A fairy tale in boxes

 

 

When I am at my mum's house, I love rediscovering books from my childhood. My sisters and I didn't divide up all our books when we left home, so our mother still has a substantial collection. Now that she has four grandsons, they are being introduced to our old books, and the last time I was there, I saw that this version of Rumpelstiltskin was in rotation for Emil, whose fourth birthday is this week. My sister feels conflicted about this strange primal story, with its explicit male dominance, and finds it rather bleak.* 

The book includes a note about the origin and possible meaning of this ancient tale (there are, as always with fairy tales, a lot of different theories and psychoanalytical interpretations), and when she reads the story to Emil she reads that bit, too, without missing a beat. So perhaps little Emil has an acute awareness of the potential motives of Rumpelstiltskin, who may be able to spin gold out of straw, but cannot attain human status and is therefore desperate to possess the queen's child, a 'living thing'.

This book has my name written in it and was a present, and I have a vivid memory of being in the sitting room of our first house and looking at it. The cover and one of the pages as well as a couple of details were imprinted in my mind, but I was surprised at how much I had forgotten. And it didn't register back then that the pictures were actually photographs of staged scenes of wooden cut-outs, made by Nanni Luchting.

Now that we are inundated with digitally created illustrations, it is extra special to see a book where every illustration was painstakingly created by hand, in this case using a method based on an 18th-century technique called 'Bühnenrahmen' ('stage frame'): for each picture Luchting built a framed wooden box arranged like a stage with a foreground, a painted background and partitions and peopled with 2-D wooden figures and props, adding in other materials such as gold thread and the straw visible in the second photo. The characters and objects cast shadows and look like they might slide across the page at any moment. The effect is eerie and reminded me of the so-called 'silent companions' from the 17th century, life-size cut-out portraits that served as a welcome for visitors to a house. 

I couldn't find any information on Nanni Luchting; online there was only evidence of one other box creation by her, and when I check now it no longer comes up. Whoever she is or was, I am grateful for these beautiful mesmerising worlds within boxes she gave us.

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*My other sister recommends this book about fairy tales.

Slower

 

Daisy is more affectionate than ever. Animals really are able to tell when somebody is in pain. She seeks my company and purrs at the loudest volume possible for her 15-year old self. I regularly fall asleep on the couch with her in my arms.

I am finishing illustrations for a sweet story about a walking stick, and Rab's new book (with my drawings) has just been published.

One thing the last two months have taught me is to slow down. I am quitting self-sabotaging, energy-robbing actions that used to be so much part of my daily life that I wasn't conscious of how corrosive they had become.  And I have only myself to blame for most of them. One example: Now my default is that I only check e-mail once a day unless I am in work and don't have it open in another tab while working on the computer. I have never been tied to my phone: I have very few apps, it is on flight mode half the day, and it doesn't ping. But on the laptop I used to have e-mail open, and since even the awareness of your phone/e-mail in your periphery affects your cognitive abilities, I make sure to clear as many of the surrounding distractions as possible.

The days I work from home I have been taking breaks to do some gardening. Earlier this week I removed all the dead dead plant debris that was in the way of the daffodils that are trying to emerge. I only spent half an hour outside and gathered three wheelbarrow-loads, but it cleared my head and it was satisfying to see the transition from brown to green. 

I re-read Oliver Burkeman's piece on underachieving, a timely reminder. The fortunate side-effect of all this slowing down and doing less is that I am doing more of the things that matter as a result.

Drawing | Book without words

This week I redrew all the images for the book about my nephew and Branwell the cat in 0.1 fineliner on larger sheets of paper. This will be a book without words, and I am keeping it quite minimalist, using the black-and-white of Branwell as inspiration.

I have also started work on two new books and am wrapping up another one, all with an eye on the end of the year, although that is of course a completely arbitrary deadline.

Meanwhile my share of garden tasks has been woefully neglected, even though the workload is much smaller at this time of the year. I can appreciate the beauty in the austerity of a winter garden and the cycle of life, and at times I manage a Buddhist equanimity about the pointlessness of human endeavour, but part of me is sad to see so much of the effort we put into the garden torn out or disappear, and I feel exhausted at the thought of having to start all over again.

This year I have shed several things - responsibilities, some part-time work, hobbies - that were taking up time, in order to prioritise my work and the people in my life, but nothing is set in stone. One of the pastimes I gave up is knitting and crocheting, but now, with the darker evenings, and inspired by a book my sister gave us, I want to start the large-scale, no-thinking-required project I have been meaning to make, a moss-stitch blanket. I just haven't found the right type of yarn yet (knowing my taste for luxury wool, this blanket will end up costing me an arm and a leg!).

In the wonderful world of picturebooks

 From Beatrice Alemagna's What is a Child?

A page from Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton - note the fair trade symbol on Harris's bag

 Collages and one of the final illustrations for Shh! We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton

 From A Lion in Paris by Beatrice Alemagna

Collage workshop

A little visitor enjoying the children's artwork

This week I have been guiding tours and workshops for the Baboró exhibition 'A World of Colour' in the O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at NUI Galway. This show was curated by Sarah Webb and features artwork by two of my favourite illustrators, Beatrice Alemagna and Chris Haughton, so I am in my element.

Alongside their work there is a growing gallery wall/window of photographs the lovely volunteer and I take of the amazing collages the children make (they can take the originals home, and we tell them it is a process similar to how the books were made). The children's creativity and their responses to the illustrations blow me away.

 I wrote a piece about the exhibition here.

Sketchbook | Baby and cat

While I really need to dedicate time to finishing a collaborative project, I have been sketching ideas for my first solo book project (if it all goes to plan - it's very early stages). In fact, this will most likely be a book without words, so there is no writing for me to do.

It is the story of the special bond between my nephew and Branwell the cat from their initial mutual wariness to the games they play together and their shared adventures. 

My sister (a pencil version of her is in the first picture above) has started a blog, which I am very excited about. She creates the most amazing things (see also our Etsy shop) and now has a place where she can document and share them, as well as writing about her life with her little family in rural Ireland and her love of books.

I am looking forward to my first free weekend in a while, to new books (borrowed from my sister - this one, a sequel to Rebecca, since I am in a Du Maurier mood) and maybe a half-day trip. And to time in the studio - I have been getting a few commissions, and there is nothing like a deadline to focus you, so I am in the zone, and everything in the studio feels warm and active instead of stale and dead. All the tubes of paint are handled, pencils sharpened; the candle and oil burner are on rotation, and drawers get pulled out and easels adjusted. It is funny how using objects makes them come alive. I can see certain people rolling their eyes, but there is a lot of wisdom in Feng Shui.

Book launch

My lovely friends in the office organised a book launch for the three books I illustrated that were published this year. I am so grateful to them and to everyone who came and supported us - I was touched to see so many familiar (and some new) faces. Unfortunately none of the writers were there (due to geographical distance - Amie is in the US - and illness), but Amie's family plus friend came up from Co.Clare, and it was great to meet them. Another writer - the one and only June Favre - read from Ulysses to mark Bloomsday.

My little nephew was in entertaining form, and it was wonderful to have him and my sister there. People are so good. It is occasions like yesterday and the get-togethers we have had at the house over the last few weeks that I have to pinch myself - I am so lucky to have such good friends and that part of my family is over here as well. My other nephew and his parents were visiting last week, and I miss them (and my mom) more than ever now. The older I get, the more acutely I feel what family means, but that's for another post.

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First photo by me, all others by Deirdre Lydon

Food | Chutney, chocolate and washing up

John was in Cork a few weeks ago and brought back a lovely spiced apricot chutney from the English Market. When it was gone, I attempted to recreate it. The ingredients were simply apricots and coriander seeds (such a good combination), vinegar and sugar. All the recipes I looked up had quite a few additional ingredients, but I wanted to keep it simple and made it with the above (200g dried apricots, 3/4 teaspoon ground coriander, 200ml apple cider vinegar, 90g brown sugar), adding an onion and 25 grams of raisins (mainly to bulk it up, as I only had a small bag of dried apricots) and a bit of lemon juice. I followed Delia's instructions with regard to the cooking time and loosely based the ratio of the quantities on her recipe, and the result is lovely. We eat it with cheese and bread and add it to stir fries.

Overall we try to keep our sugar intake low, while not excluding it completely (see the chutney!). John is stricter, as he reckons he is an abstainer, not a moderator, whereas I am happy to make exceptions and won't refuse cake. The most important change has been to not eat processed biscuits and cakes. If it is homemade and has recognisable ingredients, it is fine - everything in moderation, of course. I use honey, maple syrup and coconut blossom sugar in my baking.

Yesterday I made these no-sugar bites, and the raspberries are actually sweetener enough. They taste best half frozen or straight from the fridge.

(Also pictured in the food photos: my friend gave me this gorgeous children's book about Frida Kahlo.)

In other sensory news, I love this washing-up liquid (another John find, when the shop didn't have Ecover, which I used for years). It smells of lemon balm and is certified by Ecocert.

Red's Road to Green

 

Busy Red Tractor has made the journey across the Atlantic, and Red's Road to Green, the children's book by Amie Ní Nualláin that I illustrated, is now available in Ireland and all other EU countries via the Etsy shop I share with my sister. For the US, the book is available via The Indie Celt.

I am looking forward to furnishing our new studio bit by bit, so I can spread out all the drawings and paintings for upcoming projects and get stuck in. Some of my paints are still stored away, and I still need a desk, which is my latest excuse for procrastination.

Windows

 Windows to the world (and hopefully lots of visitors!). The door is a minty green on the outside.

..and windows into a children's book 
(paperback version, which doesn't allow anything printed on the inside cover, hence only one page of endpaper)

The first quarter of 2016 has been full of new things so far. Two new books that I illustrated are out (Red's Road to Green is only available in the US at the moment, but will be here soon), and more to follow. The excitement of our new house and coming home to see it changed every evening. Being engaged (since before Christmas), though not making any plans for a wedding yet (that part fills me with dread).

Today was my first time back in the garden this year, and it was glorious. I had been working 12-hour days for a festival, and it is only now that I am back to my normal routine that I realise what I have been putting my body through by spending so much time indoors, hunched at a desk. We went for a walk up our boreen and another walk down to the beach and filled our lungs with sea air. A fire in the stove, lovely surprise guests this morning, who didn't mind the layer of fine dust (from sanding the walls) everywhere - this has been a perfect day.

Irish countryside, real and painted

Cutting back the hedge

Two preparatory paintings for the new book

And another few weeks have flown by... Since June I haven't had time to pause and take stock. This has been such a life-changing year, and on so many levels.

I got back from Germany over a week ago, but am still playing catch-up with everything. I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to see when I was over there, but I shall be back soon. It was very difficult saying goodbye to my family, especially this time, with my sister a new mom and her tiny baby boy. It doesn't get easier, this living away from the tribe (though part of the tribe lives here, too, which is wonderful and even more guilt-inducing at the same time).

The new house already feels like home, and we are loving our 'island' bed in the middle of the sitting room. We build a fire every night and have had some of our meals at the low coffee table. We are busy getting quotes from builders and insulation companies, etc., visiting DIY shops and getting started on the things we can do at this point. These involve tins of Annie Sloan paint and a hand weeder. All while getting ready for another exhibition, doing some work in the Uni (at least the teaching hasn't started yet) and attempting to meet some freelance deadlines.

We cut back the hedge to reveal not only more of the sea view with the silhouette of the steps in the limestone of the Burren, but also sloping fields with stone walls. All this can be seen from the dining table, where I set up my temporary office every day. This house is everything we could have wished for.

This is why I became an illustrator

 Finalising the endpaper for our book

Revisiting favourite children's books - this is one of Ilon Wikland's illustrations for Astrid Lindgren

Staying at my mom's is always a journey back to my childhood. Yesterday I revisited some of my favourite children's books, and I am sure that the wonderful world of children's literature I had access to when I was a child is part of the reason I became an artist and illustrator.

I cannot imagine a childhood without Astrid Lindgren's books, and yet in Ireland many people have never heard of her or only know Pippi Longstocking. All the editions of English translations I have seen have different illustrations, but for me Lindgren's work is inextricably linked with Ilon Wikland's pictures. It was one of those magical collaborations.

While I am here I am also finalising the layout (including the endpaper!) for the book I have been working on with writer Amie Ní Nuallaín. I know I said I'd post more varied content here again (and more frequently, too), and I will, but illustration is what I have been absorbed in lately.

In other news, though also illustration-related to some extent, I have finally joined Instagram; you can find me here. My username might still change. It took my sister and me a ridiculous amount of time to settle on a name for our Etsy shop (and now it is taking us forever to launch it, though it has been active for almost a year), and I have decided to be more spontaneous and get started with things and then worry about the details.

Pencil and paint

 Mounted drawings

 Mini-in-progress

Sketch for illustration

This has got to be the most productive phase of my life to date, and long may it continue. Though I realise there will be pauses and blocks, and they need to happen. Once I have figured out what has brought on this change from being an expert procrastinator to actually 'getting my stuff done', I'll share it here.

Preparation used to be almost counter-productive for me, a key part of the process that ended up being the only thing I would do for weeks (though the lines between preparation and the 'actual' work are of course often blurred). I would spend so much time preparing, organising and imagining and then wonder why I had nothing to show for all my 'hard work'.

A few weeks ago I ordered a lot of mounts (from a wonderful Irish company), intended for future prints of my paintings. I proceeded to store them under the spare bed, and then worried about them because a) I am a big believer in keeping the space under the bed empty, and b) mounts are fragile and Irish houses are damp. I would take one mount out to use it and try to wrap the rest in a way that would keep them dry and not damage the corners. Then I moved them to some thin drawers, which is a much better home for them.

And then I thought of all the original drawings I have and decided to start using all the mounts now rather than wait for the prints. Five of the original Jumbo drawings are now mounted and available for sale in our Etsy shop. It feels good to move from a preparatory state to action.

The mini paintings of Irish scenes have proven quite popular, especially the Long Walk one, and I finally bought some more 10x10cm canvases and work on them when taking a break from the large works-in-progress. I do a different underpainting each time and change the colours a bit, and they are never exactly the same as previous ones.

The illustrations for the book I have been working on since the autumn are nearly finished - one more double-spread to go, and of course that final scene is the most daunting.

With this newfound energy and productivity I hope to get back to posting here more often, and not just updates about my work...

Mini March

 A new addition (bottom right - a variation of the Long Walk view) to my series of 10x10cm canvases

Book and knitting - beautiful colour combinations happening by chance

Lionel signing books at his reading (photo by Conor Gallagher)

March is here and almost gone again, and my focus is on reducing or managing stress, panic and anxiety and working my way through everything that needs to be done with zen-like calm. At least I am aspiring to the latter.

The only thing I have painted this month apart from the illustrations is a tiny 10x10 canvas, which was a commission. Now there is only one of the ten mini paintings left (the one on the left in the photo), so I am going to get more of those canvases and continue with these scenes, parallel to working on some big(ger) paintings. I have unwrapped the canvases and lined them up; it's a start...

I am also knitting tiny things and hoping the babies they are for won't have grown too big for them by the time they are finished.

We had a room full of children (and adults, and beautiful paintings on the wall - this was The Model, which has a great collection, including one of the most significant public collections of works by Jack B Yeats) for Lionel's reading for the Sligo Children's Book Festival. It was a lovely event and one of the few times a year the three of us who worked on the books (Lionel, Conor and I) get together. Lionel did a mixture of reading and storytelling, and the children got involved, answering his questions with impressive attention to detail.

There has also been a short trip to Germany for my cousin's wedding, a long weekend that flew by but simultaneously seemed to stretch out, due to its being so different from my normal routine. That's a micro example of how 2015 has felt so far - one week rolling into the next, all a blur, while at the same time so much has happened that I marvel how it all fit into these almost three months. From next week I'll be teaching on Saturdays again after a short break, so Sunday will be my only day off, and it shall be a day for day trips, to capture a bit of that feeling of time expanding and a proper (albeit mini) holiday.

Contradictions

 Light and rice

'You may not know that an artist is not as well equipped for everyday life as you probably are and I am.' Lucian Freud's mother defending him to a police officer (quoted in Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Greig, FSG, New York 2013, p. 58)

This sentence describes how I feel most of the time. I don't mean that in an 'I'm-an-Artist-with-capital-A' kind of way. It may well be to do with being a HSP and an introvert, two characteristics that often go hand in hand with being artistic (yes, I am deliberately piling up all the labels here, though I should be careful with such labellling...). I can be socially awkward to an extreme; chores tend to overwhelm me if they involve the outside world, and plenty of time alone is as vital as oxygen for me. I still haven't mastered ending a conversation and moving along, and being faced with a huge selection of things to choose from makes me break out in a cold sweat. That's only scraping the surface, and in case anyone thinks I am drawing parallels to Freud, I am not - I may recognise myself in a few of his personality traits, but I certainly could do with a bit of his devil-may-care attitude.

Dealing with the small everyday things is bad enough. In hindsight I can look back at two weeks of worrying over something trivial that other people wouldn't lose sleep over (and have told me so repeatedly) and marvel at my overanxious mind, but then there are the big life things - and I know there will be more and more of them as I get older, more losses and illnesses, tragedies and crises -, and I can only hope that I will get better at dealing with life.

Then I worry about how all the overthinking and fear and panic manifesting as pain or tension in my stomach/heart/lungs/head has affected and will affect my health, and bang - there is more worrying to worry about. And on and on it goes.

And even though I have made a song and dance about how much more productive I am with my new wet palette, the truth is I haven't been painting or drawing for over a week. I haven't worked on the illustrations and I haven't done anything for my 2015 exhibitions. The kicks in the backside I have requested from John now just hurt. I get cranky when he sends me a not-so-gentle reminder (threatening to keep my favourite pair of socks he has borrowed if I haven't painted anything by midnight), replying "I haven't had time - life is just too much at the moment!". Cue a spiral of self-loathing, low energy, early nights because I am so tired, more self-loathing because I didn't stay up, low energy because I slept too much (that's a thing), followed by the thought that I am almost 32 and don't have much to show for the years since I finished college.

But then I look at people like Lisa Congdon, who only started out as an artist when she was my age, and that gives me hope. If I manage to put in the hard work and deal with all the other parts of my life a bit better so I'm not too exhausted to do said work, I'd be happy with a tiny fraction of the success she has.

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Lionel will be reading from our book Jumbo Discovers Giraffeland  (a physical reminder that I have done a few things in the years since finishing college) at the Sligo Children's Book Festival this Sunday. 

Jumbo's second adventure

Happy New Year everyone!

Excuse the bad light in the photos - January has kicked off with dull skies.

The second Jumbo adventure, Jumbo Discovers Giraffeland, is out now! Written by Lionel Gallagher, illustrated by me, and with design and layout by Conor Gallagher.

I posted a little preview recently. And this is the first story.

For more details, please contact me or visit my website. Thank you!

Illustration-land

 

 

Little Gurus by Olaf Hajek

This beautiful book (thank you, Sibylle and Timo!) is a feast for the eyes and a treat for lovers of yoga and art. I love the exuberance in Olaf Hajek's work. And to me these images are not only life-affirming, but also affirmation of the joy that creating such work must bring. I had been feeling a bit overwhelmed and stressed about various projects and commissions, but looking at these illustrations (as well as other artists' work, new discoveries and old favourites) has made me re-focus on the pleasure that is art-making.

After a week of knitting, reading, walking in the winter wonderland that appeared just after Christmas and letting ideas develop (or rather, resting enough for my brain to be able to come up with new ideas), I searched my mom's house for acrylic paints and spent this morning painting:

 Detail, work-in-progress

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Speaking of illustrations, the second Jumbo book is out now (more information on my website. Blog post to follow!)