Badgers and Unicorns

Two family cards from September! Both ridiculously tiny, although in the first case it was because I started too close to the top of the paper.

Look at this tiny car!

The first is for my dad for Father’s Day. He was always a fan of Badger in The Wind in the Willows, and after illustrating Kij Johnson’s The River Bank, I still haven’t had enough of playing in that world.

The River Bank is a very good book, by the way — even disregarding the illustrations! It was one of the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Books for 2017.

I freehand-sketched the illustration onto the back of a scrap of paper, and then refined it as I cut it out.

The second card was for my niece’s birthday. She is now two and likes unicorns.

This time I sketched it lightly onto a piece of card, then darkened the main lines. Then I went over it with watercolours.

I went with a more horse-shaped unicorn than my usual goat/borzoi hybrids.

Unicorn fabric!

My sample swatches have arrived, so the unicorn fabric (from the May calendar) is now available on fabrics from Spoonflower: Twilight unicorns. (If you don’t sew, it’s also up on various clothes, stationery, masks, etc on Redbubble).

It’s always worth getting sample swatches first, because fabrics hold colours so differently. Here there’s a lovely twilight woodcut-blue on the Petal Signature Cotton, and a fascinating green-blue, the marine of evening, on the shimmery Celosia Velvet.

May unicorns

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. 

A little joy, if twilit, for May: a frolic of evening unicorns.

These are just because it had been a few years since the last unicorn calendar. I’d revisited some old silhouette unicorns recently, and started drawing them in the margins of my notebook, and the design is always an interesting one to play with. These are a bit horsier than usual — I think my favourite approach starts moving past goat into greyhound.

And it’s also up as a print and a repeating pattern on Redbubble on cushions, throws, clothes, etc: Twilight Unicorns. (Spoonflower to follow, but I have to wait for the sample swatches to arrive). Edit: It is now up on Spoonflower as fabric and wallpaper.

And here (for personal use) are the printable versions. If you like them and 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 $1/month!) or through the tip jar at paypal.me/tanaudel.

March Calendar: Step off the Path

Welcome to the March calendar, brought to you with the support of my patrons, who make this much inking time possible, and who get the calendar early — and other things.

This month’s design finds its origins in a combination of William Morris designs and red-figure pottery (both of which are much livelier in real life than in reproduction).

Below are versions you may download and print at home, pre-coloured or to colour. I’ve also put the colour version up as a print on Redbubble. No scarves, etc., (yet, or at least not without some heavy intervention), as I did not design it to fill that shape.

If you do use and/or colour the calendars, I’d love to see photos in the wild — please feel free to share! And if you’d like to join on Patreon (or otherwise throw a few dollars at the calendar) — thank you for helping make these images happen!

November Calendar: Unicorns

Days early, it’s the November calendar! I was going to do something complicated with hands, but then I thought: you know what would be easier than something for which I have reference on the ends of my own arms? Unicorns. Unicorns would be easier.

Then it deteriorated into reportage on rampant unicorn-theft, and here we are. (Unicorn… foal? unicornlet? corncub? I suppose it depends on the design).

You can download the design to print pre-coloured or to colour yourself by clicking on the images below. It’s also up as a print on Redbubble: Unicorn Thieves.

I’d like to keep doing these calendars and similar extra art next year, because I love them and hope you do, but they do take time out of my paying deadlines. I’m considering starting a Patreon, hoping to keep a version of the main calendar design free but to give supporters extra behind-the-scenes details, input and material. More detail in due course!

Illustration Friday: Unicorn

A little pencil and watercolour fantasy for this week’s Illustration Friday topic, in between book covers.

In other news, here is a post Kim Smith wrote about the experience of modelling for illustrations (not this one): A guide for creating #awkwardreferencephotos.