Too excited and might need to calm down.

Ooh I'm terribly excited!! I get to the point when making a book, where it all starts coming together and I really like some of the pics I'm creating. Here's a bit of what I've been doing today.




I took a screen print. As you can see from the panel on the right hand side, I have done quite a lot of colouring and rendering on Photoshop, but some of my skies and backgrounds are a mixture of watercolour and the lovely chalk pastels as seen in THIS POST.

It's taken me bloomin' ages to do these two pages. On the left hand side you can just see a bit of a tree and bush peeking through. The brown dotty colour is actually one of my socks that I scanned for a tree trunk. As I took this shot half way through colouring, Little Hare still needs some work.

I'm having more fun with this than is quite proper. Time just flies by and all of a sudden it's time to feed the family! Can't wait to show you more.

Toodly pipsters for now,
Jules x

More books are HERE.

Dealing with Criticism

It's been a funny old week. In terms of BOOK SALES, it has been very good. I met some really great children with some brilliant ideas. Then I was whacked around the chops by some pretty harsh criticism.

When I used to send my book dummies off to publishers I got used to receiving back a 'thanks but no thanks' standard letter, often with a nice handwritten comment about liking the illustrations. In hindsight, it's unlikely that most people would get their work published this way as the 'slush pile' (an ugly phrase for the hundreds of manuscripts and book ideas that publishers receive) is often overwhelming; publishers don't have the time to sift through everything and are potentially missing the next Harry Potter. Most author/illustrators who are with traditional publishers get their work into print by other, more cunning methods! 

Artists bear their souls to the world. Criticism is somehow judging them (us) in a very personal way. When you say to an artist "I really don't like your paintings" you might as well be saying to them "Jeez, you're unbearably ugly. How do you live with yourself?"

On the receiving end, criticism can be a good teacher. If you can wade through the indulgent feelings of horribleness, you might be able to find a way of improving something. Are there seeds of truth in what the person said? Is there a way to improve? Can you resolve an issue that you have been avoiding?

Here's an interesting thing though - you don't have to justify your work. You, the artist, do what you do and if you want, you can tell people why you do it. What you don't have to do is prove that you're right when someone else thinks you're wrong. It's subjective. That's Art for you.

You may decide that the person's viewpoint was nonsense; if you love what you do and you are happy, ignore them! Maybe they are having a bad day. Maybe they are talking horse poo. Maybe they hate their job and wish they did what you do for a living. Here is the link to a rather nice blog by an artist called Jhina Alvarado who also talks about being criticised.

So, how did I deal with my critic? Hopefully with grace - I apologised and offered a solution. Then I processed my emotions about it and moved on.

Here is a comment from the last book dummy I sent off, to a publisher called Chicken House (one of my faves!). Strangely, although the main message was 'No thanks', it left me with a feeling of delight because of the underlining of one word!! 

"Unfortunately, it's not for us as we don't publish heavily illustrated fiction, but it's GORGEOUS and you must forge on to find the right publisher." (sic).

So here's a sneaky peek at what I've been forging on with this week. 

From The House on Hare Hill. Skateboarding owl!!

I've been committed

I've been thinking a bit about commitment today. It's a funny old thing. It's the beliefs you hang on to with wild abandon, until it is no more use to you. That point may never come and for some of the things we are committed to, we hope it never does. Children, for example. It's true that the love you feel for  your baby is like nothing else. And it's not something that diminishes over time. And it's not something that diminishes when baby number two comes along. It's a wonder you can fit all that love into one person. I have taken on a huge commitment with my children's education... mainly because the education system for children with Autism is unfit for purpose, so as their parents and guardians of their future, it is down to us to provide the safe and nurturing environment for the education that will make all the difference to their lives.

Then there's the commitment to work. It doesn't feel like work, it feels like play so in many ways the word commitment is not the right one. Except when I was learning to play this career at Art College, there was little in the way of marketing and business teaching. I had this wonderful idyllic view of my future, where I sat at my desk all day painting. Somehow, by some mysterious means my books would sell themselves and I would not have to think in numbers or sit outside my comfort zone. But hey, that wouldn't really be commitment, would it? 

 

In reality, I find myself thinking about numbers quite a lot, doing my own accounts (and those of my dyslexic and number phobic other half) filing tax returns, banking money, paying cheques... working out how many books I need to sell to cover costs, what to price those books at, finding out about the psychology of purchasing. I spend time filling in forms for public liability insurance, book events, summer events, school events. I fill in forms for all sorts of things. 

I do the yucky things that means the painting, drawing and story telling add up to commitment. Like a marriage - doing the things you'd only do for a person if you really loved them. 

It took me around 35 years to make a rule about commitment when reading fiction. My rule is, when reading a book for pleasure, if I don't 'get it' by page 50, it gets dumped. I did this with Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I know, I know, I should probably get tomatoed in the stocks, but I found it so tedious that I decided life was too short and I'd rather go and find another book to get my teeth into. Before the rule, I read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. Contrary to most reviews I read, I found this an utterly depressing book; maybe it was because my Dad was at the same age as the protagonist and I felt very angry that the elderly man was being so stripped of his dignity. Apparently, it is a very funny book. I guess I missed the point.

    

Luckily, most children's picture books don't get to page 50, so I'm quite happy to read the whole thing!! I passed on my 50 page rule to a group of school children recently. Not sure if this was the right thing to do in retrospect as maybe they will be required to read a boring book for their GCSE's. One of my set texts for English O'level, was The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. Boy, did I struggle with that. For the first half of the book my eyes slogged over the words, trying to stay awake. Then all of a sudden, it started to make sense and I sped to the end, thinking it was so good, I'd read some other Collins!! By choice!!! At sixteen!!!


   

So, it doesn't always work, this 50 page rule. I was bought The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy about 20 years ago. I know what happens in the end because I listened to the last episode of a Radio 4 adaptation and it was a really great ending. Maybe it's time to get it out and give it another try.

What book have you tested your commitment on?

Be Inspired by Your Favourites.

When I was a little girl, my Mum and Dad bought two A2 sized posters to put on my walls. I wasn't allowed to use blu-tack as it might ruin the (rather hideous 1970s) wallpaper, so my Dad bought some plastic slides to go top and bottom, with a bit of thread hanging the posters to the nail in the wall. I remember the posters like they were burned on the inside of my eyelids. Molly Brett.
 
You may never have heard of her, but her cards were well stocked in a shop in Reigate, where I lived. I LOVED her pictures. They were mainly woodland scenes, with fairies, creatures of the forest and teddies all co-habiting. Not only did I have these two enormous pictures on the wall, but I had a collection of postcards that I probably still have somewhere. There was just something about Molly Brett's work that sparked my imagination. Was it really possible that children could live in harmony with cats, geese, hedgehogs and elves?
 
 
This was one of my favourite books, A Surprise for Dumpy.

I was also a bit obsessed with Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy World. I especially liked Sven Svenson and Pierre, the Parisian Policeman.
 

Absorbing other people's work is a really helpful thing to do as an artist. Working out how someone made those marks on the page can fuel your own work. I have spent many years looking at the books that sing to me. Sometimes I don't even know why I like a picture; I just know I do. But it doesn't matter why you like it. What counts is how it is going to change you as a maker of image. Here are a few of the people that have shaped my world.

 

 

All of these illustrators have different ways of working and approaching their subjects. I wouldn't want to try to analyse why I like these illustrators for fear of losing a bit of the magic. All I can say is that each one has brought a ray of sunshine to my day each time I have picked up one of their books.

 

So thank you, lovely story makers. You rock my world. xx

 

Drawing with Wet Stuff

Hurricane winds and most of Britain under 3ft of water is not conducive for thinking nice Spring-y, Mad March Hare thoughts, but that is what I have been doing. Book number 5 is well under way. I've been buying daffodils and looking longingly at photos of lambs to try to bring forth the spirit of all things yellow as my colour pallette for The House on Hare Hill is yellow, blue and green. Somehow, I've always seen it as a very sunny book.

I've hoiked the dip pen out of retirement and started drawing with waterproof ink. I've forgotten how beautiful the lines are - and how challenging the medium is. Woe betide those who forget it's still wet and rub their hand over it. With my trusty Staedler pens, you can chuck it around as soon as you've drawn with it. Dip pen is a much more measured approach, needing a lot of coaxing and patience.

 In my Right Brain Business Plan (see this BLOG POST) I have suggested, perhaps unwisely, that I will have this book ready for sale by the end of May. It seemed ages away, but time flies pretty quickly, especially when I have quite a few school visits coming up and exam revision to supervise! 

I am learning a lot about Hares, and in the new book there will be a lot of lovely facts, both true and slightly made up, about the superior cousins of rabbits. Check out the Hare Preservation Trust for more information HERE. For instance, did you know Hares do not live in burrows, but in 'forms', where they scrape away the grass and top soil and hunker down in the undergrowth. Did you also know that Hares can accelerate to 45mph. That's faster than my car!!

Business Lingo and Wild Hares Boxing.

Hurray, we have made it through January without being washed away from Scarlett Inc HQ. As I sit here at home, wrapped up in 65 layers of clothing, the wind is tearing along the south coast of England and chucking a whole load of rain at us for good measure. July 2013 seems such a long time ago, when I was sitting in 40 degrees in my studio.  It seems like a good moment to reflect and plan.

So far my major plan of the year is to publish The House on Hare Hill. I'm still at the tinkering phase at the moment; I have pulled together the first spread but am deciding whether to do black and white drawing and colour digitally or have a mixture of digital and watercolour. What do you think? This is my digital colouring (not finished.)

I do love this part of my job; it's the equivalent of the writer's blank page. I quite often change things as I go along when new ideas or obvious problems jump out at me. 

The other thing I am working on is the marketing side. I had a bit of a eureka moment when I realised I that being a creator of books is just like any other good business idea. Take Lush for example. They started off making their soaps and smellies on their kitchen table and upsized as their customer base expanded. My customers tell me that they really enjoy my product (business speak for bearing my soul in a book) so all I have to do now is crack the market! It is really counter intuitive to use business lingo when you are a creative person describing the love you pour into your project. Stories become Products, friends and customers become Client Base and deciding whether to be in a craft marquee or have your own pitch becomes Competitive Analysis. Luckily I have come across a fabulous book called The Right Brain Business Plan which has helped me enormously.

The last time I wrote a business plan was in 1998 when I applied to the Prince's Youth Business Trust for assistance. It was a dry and crusty affair (the business plan, not the PYBT) full of guesstimates of income and spreadsheets of my outgoings. Nasty. This is what my new business plan looks like.

For more info on The Right Brain Business Plan click Here. I'm thoroughly enjoying the process. Watch this space to see if I really can Expand My Client Base!!