December calendar: a crowded sky

Note: This calendar is supported by patrons, who get it a little bit early, along with other sneak-peeks and behind-the-scenes art: patreon.com/tanaudel, and also by those very kind people who throw a few dollars towards it via the tip jar: paypal.me/tanaudel. 
Further note: If you’re looking for books or gifts this time of year, I have two books out! Flyaway is a short Australian Gothic novel, and Travelogues: vignettes from trains in motion is a set of poetic notes from train windows.

This design began as sheep from fairy tales, then stars got involved, and then more and more animals from other fairy tales, and then it started looking like something out of Mary Poppins… But it is finished, and if the animals are a bit odd, at least they are celestial.

It also came together into a repeating pattern, which is now up on my Redbubble store on e.g. scarves and cases and shirts.

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and/or like supporting the arts, 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 through the tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel.

Also, if you are after an advent calendar, I have posted a bird-filled one here: Countdown — an older advent calendar.

Countdown: an (older) advent calendar

The December calendar is coming soon, but in the meantime here is a picture I drew a few years ago for patrons on patreon.com/tanaudel, designed to double as a printable advent calendar, as there are 25 birds to colour in.

There is also a 12-day calendar here, if you’re doing Twelfth Night (or starting late).

Note re support: This picture — and a lot of the art that happens here — is made possible by patrons on Patreon.com. If you’d like to see more and/or if you like supporting the arts, you can do that (and get it and other behind-the-scenes things early) at patreon.com/tanaudel (starts at US$1/month!); there is also a tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel.