02.07.08
Posted in General at 11:35 am by elise
Here’s one of my favourite things. It’s a little drawing done in pastel and conte on artfix paper - a lovely sandpapery surface that is made by Art Spectrum. Hard on the fingertips though!
I like how old fashioned her face seems - she could be out of a movie in the 20s. If you look at the bottom left you can see the greens and blues that I put down as the first layer. Skin has all kinds of colours in it - here I put the more extreme tints down first and then lightly worked over the top in more traditional skin tones. The tints come through subtly but give depth and interest to the over-all picture.
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28.06.08
Posted in General, exhibition, thoughts at 5:27 pm by elise
I went to see Rick Amor’s show at Heide the other week. It was the second time I’ve seen it actually. Normally when I go to an exhibition I do a quick circuit until I find one or two paintings that really hit me and I spend almost all of my time in front of them. Amor’s show had at least a dozen of these… and I spent hours there. When I was leading a double life as both a traditional artist and an illustrator I was made very conscious that the two things were regarded very differently. There was one instance particularly when I entered a big competition as a fine artist and I proudly stated that I was a full time illustrator. Naturally I thought that people would be impressed that I’d found a way to live drawing and painting every single day of the year. What could be better for an artist? It was, in fact, a point against me. I was given the impression that many artists believe illustration is peopled by untalented creators who can’t actually draw. I’ll admit that there are some fairly terrible artists out there - of all kinds. But they have failed to realise that when illustrating you’re doing what is necessary to best tell a story or convey something. Sometimes that will be in a beautiful representational art form, but often that would be inappropriate. I’ve also learnt that the kind of spontaneous line and loose barely-there styles can be the hardest of all to pull off.
It was a pretty sobering moment and I felt so let down by what I had thought was my community, but which had shown itself to be a rather closed-minded club. So I stopped going into shows and competitions like that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t pull off the work - that was fine… It was more that while I liked the challenge of representational artwork and enjoyed looking at it - my heart wasn’t really in it and I felt like I was doing it for other people, not me. And after learning to tell stories with my pictures - my other paintings felt a bit hollow. And then I finally began combining storytelling with my fine art style and wow! There it was. Thunderbolt moment! I’d found something that I absolutely loved and was personal. And there feels like there’s such a long way I can go with it.
I liked Amor’s show so much because I’d found a painter using a traditional/representational approach who told stories. Deep, uncomfortable stories sometimes… but always a personal expression of something. When I think of other paintings that I’ve connected with over the years, I realise now that they were saying something too. Remember the bit in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when they visit the art gallery and Cameron stands in front of the beautiful pointillist painting by Seurat (“Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”) and stares at the small child in the middle? I love that moment. We can like many things but I think usually the strongest connections are with images that make us really feel something. That conjure something for us. And I love an artist that isn’t afraid to show us their unique take on the world, and the world in their heads.
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09.06.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 3:28 pm by elise
I’m following story threads and listening to Sarah Blasco today. Luckily, I know the songs so well that I’m not listening to the lyrics too much and I can actually think at the same time. I used to try to listen to talking books while I worked but if the book was good I’d find that I’d have just frozen like a white-painted sheet-wrapped street performer with my brush in mid-air and a gormless expression on my face - and had been like that for Some Time. So now, in the interests of actually-doing-work and not-looking-like-an-idiot I try to only listen to things I know very well. This is in no way a judgement on street performers.
The whole idea with the story threads is… well, imagine that you’re standing at the edge of a darkened factory complex (something Dr Who-ish) and you’re holding an end of green wool that stretches off into the dark. Somewhere in that monster-ridden complex is a complete story. But you’re not there yet. All you have, attached to the piece in your hand, is a tiny bit of an idea. And looking at that idea you start to ask yourself questions and make logical steps forward. Every time you work out something you move forward along the wool, finding more pieces to the puzzle. Sometimes you reach a clumsy knot where another bit of wool leads off to the left or right. And following that leads your story in another direction. An sometimes those directions don’t work out so you retrace your steps.
Clear as mud eh? Welcome to my world… And yes, in the days of Choose Your Own Adventure books I was the person with every finger marking a different page in the book so that, after a distraction, I’d look down at my hands and have no idea which finger I was up to. It’s actually rather surprising that I write anything at all when I describe it like that. Usually it all happens in your head. And it’s rather a lot less complicated and metaphorical. But at the moment I’m actually trying to keep track of all of the thoughts and threads, so I’m writing them down and drawing them and I’m ending up with a lot of little bits and pieces all over the place. It’s kind of an experiment. Can’t wait to see what’s attached to the other end of the wool.
Maybe something good…
Maybe something bad…
But hopefully not licorice.
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Posted in General at 10:48 am by elise
Well, I wrote it. It’s a short and dark picture book - one where the images will contribute more than the words, indeed the words don’t make much sense without the pictures. They’re interesting and evocotive but they don’t particularly explain themselves. So my job now (some time) is to come up with some strong images that will show a potential publisher what the book will be like and how it will work. It would be awfully nice if they were mind-readers, but they’re not.
I had a manuscript rejected the other day. I know that I’m doing alright when it really doesn’t faze me. Through experience, I know that a good book will eventually be picked up (when the right person reads it), and if it isn’t, then it probably wasn’t a good book! The feedback was useful and completely encouraging. And it was a good reminder that editors work on instinct and taste as well as experience and strategy - and that everyone is different.
So much in the industry is a mixture of work and fortune - having samples of your work on an editor’s table just when they’re looking for an illustrator, or having just done a book that is like what they need, office conversations that happen to prime them for your manuscript, and finding the right editor who will see your story for all it can be… All of these things can cut you a break. And the reverse can be true - an editor is having a bad week with sales on an experimental book and then they read your experimental manuscript, or they look at your work and say ‘what a pity we didn’t see this last week’ when we could have used it…
But there’s also just good work. People are often afraid of the slush pile and think that without being a big name, no one will give you a second look. That’s crazy. A good publisher knows a good text when they see it. If the work is great, you’ll get published. It’s up to you to make them realise that, even if you’re a newcomer, you’re prepared to keep working if it’s needed, that you’ll be easy and professional to work with and that you’re as confident in your work as you’d like them to be. That confidence goes a long way. We take gambles all of the time. Some of us gamble with time and effort, taking our attention away from other things. Publishers are gambling with money. So you need to be as good a bet as you can. Don’t run yourself down. If you’re excited about your book - say it. If you’re sure of your market, show it. Help yourself as much as you can. Do your research. Don’t waste a editor’s time by sending them a genre that they never publish. Find out what they want to know and how they’d like it presented. And don’t talk about whether your kids liked the story, talk about how the market will like it.
So. What I learned from this particular rejection? That I should make sure that I send enough material to show what I’m thinking, so the next person I send it to won’t have to do any guesswork. That these things just take time. And that this particular publisher is looking for something a little different… maybe even the story I have just done.
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29.05.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 11:40 am by elise
Right. I know there are a million things I should be doing but a new story popped into my head so I’m off for a walk. When did time become something to be parcelled and allocated? Some societies must have a more fluid approach. My time parcel is one hour wide, a coffee and sandwich high, containing the back on an envelope and a pen and a dark beach and sky, wrapped up in brown paper and string.
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18.05.08
Posted in General, Night Garden, thoughts at 1:43 pm by elise
I’m talking to a few classes and groups next week - adults for a change - looking particularly at story and storyboarding. And I found myself thinking a lot about one of my current projects, the wordless book.
It’s been very interesting to see how my approach to story has changed when I’m not getting tied into knots by the words. Like any story I have a certain amount of plot worked out early on, but whereas normally I’d jump straight in and begin writing, this time I have to work more thematically and structurally. When I talk to kids about planning pictures and why you’d want to do it, I often ask if they’ve even drawn a person, starting with all the fun detail of a face but by the time they come to draw the feet - there’s no room for them on the 
page. It’s much the same in writing - that temptation to leap in without a plan. When I wrote the Night Garden, I had a lot of ideas and a string of scenes I liked. I rewrote each page so many times, coming up with dozens of alternate sentences. There were some lovely phrases and images, bits of word play and patterns but I was floundering around. And I wonder now if the experience might have been different if I’d spent more time right at the beginning without the words, imaging the story and what was behind it and what I really really wanted to convey. Would it have been easier to write?
I did finally do some thematic work. Pete just reminded me that he made me do lots at one stage when I was particularly lost. I had written a version with quite a bit of rhyme but was asked to pare that back by the publishers. When I stripped it away, I realised that there just wasn’t
a strong enough story beneath it. I had some good parts in the middle, but I was finding the beginning and end difficult. So I stopped and thought about what it was really all about. I decided that the story was about a few things - wanting change and new things, the two-edged nature of having your wishes answered, and how you really see the good in what you have when you remove yourself from it for a while. And finally I knew what the beginning and end needed to say.
And it did help.
With this new wordless book, there is no safety net of words to fill in the gaps and give us extra information. I have to make the pictures, or sequence of pictures, give us everything - feelings, plot, thoughts, emotions… convey confusion and misunderstanding, express reasoning, and at times, dialogue! I can’t link scenes together with repeated phrases, I can’t convey advanced concepts by describing them. I have to find visual metaphors for everything, from the smallest idea to the biggest underlying themes.
Stripping away the text could be something I make myself do with every book, just for a little while. To make me ask - what is really happening here and what is the story trying to say? What would the pictures have to convey at any certain time if there were no words, nothing that said - he was very sad, or she realised as soon as she stepped out of the house that she had chosen badly. How important is that information to the story? How else can I show it? Now putting back the words I ask myself - do these actually work hard enough?
I don’t think there’s any one way to write or illustrate. Different methods achieve different things. If you want to just play and see what happens (and it doesn’t matter if the feet don’t fit on the page) then leap, dive, pull off your shoes and socks and get creative. See what happens. I bet you’ll get lots of ideas and feel invigorated. But when it gets complex and when it does start to matter that the feet are on the page, that the story is strong, that the book says something, that we’re going somewhere in the story - perhaps a little silence can help to get to the core of a project.
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10.05.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 5:36 pm by elise
it seems, brings a new idea. A week ago, after Friday’s painting and talking, I lay sleepless in the dark. An idea, Beatrice, was sitting and jiggling her feet in my imagination, refusing to rest until I got her down on paper - stumbling around the house in the dark because my bedside pen was missing. The next day I began a dummy book in the back rows of an auditorium… The idea grew on the Sunday while I manned the Convent market, doppelgänging into a series. But it was replaced when I heard Neil Gaiman read from a wonderful new book at the State Library on Monday. It brought back a story I wanted to write in 2004 when we were living in Paris for 2 months.
Distracted on Wednesday, stately tall people willowed across my mind, clothed in furs and silks and headdresses defying description. They crossed between boats in another book I’m doing and I ran to draw them before they disappeared. Thursday rekindled some peculiar fish. On Friday I began a story I had absolutely no intention of beginning - but it tickled the ends of my fingers until it was done. And today a new idea. A big idea. I think. One of shadows and depth and small small things that are very important.
On one of those nights I remember sleeping very badly although I was quite exhausted. I was wandering through the backlog of ideas in my mind. Not the tiny fragments sidling around in my brain’s wunderkammer awaiting their moment - but the full stories that run like old silent newsreels. There are characters there too, patient ones, luckily. There are novels and short stories, a few series, picture books and chapter books and books with no words at all. Some ask that I please make them into animations or films because their images don’t want to be static. They move in their frames, flooded with colour and light. Others are single images that no matter how long I stare at them and how much they evoke a sense of vast story, I can’t quite see what came before them and what comes next. Not yet.
I’ll have time for them one day. I’m not sure how. And in the meantime there’s jotting and sketching and putting them somewhere safe. And trying to get some work done before tomorrow.
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08.05.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 8:43 pm by elise
We’ve just had the biennial conference run by the Children’s Book Council of Australia, this time taking place in Melbourne. Hoorah - no transport and accommodation issues for Melbournians. It began for me on Friday, when I spent the day demonstrating and chatting to people. We were in front of some huge windows in the Conference Centre by the river. Over the course of the day the sun disappeared and dark clouds rolled past. It was a little park like the one I painted in Tough ol’ Teddy - moody half-light with heightened greens, but here surrounded by a forest of buildings. For my demo I painted a bear driving a 20s New York taxi (as you do), working in oils on a big stretched canvas. I love working on these pictures. And while all the attendees were off listening to presentations I went and talked to the publishers who manned stalls in the Expo area.
The next day, Saturday, I got to the conference centre nice and early as I’d scored a pass from Australian Standing Orders who were sponsoring me to attend on the Friday. Hoorah again! There was rather a lot to see. The highlight of the day for me was a keynote address delivered by Shaun Tan, dwarfed by his artwork projected behind him. Fascinating to hear and see how his ideas develop over time and with a Lot of thought before they ever make it into the books. To see how he looks to create visual equivalents of the world around him that do more than just replicate it.
There’s an interesting balance to be struck when you want to represent something - between looking for accuracy and looking for truth-to-subject. Arty talk, I know. You would think that a completely faithful and perfect replica would be best - after all, in its natural setting it must be perfect. And yet, we do not see things just with our eyes - we react emotionally, we notice subtleties of light and colour, we ignore things that are there, we remember things that we have seen before, and our imaginations infect our vision with subtleties that may not even exist. In essence - when we see a tree and say “how magnificent” we are registering a nuanced experience. So to properly represent that tree we would probably need to change it to replicate in some way the experience of seeing it. It’s like the way expressionists worked with light. You could almost swim through it in some paintings - because that’s not just how the scene looked - it’s how it felt.
So I find my best trees are usually not the ones that I sit and draw, but those that happen after I have learned how the tree works - moves, bends, twists - and I create the one that says what I need it to say. I need to keep learning though. There are a lot of trees whose voices I do not know, whose shapes and rhythms I cannot capture. I’d really like to set aside a few months to just draw trees. Ha! Like that’s going to happen!
But back to the weekend… That night I met with my lovely publisher Dyan Blacklock, with whom I’d been working in Adelaide these last couple of weeks. I showed her my progress and the storyline. I’d say story, but it seems this book I’m doing will not need words after all. Interestingly though - I’m putting in more work than ever into the writing because it is all about themes and layers, they just won’t be expressed in words. But more on that later. I finished the evening with the conference dinner (Thank you Walker books!) held in the Melbourne Museum, watched over by a dinosaur. It was lovely to have so many of my friends around me (living ones), to make new friends and to watch people getting silly over the night. I’m sure there will be some of that getting on to Facebook right about now.
There was much more but I’ll post about that next. Right now I’m at the end of a big week and have to get ready for a school visit tomorrow. Night all.
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26.04.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 5:52 pm by elise
This last week the skies have been blue and autumn colours have draped themselves through the streets of Adelaide. I’ve finally found the bike-friendly roads and a clutter of good cafes. I’ve worked on projects and talked and drawn and met people.
Most importantly, the book is coming along really well. I’ve been putting the pressure on myself to advance the ideas as much as possible
in between meetings, as well as needing to keep up with Uni work. So I’m pretty tired! I’ve also experienced art direction for the first time. It’s amazing just how far things can advance when shooting ideas around with a like-minded person who understands what I’m trying to do. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I knew that I wanted to have more involvement from publishers - more discussion about the choices I was making, talking about theory and getting guidance to help me stay on target with my ideas. So far, so good!
Another project that I’m working on has also had me thinking about theory and remembering what it’s like starting out. There’s an uncomfortable stage that I remember and still experience from time to time… to do with inspiration and the accident of creation. They’re called ‘happy accidents’ - those things that happen when you’re painting or drawing that look fantastic and seem more to do with chaos 
theory than technique. It’s when you’re running a brush loaded with water and colour briskly across the page and the dents in the paper leave a sparkle of white just where you’d like them. Or when you’re drawing idly and you do something that’s Perfect. When you’re learning your technique, these things happen but they are hard to reproduce. And there would be days when I would simply be terrible at drawing - nothing would work! Over time, these days decrease in number, and the happy accidents become part of practised technique. Writing seems to be no different. I’ve found that the more I practise and think about what I’m trying to achieve - what emotion, what central ideas, what themes I’m developing - the more I can coax them into being. The writing gains depth and evolves deliberately, while hopefully the final text seems natural and effortless. I’ve still got a long way to go though.
After a while, these things become intuitive. You’re still thinking about it all, but it becomes second nature to hold these concepts in the back of your mind and you make choices that just seem right - but which can actually be fully argued and explained. I think this is what people are actually seeing when they say someone has natural ability. The writer or artist may just arrive at this stage faster and perhaps without so much blood, sweat and tears! The point of all of this is that the theory of what we do is important. Whether we are taught it or we work it out for ourselves - thinking through our projects the whole time that we’re doing them will strengthen the work and should make us get better, faster.
I’ve experimented and set myself technique-goals for years and learned a Lot. And I now have the balancing element - playing - so that I’m discovering my natural voice whether in words or images. With these two things you’ll know what you want to do and develop the skills to do it.
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13.04.08
Posted in General, thoughts at 6:37 pm by elise
Ok that’s funny - apparently my stars say “You now seem to be going a very long way to get something that is surely more easily, and locally, attainable.” Funny as I’m about to leave for Adelaide on Tuesday to work with a publisher for two weeks…
The project’s related to the work I was doing up at Varuna in January (see previous posts). It’s going to be a great big book (in content if not in size) - lots of detail, imagination, and using stacks of pens. It’s definitely going to be the biggest thing I’ve ever attempted. At this point - I have a story and ideas on how it might look - the universe is taking shape, the characters are emerging but I want to have some contact with the publishers while we set the style and approach. Then I’ll be comfortable to go off and slog away at it by myself. Well that’s the plan.
Today, while drawing at the Ivanhoe market, I was chatting to people about a different way of approaching stories. Of the importance of allowing myself the time to play and create without an agenda. Without sitting down and saying “I must write a story now”. It’s almost guaranteed to make anyone’s imagination fold its arms and scowl back at you in silence. Instead, I sit down with a beautiful little book, I open it at random (so I escape the pressure of the first page) and take out a pencil. Then I let my mind wander. I think of animals and places, I see what springs into view, nudging aside thoughts that I really don’t want to draw until something takes hold. The pencil begins to move. I don’t try to envisage the whole picture. I don’t mind if the finished product isn’t superbly designed. I know that if the idea is good enough then I can always do it again - another version that improves upon the last. It’s a small price to pay for allowing my imagination to create something without my brain getting in the way and messing it up. I love the surprise of it. When I have an element in pencil that I like I’ll take out the pen and start to ink it, building the detail. While drawing, sometimes the rest of the picture slowly comes to mind, and sometimes it doesn’t. Often, at an impasse, I’ll turn to another page and begin something else or go back to an old drawing. I know that, in time, the rest of the scene will become obvious and I’ll do it then.
It’s a process that works for me. And it is where this new book has come from. I hope that thinking about it and puzzling it out doesn’t rob it of the freshness and spontaneity of it’s beginnings, but I think it will be alright. While I work I’ll make sure that I keep playing - and who knows what will come out.
Here’s what I began today…
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09.04.08
Posted in General at 10:26 am by elise
Pip: the story of Olive is a gorgeous new novel by my friend Kim Kane, and incidentally… I did the cover. It’s just hitting the shelves now and getting great reviews. As it should - it’s a great book! I haven’t done many covers before and it was a pleasure to do one for someone I know and a book that I love! It was commissioned properly through Allen & Unwin, but it was Kim’s suggestion that got it all started. Thanks Kim!
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Posted in General, exhibition, market at 9:56 am by elise
We had the Convent market on Sunday and it was an absolute delight. The sun was out, our brilliant band was playing, people moseyed around enjoying their day and I had a lot of lovely conversations while I painted. For the last few months its been a little quiet there - fewer stalls, different dynamic. But it had its good side. I’ve been enjoying having a double space and taken full advantage of it - standing up and painting as I man the stall. It’s very enjoyable and very productive. It’s funny, but I like to have a project to do that isn’t related to work - even though it’s always art. I guess that shows I’m in the right profession. It’s like a lawyer who reads a different area of the law for pleasure in their down-time… Mine’s painting a new series (remember the lion?) that will feature in a solo show either towards the end of the year or early next year depending on finding a gallery and their availability. As work hasn’t allowed me much free time (and in those occasional free moments I’m usually developing book ideas), the market gives me a full day to paint. I come home exhausted and sore-footed but very happy.
But this Sunday everything was different. I still had the space but we’re getting more stalls on board and there was a real buzz. I can tell it’s just going to get better and better.
So, to everyone I met - hello! And I hope to see you again soon. I’ll be painting for as long as I can fit into the space. And there should be a new print as a companion to the girl in the red dress which people snapped up on Sunday.
The next one is this Sunday, in Ivanhoe.
9×5 Makers Market - Banyule Arts Space,
14 Ivanhoe Parade, Ivanhoe, Victoria.
10 to 4pm
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01.04.08
Posted in General, Night Garden at 2:17 pm by elise
Hooray!! I’m fabulously happy and grinny as today was the announcement of the shortlist and notables for the CBCA Book of the Year awards. And…
The Night Garden got a wealth of gongs -
* Shortlisted in the category of Early Childhood.
* And also a Notable Book in both Early Childhood and Picture Book of the Year.
It’s so wonderful. My publishers are ordering a reprint straight away and book shops will be stocking it in good numbers. So fingers crossed The Night Garden will have a good long life. The final award is announced at the start of Book Week in August. I don’t expect any other surprise - this is enough! And I think I get a sticker on the book…
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24.03.08
Posted in General at 12:29 pm by elise
Hello all,
I’m designing some new business cards and I’d love feedback!
Any of these? Suggestions?
xx e
A 
B 
C 
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13.03.08
Posted in General at 9:27 am by elise
I remember growing up loving Norman Lindsay’s cat illustrations. I never had a copy of them myself but would look at them when I visited my Grandpa’s house. They were all just black line work - not sure it they were pen or etchings. So expressive! Now that I have a cat of my own… I can’t help drawing them too.
So here are two cats. The inspiration for the bottom one definitely came from our dear moggy - as scratchy, bitey, shredding and cross as ever a cat could be. Of course he’s curled up on my lap being cute now… but he can’t fool me!
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