Illustrating Julian Barnes

Lovely commission from Roger Browning at The Guardian to illustrate Julian Barnes' new short story, "Sleeping with John Updike".
Had to work super-quick on this one, as I was away teaching in Sunderland Uni on Monday when the call came through, and the first illo (for the inside spread) had to be in for Wednesday lunchtime. I had until Thursday to do the Cover art. ** adrenalin rush**

I love having meaty characters, with lots of undercurrent in the dialogue to work with - a dream!Thank you Julian Barnes.

Incidentally, I got a lovely email today from a well know wine writer, (who happens to be friends with Julian Barnes too) who loved the illos and said she would consider me for illustrating any of her future wine books! Considering most of my illustrations have someone with either a glass or a bottle in their hand, I'd say I would be suited to that particular project!

Off to Edinburgh for a spot of teaching all week, so getting ready for that tonight. I have a few potential jobs on the horizon, as well as tweaks to make on artwork for another advertising job I worked on last week too, so I need to be armed with laptop and all the various files and pen and inks. the words Pack and Horse come to mind when I see all the stuff I end up taking with me to Edinburgh!

Images 34 success!

What a way to celebrate moving back into my newly renovated house and studio than to find out my work has been selected for Images 34: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration! I have had one of my Garden Detectives illustrations selected by a rather prestigious jury for the Design category, so I am well chuffed! Images 34 kicks off with the exhibition launch in London in July 2010 and then the book is sent out to art directors and designers from early August.Ooh, that seems ages away...

"The Trauma of Redundancy" for The Guardian

Tsk, tsk Ms. Calder. What kind of blogging do you call this, when your last post was weeks ago? Must do better.
Sorry about the irregular blog posting, folks but I have been going through the "Trauma of Dodgy, Bodging Builders", so its been a tad stressful here in Studio Calder. However, our new builders are VERY good and we hope to be back in the house VERY SOON, so I can resume normal service again (and get my lovely studio back!)

In the meantime, I have been working away all summer on some lovely jobs, the most recent being for The Guardian. It was all about the stress of redundancy and how people felt a loss of identity and were isolated by the experience.
Writer Ian Wylie looked into the aftermath of losing your job, recognising that while it can be a psychological blow, there is much you can do to get back on your feet
Wylie described "keeping the wolf from the door" too - so I couldn't resist a big 'ol wolf.

This is a more surreal image for me,as compared to my usual narrative style but I like it - as did Sarah Habershon, the art director. I've included an image of the front page complete with illo too, so you can see it in context.

Finally, I hope you take the opportunity to have a look at my BRAND NEW WEBSITE designed by Evie at Eskymo. Lush.

Brand new look for Jillustration

Whey-hey! I hope you like the brand spanking new make over of my blog? A shiny and cheerful new header and a refresh of the typeface and colour scheme. What's all this in aid of, I hear you ask - well, my website has also been undergoing major cosmetic surgery and is about to be set free on the world wide interweb, so the blog had to scrub up too. It will be my twitter page that is getting a wardrobe overhaul next!

I am very excited about my new look website at www.jillcalder.com - it has been great fun working with Evie at Eskymo, who has designed it for me. I will announce it properly once it is all live and kicking...but it is coming VERY SOON! In the meantime, here is a sneak preview of my colour palette.

Garden Detectives exhibition - grand opening!

After all my hard work creating the illustrative element and all the National Museum of Scotland's design team's hard work bringing the show into 3D, interactive life, Garden Detectives finally opened at a private view on Thursday 25th June!

Go here to see loads more images of the opening night, the exhibition and my illustrations, of course!

It was a great evening - starting with speeches by the museum's director, Gordon Rintoul and by Roseanna Cunningham, who is the Scottish Minister for the Environment. Of course a tasty canapé or two with a glass of bubbly was in order.
The whole design team were there: Maureen Barrie (project manager), Stuart Kerr (3D), Lisa Carrington (graphics) and Cathy Sexton (she who ensured I was paid!).I was also delighted to meet Matt Black who had built a lot of the exhibits and interactive elements.

Also present were lots of children and they simply proved that the show will be a big hit, as they poured into the exhibition space and leapt upon the exhibits with enthusiastic glee! I think the most popular section was the fishing pond, "Pond Dipping" where you got a magnetic fishing rod and tried to catch all the beasties, such as minnows, waterspiders and waterboatmen beetles and then post them back through appropriate slots at the side of the pond according to where they live : in the mud at the bottom, in the pondweed or poddling about near the top.

For me, it was wonderful to see the big illustration of the dreamy garden scenes in all their 8 metre long glory - very nice indeed!

Overall, I really enjoyed the challenge of this project. I love drawing but here I had to be accurate for education purposes but still retain my inky, fairly loose style. Also, working with such detailed technical drawings was at times daunting but the designers needed me to be spot on with where each flowerhead or bit of mint was placed so they could then tell the joiners and set builders what to do with out any mistakes occurring. Also, it was fairly large amount of illustration to do in quite a short amount of time but I do like a bit of deadline pressure to make life interesting!

I'll be honest though, if I never have to draw another adder in my life, I'll be very happy indeed. Snakes are hard to draw!

If you can, please go and support the National Museum of Scotland and enjoy the show.

The Class of 2009

Thought I would promote my new batch of competition in the world of illustration - namely the 19 students that are soon to graduate from the Illustration Deptartment at Edinburgh College of Art.

The Degree Show opens on June 13th (the PV is on the 12th) and it is an excellent, varied, exciting and surprising show indeed.

This group have been great to teach and I think many of them will do well in the tough 'ol business that is Illustration. I just hope they remember the pricing and business advice I gave them back in November!
I have selected an image by Toby Cook from his book "The Upside Down House" and a life drawing by Trine Mangernes as a small taster of the variety in the exhibition.

Go along to their Show, buy something from their shop and support the next generation.

New for The Guardian

This is a sneak preview of an illo about the "Sandwich Generation" that will be published in tomorrow's Guardian (Work section cover, no less)
I got the roughs in on Wednesday evening (after a particularly unpleasant episode of dealing with my non functioning scanner) and the lovely art director, Sarah Habershon said she liked my sofa idea to depict the "Sandwich Generation" where both ageing parents and children have to be cared for - despite the fact the carer also holds down a full time job.
Sarah doesn't like to have an obvious work theme on the Work cover so I made this as domesticated and family-orientated as possible, yet trying to show the pressure that the carer is under to look after family properly yet still get work done.
I like the hamster metaphor, myself (based on Chewbacca who is my nephew's spritely rodent). The bird in the cage is, of course, a MASSIVE homage to Charles Keeping, whose work I love.

And I don't understand why I keep drawing cats when it is dogs that I love.

fantastic biker action in Edinburgh

Big red building? Edinburgh college of Art. I love this film.

Proper Dog Training!

You should know I am dog daft and that my husband and I have been training our now 7 month old pup, Birdie, pretty successfully. She is very intelligent and biddable and has a lovely soft mouth...AND she comes back to her name!
However, my mum-in-law, Sharon is a bit of an expert dog trainer, as she gets her canine brood to track and to do man work and agility.
She has just got herself a magic wee black lab bitch called Daphne and is training her already. In fact, Daphne is so intelligent she is writing her own blog - Daphne's Diary

Pic of Sharon, Daphne and Chris the trainer.

Dog news over and out.

Incy Wincy Spider...

quite like this spider I did for NMS...
put the leaves in to show it wasn't a massive, big 'ol Aussie man-eater of a thing, but rather a proper little British spider.

Lettering for Carte Blanche

Amongst all this museum work, I have also done a bit of logo work for my super talented friends Cait and Gibson at Carteblanche, who are specialists in distinctive decorative painting techniques. They do murals, graining, gilding, marbling - you name it! They also hold classes in both the UK and USA, which are very popular.
If you happen to be near Auchterarder, then drop into their brand new showroom and shop at 94 High Street!

The Flowerbed

This is a rough of another pretty big wall illo for Garden Detectives - 4.4m long
There will be interactive, scented elements here for the lavender and mint etc. and all sorts of other fun things for children to play with and try out. I have been having a job getting my head round the technical drawings that the 3D designer supplied - hence my scribbles on the rough.
Another wall section in this part of the exhibit will have a honey Bee Journey on it too!
The end is on sight now (it's been a week of working 'til midnight - most unlike me!)
and I just have a few more beasties to colour up and send off.
A few posts back I mentioned that a badger I did had been rejected for looking too "weird" - well, here is the new one. It got an "Aw!" from the designer!

Studio Finds

It's ALL happening this week...

Not only do I have the most epic job on with NMS, but the builders are about to move in to the house to do a mighty bit of renovation work. So, we are moving OUT!
I am currently meant to be boxing things up in my studio ready for the big move, but of course I get distracted when I find wee sketchbooks that have fallen down the back of my desk, or have just been wedged between something bigger.
Here are a couple of pages - one random wee doodle in a lovely Muji notebook and the other a bit of visual notetaking from the Night Safari at Singapore Zoo.
Right, back to boxing, tidying, chucking and dust.

Massive garden illustration for NMS

Now, this is a work in progress and is still being added to, tweaked and bits deleted, so if you come along to the museum for the Garden Detectives opening in June, you probably won't see this version.
This is the big 'ol illustration that will cover up to 8 metres by 2.6 metres (yes, 8 metres) of wall as you enter the Garden Detectives exhibition. I admit it has caused me problems in the making, as I am putting it together on Photoshop CS4 at a smaller scale, but superhigh resoltion (1200dpi). I was saving a version the other day and didn't Photoshop go and tell me that it didn't save files higher than 2GB? I'll not repeat what I said to Photoshop...
I can't wait to see this super-sized, as it is so inky and colourful. The designers at NMS did a test print of another big image and it looks amazing at room height, I have to say.
There are going to be a few other massive illustrations for other zones in the show, aswell as smaller images such as my toad (see previous post)
Deadline-wise I have just over a week to get it all done, so it's time for a mug of tea, a biscuit and on with iTunes (Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto, "the Emperor" to kick me off today then perhaps a bit of Leftfield)

A fine looking Toad

Working very hard on the National Museums of Scotland job - I literally have hundreds of animals, birds, insects, fish and flowers to draw.
As part of one of the interactive exhibits in the show, I have drawn 15 animals that all have to be sorted out (by the visitors)as to where they live (or not) in a hedgerow.
These drawings have to be accurate, as they are educational, but still done in my style.
I am rather fond of this lowly and rather warty common toad. Yes - as part of the same exhibit I have also drawn a badger (currently re-doing the badger, as my first version was deemed a bit "weird, possibly too hairy" by the folk at the museum!) and a weasel so all I need to complete a cast call for Wind in the Willows is a water rat - but there isn't one in this show!
I'll get some of the big showstopper garden scenes up soon - just as soon as they are ready. In the meantime - enjoy the toad.

National Museum of Scotland

Finally! I am able to write a bit about this absolute PEACH of a job!
The last couple of months have seen me to-ing and fro-ing to the wonderful, award winning National Museum of Scotland to meet with their very cheerful design team to discuss doing some work for their big summer exhibition, entitled Garden Detectives, which is part of the Darwin200 series of events celebrating all things Charles Darwin.

It was Stuart Kerr who contacted me - he is a D&AD award winning 3D designer and mad keen cyclist by the way - and asked if I had ever done work for interactive, large scale exhibits. Nope...but I'd like to.

Basically the exhibition is aimed at children and will encourage them to discover what lurks, lives and burrows in their own backyard, through the medium of large, custom built interactive garden sheds, flowerbeds and hedgerows...oh and a garden pond too.
There will be plenty of specimens and things to poke at too.

Where does my work fit in? Well,I get to draw and paint lovely, loose garden scenes and hedge rows with bird's nests,curled up cats and pond-dwellers, which will be supersized and applied to walls and to the interactive exhibits aswell. I am also doing a hefty amount of quite technical illustration of the creatures who inhabit our gardens too too. Now, for those of you who know my work, you would be forgiven for thinking "Jill? technical? Neat and tidy?" I did think the same thing myself. However, after doing some drawings of Dragonfly larvae and ladybirds for the Museum's resident entymologist, my style got the stamp of approval!
The brief was to draw accurately, but still be inky - these illustrations are to be educational afterall.

Needless to say, I am very excited about this job - which does mean scanning everything at 1200dpi, as it is going to be BIG!
There will be plenty more updates about this, so watch this space for any more snippets.

Above illustration is a garden cat and also another of part of a dragonfly life cycle. You knew that though, didn't you?

Sumo Arabic Brochure

Sumo Arabic Brochure, originally uploaded by jimmysumo.

The lovely folk at Sumo asked me to do some illustrations in connection with their project with an amazing new museum in Qatar.
Jim Richardson sent me through these pics of the brochure they designed with one of my illos on the cover.
It was an interesting job to do, as I had to draw a mixture of Arabic and Western people in the gallery setting (which looks like a giant sand dune, by the way) but at the same time, be respectful of Islamic customs and culture. I hope I got it right!
In the process of researching this job, I came across some fantastic Arabic art websites and blogs, such as Fann 3arabi...and discovered a couple of inspiring Arabic calligraphers too, such as Malik Anas, an Iraqi calligrapher based in Baghdad.

Vintage Inspiration from Amy Cartwright

Several deadlines are pressing down upon me and in true fashion I blithely turn my cheek and get "researching" on the web for lots of lovely inspirational things.
Well, this actually came in via the Grain Edit newsfeed and I urge you to check it out.
stickersandstuff.blogspot.com is illustrator Amy Cartwright's fab blog - LOADS of links and lots of excellent vintage illustration to look at and drool.

Consider it an educational tool, all you young 'uns out there. Thankyou Amy!

Max Velthuijs illustration

Max Velthuijs, originally uploaded by normanhathaway.

double page spread heaven...I have been browsing Flickr again and found this wonderful spread.
Beautiful colour, composition, white space and yet is free and expressive too. It makes me want to do children's books!

Kitties

Kitties, originally uploaded by Penguin & Fish.

How adorable are these tweed cats by Penguin and Fish?
I want one...Etsy here I come!