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When You’re Older

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In stores from 1 March, 2022.

On the first of March When You’re Older will be in bookshops. Hurrah! And I’ll be in two of them on the same day, decorating the windows to celebrate the release of the book. I’ll be starting out at The Little Bookroom and then zipping across to Readings Kids.

I’m really happy with the cover. We went all over the place exploring cover options, including under the sea and up a tree. But this one feels right. The focus is squarely on those two faces. They’re the heart and soul of the book. (I admit I’m a bit infatuated with the chest of drawers, too.)

    Book designer Sandra Nobes did an amazing job with the typography. Her title lettering expresses the tall and short of our two characters, complete with small crown. And her selection of typeface for the creator names took inspiration from my hand-drawn letters and is a near perfect match with a few less curls. (You can see my curly writing above, with a baby seemingly floating over it!)

    If you’re thinking the book is about nappy changes, don’t be fooled by the box of tissues, although you might need one yourself. Perhaps, like me when I first picked up the manuscript, you’re thinking that the book will be about sibling rivalry. It’s not.

    Inspired by hopes for her own two children and interestingly by the imprisonment of journalist Peter Greste in 2013, Sofie Laguna’s words are about love and about brothers looking out for each other. About a big imagination. A big world. A big adventure and big danger.

    There are also lots of tiny things.

    One of the great joys of parenting small children for me, was the experience of reading aloud to them. I loved to witness their immersion in the world of each picture book; their interaction with the page as well as the story, fingers keenly pointing out the important parts, and often the tiny details. So while I was working on When You’re Older, I imagined little hands holding the book and little fingers pointing. Every lizard, butterfly and bird was made for this purpose. Every footprint in the snow.

    I think there will be much counting! How many birds can you find? How many bats? Ducks, lizards, butterflies? These small things are only footnotes to the main story, I know. But I am so looking forward to seeing some real fingers exploring the book.

    Please pop in and say hello if you’re in Melbourne on 1 March or in Mornington on 4 March. There will be signed books available to purchase. I’ll be the one with the paintbrushes and Posca pens, decorating the windows. And I look more or less like this.

    How many fishes can you spot?

    An Intoxication of Elements

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    (or Kill Your Darlings)

    Poor dangling darlings

    When I’m illustrating a page for a picture book, I sometimes find that I capture a mood that expresses the meaning of the text in a very rough form. It feels right, but it’s just a framework. When I work on the final art for that scene, I add layers of detail, making decisions as I go along, and at some point, the juxtaposition of colours and shapes becomes intoxicating.

    Once intoxicated, I find myself off on my own little adventure, with my eyes open in wonder at all the pretty colours, textures and shiny things. And then at a certain point, (often when I place the image into the layout to check the flow of the narrative) I find I am hit with a bucket of cold water.

    Sober up, Sister. All the shiny things are beautiful. But they don’t work on the page.

    Or they don’t work with the text anymore, or they don’t work with the sequence of illustrations. The original truth has been lost under the shiny things. And then it’s time to kill off my darlings. That phrase applies to illustration just as much as writing.

    For example, this week, I’ve been making a ghost ship for my current picture book project When You’re Older by Sofie Laguna. It’s my first ghost ship, in my first enchanted lagoon, with my first ghost pirate. The ship is fun. I’ll need to paint it again, because it isn’t there yet but I can see it’s going to work. Yay! Under the ghost ship, there is a mermaid swimming. Yay! And everything is all blue and green and wet and shimmery and deep looking. But to make it truly ghostly it needs some heavy weed and barnacles and stuff hanging from the hull in a dark, spooky but beautiful way, right? Of course, right.

    This is where I got intoxicated.

    Oh boy! You should see what happens when you start layering up seaweed under a black ship in a turquoise sea! You seriously can lose your head!

    These were my building blocks.

    I started with this.
    Then I made some smaller embellishments. The wet one was key. I wasn’t so chuffed with the one on the right. But we’ll see. Mmmmm.
    I’m looking for that HEAVY draped look. So heavy, the ship is just drifting slowly, groaning, becalmed.
    Wait, I might want the weed to drape deeper, and and to curl forwards to enveloping the mermaid. So here are some wild and woolly tentacle-weeds.

    Then I put them on the image, with the ship and a few mermaids. (This is a corner detail.)

    There are already too many mermaids, but the weed is making me tipsy.
    Deep dark squelchy, wet bits contrasting with hard, branchy drawn bits
    Oooh, that purple is going crazy in there.

    My psychedelic dream here came to an end. The page needed a rock or island in front of all this weed, in order to give a sense of the waterline, and to visually anchor the image on the page. With the weed visible in the bottom right hand corner of the spread, all the energy was leaking off the page. No, not leaking …pouring torrentially.

    Besides this, was all this weed adding anything to the mood, the action or the experience of the main characters? No.

    So I have killed some darlings. I’ve taken it all back to serene. Sorry. You can’t see that yet.

    But I’ve added a skeleton. But not one of those up top. And some palm trees… Yay!

    Here I am

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    After the longest time!

    Hi there. I’ve missed you. Work on Leonard Doesn’t Dance is going well. And I’m also working on another exciting project. A picture book by Sofie Laguna called When You’re Older. It’s a bit tricky working on two; just when I’m submerged deeply in one, I have to haul myself out by the scruff of the neck and focus on the other. But it’s fine, because both are lovely books.

    Leonard and his pigeon friends are learning the can-can. I can’t do the can-can. (I might yet learn… A fake leg might be helpful.) But pigeons can can-can.

    Here’s a small section of what I’m working on today. The background is in progress so the yellow area is sketched in. And all around what you see here are plants and other birds and a couple of beasts. But this is one of the white pages. The full colour pages look different.

    Leonard and the Can-can pigeons

    Detail of the can-can page from Leonard Doesn’t Dance by Frances Watts

    They look like this.

    Leonard colour page sample

    Detail from a full colour page as the sun sets in Leonard’s world.

    I’m using a big mix of media in this book. I’m printmaking, painting, drawing, collaging and digitising. (I’m doing the same for When You’re Older, but with a different colour palette.)

    The printmaking is the most fun part. There’s something so intoxicating about printmaking. When the outcome is uncertain, due to the variability of the process, you are always on the brink of something… and it could be wonderful. It could be a treasure. Those op-shoppers among you will understand the feeling as it’s rather similar.

    The print below is saved to my computer with the ignominious title ‘Disappointing Flowers’. But once colour and collage treatment are added, it actually works very well.

    ‘Disappointing Flowers’

    This is a quick mock-up showing how the application of colour and a trim here and there, bring a disappointing print into a context that works. At least, for me. It’s not from the book.

    A quick digital collage of my disappointing flowers to see if they rise to the challenge.

    This one I was truly delighted with. It’s such a simple pattern, printed with a single block and roughly aligned. The roughness appeals to my deepest instincts in a way that nothing tidy or perfect can do. And the print has become a raw material like a delicious cheese that I might put into some cooking.

    repeat pattern lores

    Rough, ready and rambunctious, this print appeals to me like a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

    And here are some of the inky painted areas I’m using. These too, will be barely recognisable when I’ve finished colouring and ornamenting them on the computer, but for me, the shapes produced with a brush have more animation than anything I can draw directly on the screen.

    8-9 tree shapes lores

    Inky tree shapes for Leonard Doesn’t Dance… Or maybe for When You’re Older.

    Now it’s back to the page. Some ducks are calling for my attention.

    Yes. I think some of them are Call Ducks.

     

    Bird Immersion

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    Sorry I haven’t been around in Blog Land.

    20-21 Leonard with 2 heads

     

    Happily, this is mainly because I’ve been so busy drawing my roughs for Leonard, (and turning 50, and looking after an extra child because we have an overseas student staying with us at the moment).

    I have to say, despite the fact that I’m multi-tasking like crazy (bad) Leonard is really fun (good!).

    I can’t show you very much (bad). Many of the roughs describe the finished image. And this book, true to Frances Watts’ Style, will be brimming with humour (good!). So by showing you the full page roughs, I would be giving away all the gags (terribly, terribly bad).

    But I can share with you bits and snippets and here-and-there touches.

    chickens lightened.jpg

    It’s interesting that the roughs have reverted to pencil, maybe my most natural medium. And this will pose its own challenges when it comes time to make the final art with broad paint strokes. The roughs began as large paintings, then switched to charcoal, and finally, to pencil.

    singing

    swingin Leonard

    And something I’m excited about is my new light box! Wowsers! It’s so cool.

    But I’m going to leave this and write more later.

    I’m multi-tasking, remember?

     

     

     

     

    Swirling and Swinging

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    P24 Lachie judywatsonart lores

    This afternoon I finished the second last illustration for Thunderstorm Dancing, which I should add is yet to be approved as the editor is not in the office today.

    All being well, I’m now working on the last illustration for the book. I can hardly believe it. Wish me luck!

    scribble cornish judywatsonart lores

    This is not from Thunderstorm Dancing. This is a scribble-of-joy.

    Okay… so this Scribble Cornish may exhibit some slight exaggerations of conformation… but the rest is true :-)

     

    Week 38 – Giraffe

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    giraffe judywatsonart loresA quick watercolour giraffe for the 52 Week Illustration Challenge.

    I’ve since Tomi Ungerer-ated hiim. It had to be done.

    Tomi Giraffe contrasty head judywatsonart lores Tomi Giraffe judywatsonart lores

     

    Lucy

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    I’m drawing whippets over and over again until I get the expression just right for final art.

    Sometimes, when I’ve drawn the dog several times over in the ‘pose’ (for want of a better word) required for the illustration, I still can’t get it right. Low growl.

    Then I sometimes draw the dog (or cat, or person) in another way entirely and it gets my brain out of the gridlock.

    Here’s Lucy telling me to play ball and chill out sister.

    Lucy with winning expression

    Ball anyone?