The Seagull Steals the Bear’s Fiddle

Illustration for The Berwick Bear & His Fiddle. Serafina Books.

This was the first of the Serafina Books, and was written and illustrated when I lived in Berwick upon Tweed. It was great fun to go round photographing the background material. I used to see this lovely jumble of pantile roofs when I had a table at the Farmers’ Market, which was held in those days under cover in the Maltings Art Centre, once a month. Happy memories of that market, and of this view. The book is really a search romp through the town. Musical Bears, which is the book I have been working on, and am going to try and find a publisher for, also has a fiddling bear, plus a guitarist, a drum player, a banjoist and a tin whistle player. It is based on my affection for those musicians who travel the world. In the back of my mind, some Chilean musicians of that ilk whom I saw long ago playing in the theatre in Alnwick, in Northumberland. The next book is about automata, but there will doubtless be some instrumentalists among the participants.

Screechy Screechy

So long since I posted, something about lockdown has stopped me walking out with a camera, when I go out it is just walking for the sake of exercise. These are strange times. When I go up to my studio, aka The Tardis, everything feels normal again, the birds feeding in the wild flower bed outside the window, the beans growing, music, paint and crayons. Nice. This is a double page illustration for Musical Bears, I am not doing roughs any more, just finished work. My son, who is a web designer, is setting me up with a professional website for my work, it is intimidating, a whole different world, still on WordPress though, so no doubt things will gradually explain themselves. Moi, je suis technophobe. Was on Zoom last week talking to my grandsons and got cut off, couldn’t see anyone but heard them all laughing invisibly at my bad language. Keep safe. Keep well.

Musical Bears page 8

The bears try their luck in the town by the sea…..

The Bears Arrive in Town

Musicians in the Forest

Looking through my files, wondering when I will have time to cull all the imagery on my computer (which will have to be done) I come across this painting, now sold, and from quite a time ago, and I notice two things: firstly, my attraction to wandering musicians, which is the subject of my new story, goes way back; and secondly, I have made a very serious mistake in the shape of the guitar case, which I will now have to carefully rectify in about fifteen illustrations at least. I got so involved with the story I didn’t check the details. I had forgotten about this painting – it is strange how ideas and imagery recur. It’s much more orange than my usual work, which tends towards blue and mauve and deep red, with a fair smattering of brown (sepia being one of my favourite colours) and naples yellow (ditto); but it certainly has the feel of what I am working on now. Glad I came across it, almost by accident, it has proved useful.

The Midnight Hare page 29

I have edited this rather than posting it as a new post.  I am repainting page 28, as I did not like the look of the lettering in the sky in either that or this painting.  This painting I like the feeling of, so have made it smaller and pasted it on to a larger background, and put the lettering underneath. The lettering itself is smaller and in a slightly lighter colour. Although I do not use computers for making images, they are very useful in other ways!

The Midnight Hare Page 28

The Midnight Hare pp 30 and 31

Interesting to scan this, the sky is supposed to be blue, I’ll have to apply some more colour. And maybe there is too much of a yellow tinge.  I have just solved a kind of very very elementary mistake vis-a-vis Photoshop in that occasionally, but importantly, I have been muddling centimetres and millimetres when trying to copy and paste.  Never done this before, it must be the new system.  Anyway, mea culpa,  yes indeedy. My consolation for this foolishness is that buildings, or parts of buildings, have been constructed with people making similar mistakes and not noticing at the time. Which is a tad more serious. I also notice that in the original painting I was going to put the lettering at the bottom, but seem to have put it in the sky; however, I think this suits the story better, as it hangs over the head of the hare – so I shall fill up the bottom with more flowers.  This book seems to go heavy on the buttercups.  I think it is because of those fields of flowers that I saw in Liddesdale, swathes of them, with occasionally a deer half hidden amongst them, staring towards the road where I stared back.

The Midnight Hare page 7

Widened and shortened the images so as to get the text underneath. Still trying to get used to my all-singing, all singing, and therefore frustrating, up-to-date version of Photoshop.  Not that I use it for painting, but nothing replaces it for setting up images. If I publish the book myself I shall have to widen my repertoire of Adobe, but for the moment, beautiful complex irritating Photoshop will do.  I shall have to start reading the manual for dummies.

The Midnight Hare and Milo

“Then they were flying, over the fields and towers and hills of the Borderlands.”