Jan Brett’s Blog

Happy May!

On the first of every month I stop everything and try to communicate what is happening in my life as a children’s picture book author and illustrator.

I have been hard at work on my “dummy” as they say in the book business.   It’s a 3/4 size book, sewn together by me, a sketch version of my envisioned 2013 book, CINDERS. It is 32 pages, and made out of typing paper, with the words pasted in. I am constantly cutting out and adding pieces. I use a rapidiograph ink pen and watercolors. When finished (it takes about a month), I bring it to new York to look it over with my editor, Margaret, art director, Cecilia, and designer Marikka.  My book is a Cinderella story peopled by chickens. The fairy godmother is a chicken, the prince is a chicken and Cinderella is a chicken!  Out in my barn live all the chicken models, a Phoenix pullet named Edie, a Phoenix rooster named Elof and a Silky named Britta. The musicians at the ball will all be white crested black polish. This weekend I’ll be going to a poultry show in Dayton, Ohio to view more poultry, and be inspired by all the breeds of purebred poultry. I need to finish the dummy soon so I can make up a checklist of all the images I will research and photograph when my husband and I go to Saint Petersburg, Russia next month.  I have been amassing lots of coffee table size art books on Russian traditional dress, architecture, and design that will be useful in creating the fairy tale world Cinderella lives in.

I took a break from my artwork and visited Newfoundland. The Woodland Primary School in Grand Falls-Windsor, a town centrally located on the island won last year’s contest for a school visit. There were 22,000 entries, and this small school won. The papers were calling it “The Little School that Could.”  When we arrived at Gander, the airport an hour away, a group of students , parents and teachers were there to greet us.  We were so surprised. The air smells so sweet in Newfoundland, like a million trillion spruce trees. We were warned to lookout for moose on the road,. There is one moose for every four persons in Newfoundland. There are also willow Ptarmigan, one of my favorite birds, and Puffins! In the forest there are Lynx and Wildcat, and in the bogs live Caribou. We missed going to the ocean, which is known for whales, seals and icebergs.

I loved speaking to the children, and giving them an art lesson on how to draw a Polar Bear dressed in an Inuit parka, from my book THE THREE SNOW BEARS. The kid’s drawings were better than mine, they had so much personality. I visited every class and spoke at two assemblies. The children sang me a traditional song, and decorated all their doors with images from my books. I never, ever could have imaged this when I was a young girl and dreaming of becoming a children’s book illustrator!

Later I went to a “Newfie” night. The teachers and friends all made traditional dishes.  Because Grand-Falls Windsor is near the ocean, many of the dishes were fish and shellfish. They were all delicious especially their seafood chowder, which had a flavorful fish stock base, unlike so many of the creamy chowders found in restaurants. Our family sometimes served salted cod when I was little, and I loved revisiting those nostalgic tastes. Having traveled to Scandanavia a number of times, I was introduced

to Cloudberries and Lingonberries two of my favorites.  In Newfoundland they are called Partridge berries and Bakedapples. There are alot of unique names for things in Newfoundland!  I also got to don oil skins and sing, shout out Newfie expressions, and kiss a codfish on the lips as part of my Screeching in, a ceremony to make Joe and I honorary Newfound-landers. We loved every bit of our time in Newfoundland. We have given quite a bit of thought about what makes Newfound-landers so special, but we just don’t know. The people we met seemed very happy with their lives and proud of their corner of the earth.

I don’t now if we can make it back to Newfoundland this year but I”m looking forward to visiting again and going to Saint Johns, Saint Anthony, where the Grendell Mission Museum is, and to the ancient Viking settlement in northwest Newfoundland.

I will be back to Canada in September to cape Bretton Island to run in their Fiddlers Marathon.

Now that May is here, we can join with Mother Nature and be creative. Everywhere in our town there are plants and trees flowering. The birds are arriving from the South, and the males are marking their territories with their song. I’m still waiting to hear my favorite, the eastern towhee. A woodland bird that is a dramatic white , black and russet. It’s call sounds like “drink your tea!” We also have a huge bullfrog in our turtle pond, as well as many three inch long tadpoles, some  have back legs.  From my my reading I learned that bullfrog tadpoles take several years to mature into frogs, which means the eggs need a pond that will not dry up in summer like many of the vernal pools we have in our town. I also read that bull frogs are voracious hunters, and have been known to eat the hummingbirds that feed on the pond side flowers.

I am always more energetic in spring and I hope you also have a challenging fun project to work on.  We had a visit from one of my friends from the poultry shows I attend, Julia, who brought her twenty-something year old box turtle to visit, Amelia.   I filmed a “How to draw” video and talk about Amelia.  I hope you will click on “Videos” on my home page so you can see a box turtle like Mossy (without her garden) and our turtle pond.

Be creative, and Happy May,

Jan Brett

Happy April!

This is Jan Brett with my April Hedge a gram.   The time I stop to give you an idea about what I’m doing as an author and illustrator
Since childhood I have wanted to be an illustrator and I like to think my illustrations told a story — it came naturally to me and was fun and it energized me.  Writing was different, it wasn’t something I did in my free time, although I love to read.  When I first brought my portfolio around to publishers hoping to get a job illustrating a picture book, all of the editors I saw encouraged me to write the story myself.  My first attempt was FRITZ AND THE BEAUTIFUL HORSES which I wrote for my six-year-old daughter who was taking riding lessons.  I set the book in olden days and was inspired by a pony, John Steil,  who live where she took lessons and an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called the  Hapsburg Era.  Many books later, book ideas come from inspirational crossroads.  First my editor Margaret who I have worked with for 20 years and knows how much I love my flock of chickens, suggested I retell and illustrate CINDERELLA.  She has chickens too and we love to talk about what a cast of characters they can be.  Joe, my husband of 32 years and I both had children from previous marriages so the idea of the horrible step-sisters and mother in the Cinderella story made me squeamish.  I decided to soften the stepmother part and made the characters more silly and bossy than cruel.   Joe and I had been planning a trip to St. Petersburg to get ideas for a future book, a retelling of THE TURNIP a folktale.  Every time we tried to plan trips to the farms and countryside, the Russian guides would change the focus back to palaces and museums.  That’s when I decided to set my chicken Cinderella in St. Petersburg too.  Because I love snow and the North, I would have Cinderella the chicken go to a ball in a snow palace modeled after the onion domed  wooden architecture of the region.
Now, that I’ve got a story written, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought.   I’m doing a lot of long distance running and I puzzled out much of my retelling on my runs.  Also having a beautiful Phoenix cockerel showing off in my barn every day added to the fun of making up the story.  His beautiful coloration and flowing tail feathers made my mind race with ideas for a formal Russian uniform with lots of gold braid and smart buttons and epaulets.  I’ve got a new stack of books with photographs of Russian style dresses which are very colorful elegant and extravagant and I can’t wait to dress up my Phoenix hen in one.  I don’t know how I’m going to stand the wait until our trip in June, although now my turtle book is off to the printer, I have more time to do some of my favorite things, go to Boston Symphony concerts, raise baby chicks - I have 25 under hens or in an incubator, and especially visit my 2 1/2-year-old granddaughter.  We love to paint in read books together.
I am a little sad to have finish MOSSY, but with the spring weather the turtle pond we constructed for the book is coming to life.  Some of the large 3 inch tadpoles have sprouted back legs and the cattails have been growing about 1/2 inch a day.   There are lots of teeny tiny tadpoles and I’m expecting frogs and turtles when we get a warm stretch.   Spring is my favorite time of year, and this year feels even more like a new beginning than usual because I’m bursting with enthusiasm for CINDERS my new book.  I would like to encourage you to find a writing and/or illustration project that will jump-start your creativity.
Happy reading writing and drawing, your friend.

Jan Brett

Happy February,

February is the month of Valentine’s Day.  This year, my husband Joe and I will be spending February 14 in India, where I will be doing some research for a future book starring a tiger.  I have a sketch of the story, and I will be looking for some folk tales and fables that will support it.  It is a story that is deceptively simple.  A poor boy (in this case a tiger) makes his living making mud bricks, hard and dirty work.  He is always covered with mud and his hands, (in this case paws) are rough from the work.  As the tiger becomes more and more successful, he is able to enjoy the finer things in life, and he exchanges his raggedy clothes for fine ones.  He just can’t part with his slippers that were so dependable during those years of struggle.  His wife, children, and his friends scold him for wearing the slippers because they’re embarrassed by his humble beginnings.  The tiger decides to replace them, and throw them away.  But every time he does, disaster.  First they are flung out the window and they hit a donkey cart that stampedes and causes havoc.  When left in the gutter, the monsoon rains carry them down to the river where they clog the dam which nearly causes a flood and so on.  Finally the Tiger build a miniature palace for them in his garden, where they can be seen by the tiger as he walks by in his fine new slippers never forgetting his past and how he became himself.

I recently heard someone described as an “authentic”person, and remembering back to my childhood, I can think of some very curious and unique characters that lived in our town.  Often, a person would wear, or have in their home an object of clothing, a piece of jewelry or maybe a painting that would tell a story about that person’s life.  Besides the mysteries of the past, the other reason I like the story is that all of the pieces that make up our lives aren’t always happy ones – it is best to put them on a shelf so we don’t forget them, but where they stay out of the way.  My job as an author is to see how this kernel of a story morphs into a children’s book.

Besides being the time of year my husband Joe and I often go on a trip, Valentine’s Day is time for new beginnings, even more than New Year’s for me.  My chickens all start laying in response to the longer days, and I group them with champion chickens in mind.  In 21 days the baby chicks will appear and the fun of rearing them begins.  I keep several kinds of chickens who love to be mothers, they are Silkies, Buff Brahma, and Silky/Buff Brahma, crosses.  They sit on the eggs of my white crested Polish bantams, a breed that is very beautiful but rarely will sit on their eggs, except for my one hen Pippi who is an excellent mother.

On our trip to India, I will bring a little blank book that I’ve sewn together from typing paper and I’ll start planning my 2013 book CINDERCHICKEN, a poultry Cinderella.  I will leave a lot of details for when we go to St. Petersburg in June.  I always start with the manuscript so I will work on that during our trip.  I’ll also look for some Indian animals to draw and paint so I can add another “How to Draw” video to our website.  I’d like the special animal to be a tiger, but I will have to see one first.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, a retelling of the tale that I illustrated 20 years ago has been republished.  I painted new art for the jacket and worked on the story too.  I’ve always liked the fact that the “borders” are tapestries that show every scene without the enchantment that has made the characters into animals.  You can see for example the musicians, which are pictured as dogs, in their real bodies in the tapestry that hangs on the wall behind them.  The peacock is actually a fairy that has caused all the confusions, and the Beast is the handsome caring prince that Beauty almost betrays.  I’ve always loved the idea that a simple request for a rose by Beauty could lead to such a rich complicated story, just like in life, a small act can set events in motion that are life-changing.

I have three nieces, Mia, Stella and Ana who all love princesses, and between  BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and CINDERCHICKEN, there are a lot of magical palaces and princesses and princes.  It is a change of direction for me, because I love hedgehogs and trolls!  I guess the key is imagination and I hope you will create other worlds along with me, set in a castle, in outer space, or down a rabbit hole.

Happy writing drawing and exploring nature,

Your friend,

Jan Brett

Happy January,

The book that I’m working on now, MOSSY, is almost finished.  I have a few more double-page spreads to go.  I’m glad I have a deadline, as I’m forced to make decisions about my artwork and to dedicate all my time to finishing my book.  It is always a little sad to finish a book, and be done with all the characters, settings and “extras” that I’ve been painting all year.  I still feel that an Eastern Box turtle shell is a thing of beauty, and I’ve enjoyed painting it.  I’m intrigued with the miniature beauty of moss forests and they too have been a challenge to paint.  In MOSSY, because it is set mostly in an old-fashioned natural history museum, I decided to put various collections; butterflies, beetles, shells, and mushrooms, in the borders.  All my life, I have collected books on these kinds of collections, and especially the art work that showed them in the old days.  I had the most fun painting the butterflies and moths, but I had a much harder time painting minerals and gems.  One of the fun aspects of setting my book in 1913 almost 100 years ago, was dressing the characters in Edwardian fashions.  When I was growing up my mother kept boxes of old-fashioned clothes that we were allowed to go through and play with on special occasions.  I remember a top hat made of beaver that was silky and shiny, as well as ball gowns and beaded lace and fringed shawls.  My grandmother Brett had a lady’s dress shop and she dressed in a formal way that wasn’t that far from the Edwardian fashions the people in my book wear.
As always, during the more focused efforts at the end of my book the characters become more fixed in my mind.  This makes them very hard to leave behind.
This month, I’ll be showing my chickens at the Northeastern Poultry Congress, January 13 and 14th.  I’ll be taking lots of photos of poultry for next year’s book ? a “poultry” Cinderella.  The book doesn’t have a name yet, but it will be set in St. Petersburg.  It will have a large cast of poultry, dressed in opulent Russian finery from the days of Catherine the Great.  I will set my story in winter, but we will go to St. Petersburg in June to get ideas.   I will use my imagination to add snow!
If you live in New England and would like to see 2,500 exhibition poultry, make a stop at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield.  It is free, and lots of fun.  If you are looking for laying hens or examples of exotic breeds, there are birds for sale.
In my work, I have more than one story I’m working on.  There is a retelling of THE TURNIP, a rural folktale that I will also set in Russia.  We have a trip to the Russian countryside scheduled in June to get ideas and an overnight stay in a Russian Dacha ? or country house that I hope will be fruitful.  We will also stop in Sweden and look at the beautiful farms there, as well as a stop at artist Carl Larsson’s  house.
Artistically, I’ve gotten a little more layered in my painting.  I like painting one translucent watercolor layer over another with a goal in mind of reflectivity and depth.  The borders have given me a chance to play with different groups of colors too.  I like how the natural beiges and browns of shells, feathers, and mushrooms for example, contrast with splashes of red, purple and yellow in the more showy specimens in the collection.  Usually I travel to get ideas for the settings of my books, but in MOSSY I used my backyard and the Agassiz and Peabody Museums at Harvard in nearby Cambridge Massachusetts.  The building that is the museum in my book is my old nursery school, Wilder Memorial in the neighboring town of Hingham.  The most important part of my story, the turtle MOSSY, hasn’t appeared in our yard though.  The turtle pond we built is for aquatic turtles, not terrestrial (ground living) turtles like the Eastern Box turtle like Mossy.  Lots of frogs have moved in and I’m hoping for possible painted turtle sightings next spring.  Two of my friends have pet Box Turtles and the Boyce family sent me some lovely photos of their turtle, Amelia.
Happy writing drawing and exploring nature,

Your friend,

Jan Brett