Jan Brett's Blog

August 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:46:45 +0000

Happy August!

    August is my favorite month because my husband and daughter are both Leo the lion’s. This is the time when I stop everything and give you a snapshot of what I’m doing as an illustrator, for those of you who are aspiring artists and writers, or who are teachers or librarians who teach the creative process.
     I am one quarter of the way through my 2011 picture book, HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. I’ve already plotted out the story in my book dummy, which I have showed to my editor Margaret, art director Cecilia, and designer, Marikka. The book dummy helps me plan how much wordage to put on each page, knowing that I will edit out about one quarter of the original manuscript. I make my dummy like a small book, with sewn pages so I can turn each page. There is something slightly suspenseful about a book, and how with each page turn, a new scene will reveal itself. If I show my main character, Rollo the troll, from a distance in the first few spreads, I want to show a close-up of him before the story gets going, so we can get to know him. Besides having a tail, which trolls are known for, he also is small and wiry. His face is heart shaped, with a low hairline which is shaped somewhat like a hedgehog’s. His large pointy ears make me quite sure he’s of the elfin clan. I tried to make his expressions mischievous and feral, as if he is not an animal but he is not like my 10-year-old grandson either! Because he’s so wild, I can imagine him off in the woods for a couple of months, here his human counterpart couldn’t survive. Some of the best stories, whether they are science fiction, Greek myths, or stories where animals talk, work well because of the new reality that my characters live in.
     I’ve noticed that when I see children’s drawings, they
very naturally create characters that are not human, but have adventures,attachments, and problems that are like people. It’s inspiring to see children’s characters that have special powers or some amazing attribute like sparkling hooves or green hair.

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Page 8 - 9 Sketch

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Page 8 - 9 Finish

I’m working very hard at re-creating the remote and ethereal landscapes we saw on our trip to Sweden. I don’t believe that I’ve lived another previous life, but when I experienced the land up around the Arctic circle, in Norway, Baffin island, and in Arctic Sweden, I feel like I’m reunited with a long-distant but familiar place. I want to lie on the ground and smell the lichens and moss. My art table is covered with birchbark, the material that will form the borders of my book. I always see little faces and animals on the bark because of the irregular black and white patterns. I’m going to put a few of my accidental creature appearances in the border, even though they don’t move the plot along. Perhaps they speak to an olden days time when people look carefully at the natural world in order to see signs that help them read what has been happening in their world. Maybe they will add to a whimsical atmosphere.

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Research in Kiruna Sweden

Besides HOME FOR CHRISTMAS I’m very happy to know that my 1998 version of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS picture book will be reissued with the companion CD. The Boston Pops commissioned a musical version of the 1823 poem by Clement Moore. My husband Joe plays in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and when they were little, we loved to take our kids to the Pops to see him play THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. The music is so magical you can feel your skin tingle. Years later when I illustrated the poem, I set it in Stockbridge Massachusetts a few miles from where we live, the Boston Symphony’s summer home. I like the way the book came out, but I’ve always wanted readers to experience the music. Now, my dream has come true. The narrator will be Jim Dale who will really make it come alive. The other musical pieces that I’d love to illustrate, are THE FIREBIRD by Stravinsky, PEER GYNT by Edward Grieg, and PETER AND THE WOLF by Prokofiev. First, though I have a turtle book in the works and a folktale called THE TURNIP that I would like to do. I have a wooden toy that is an enactment of THE TURNIP. It shows people and animals trying to pull a giant turnip out of the ground. I love turnips and especially if they’re yellow with pinkish purple tops. What a great color combo. I hope summertime has given you some time to work on your own picture books and creating unusual characters. Happy reading, your friend,

Jan Brett

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHIRSTMAS

July 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:03:00 +0000

Happy July! This is Jan Brett and this is my July hedge a gram, my monthly communication about my work as an illustrator and writer of children’s books. I like to offer a progress report on the book I’m working on, and hopefully give you some insights about creating a storybook, with pictures of course. I separate the process into three parts. First, there is the idea for the story that involves a complete plot - the hardest part. I see the story told with a border idea that involves some kind of subplot, so that plot should be envisioned too, before I travel to a foreign country to get ideas. Sometimes the story will take 10 years
before all the pieces fall into place. The second part is writing the manuscript, which may go through two or three versions that I talk about with my editor, Margaret Frith. At this point I sewed together typing paper into signatures of four pages that will add up to a 32 page book, the usual number for a picture book. This is called the dummy. Then, after meeting with Margaret, I’ll begin the finishes. We will look for technical pitfalls — like putting a character too close to the center of the spread where it could be obscured, or we may talk about the color palette, or the age of the characters. Most importantly we will talk about the pacing and where I may choose to take out parts of the manuscript I can best describe by illustrating or places where I may want to explain in words when the action doesn’t seem clear in the dummy. For me, I like the book to be loose and flexible so the illustrations can dictate the shape of the story as it progresses.

In Sweden for
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

I’ve been tramping through the woods looking for pieces of birchbark, especially ones with interesting patterns of lichen. Several years ago, I found a huge, very heavy, scientific book about lichens. I have some sort of fascination with them. On a previous trip to Scandinavia, I met Norwegian’s who collected flat stones with interesting map lichen on them. In arctic Sweden my friend Elof took a lot of photos of characterful lichen patterns for me to use in my book.
The decorative borders in HOME FOR CHRISTMAS I painted to look like birchbark. In the open air national cultural museum in Sweden, called Skansen, I was able to see objects made of birchbark, or carved from birch. I’ve always been fascinated by the paperlike quality of pieces of birchbark found on the forest floor. When I was little, I really wanted a birch bark canoe, but had to settle for writing letters on birchbark. The other intriguing plant I became obsessed with is the Lingonberry. I just had six Lingonberry plants put in around our turtle pond. Every time I go to the store I buy a jar of Lingonberry preserves. I love them on my homemade bread (toasted) or in yogurt. I will include my homemade bread recipe at the end of my hedge a gram. Be prepared, if you make it, that it is quite thick. I think it’s pretty healthy.

Lichen covered rocks in Arctic Sweden

     The bread we sampled in Sweden was scrumptious - perfect for someone like me who likes things crunchy. In the olden days flat bread would be cooked in a circular form, flat as a pancake with a hole in the middle. The rounds would be strung on a pole up in the ceiling, and they would last the winter. Some of the fancy rounds would be covered with different kinds of seeds and coarse salt which I found delicious with a small amount of homemade butter. I will definitely put flat bread in the trolls house in my book!
     One of the decorative elements I’ll put in my story is the Rod Flugsvamp in Swedish and Fly Agaric in English, mushroom. You often see it pictured in fairytale illustrations. It is bright red, with white spots on that look like breadcrumbs. A bit down the stalk is a white ruffle or collar. This mushroom when fully mature is wide like a hat, but when it is first emerging it is called a button, and looks like a little red globe. This mushroom is highly toxic, and can cause visions and hallucinations if eaten, and worse. I don’t know all the details, but I do know it is one of the mushrooms people should never ever eat.
     It makes me wonder if this mushroom was put in a fairytale to signal that something magical and weird might follow, like perhaps a troll. I plan to follow this tradition, and illustrate lots of red polkadotted mushrooms in the forest scenery. Rollo the troll, who goes for a walkabout in the forest, will eat only the edible mushrooms. I will be able to picture them accurately because I brought back a Swedish mushroom book. Even though the book is in Swedish, all the poisonous mushrooms have a skull and cross bones besides them, the universal symbol for mortal danger!
     Someday I would like to write and illustrate a book featuring dots. My favorite combination is white dots on a bright red background, and I collect red things with white dots. My favorite comic book when I was little was Dottie Dot, even though I wasn’t allowed to buy comic books, I could read them.
     I hope you find a way to be creative in the month of July, by writing your own comic book, by going on a nature walk and drawing and writing about what you see, or writing in the free association style, whatever comes to mind as one thought leads to another, like I have just done!
     Happy reading, your friend, Jan Brett

Lingonberries or cowberries

Rod Flugsvamp or Fly Agaric mushroom

Recipe ~ Crunchy Whole Grain Bread

Jan Brett — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:51:36 +0000

Mix 1 1/2 packets of yeast with 1/2 c warm water and let fluff up and bubble
add
1/2 cup molasses
1 t sea salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup buttermilk powder if you can find it, or powdered milk, if not — this ingredient is not essential
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup softened butter, some stores carry homemade which I prefer

Blend this mixture and add 8 cups of flour– the kind of flours for this recipe will follow. After adding one half the total amount of flour, blend in 1 cup walnuts chopped very fine and 1 cup dried cranberries and 1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds (optional) — it’s easier to blend the nuts and fruit this way.
The 8 cups of flour include
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup King Arthur Harvest Crunchy Grains Blend
3 cups King Arthur 12 grain flour - I ordered from their website, but if you can’t be bothered use whole wheat flour.
4 cups of King Arthur bread flour, found in most grocery stores. It has more gluten in it and makes a chewy texture to your bread. Sometimes I will use King Arthur white whole wheat flour which I order from the website.
I knead the dough for 10 minutes, timed. Place the bread in a greased bowl in a warm place with a damp towel on top. It should rise until doubled in bulk. Punch down and shape into two loaves to fit standard pans, that have greased with butter, let rise and place in a cold oven. Turn temperature to 400° for 10 minutes and turn down to 375° for a remaining 20 to 25 minutes until done. A loaf of bread that is fully cooked will sound drum like when tapped on the top. Do not peek!Whoops, I think the last instructions is for my gingerbread recipe! It is best to bake bread on a sunshiney day with low humidity. I think my fresh hen’s eggs also contribute to a nicely risen loaf! Thank you Bonnie, Foo-lion, Pang, Cindy, Cricket, and Fleur, my best laying hens!

All About ~ 3 Little Dassie

Jan Brett — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:00:07 +0000

New from Africa

Hi, this is Jan Brett, letting you know what’s happening in my life as a children’s book illustrator and writer. If you have ever traveled to a foreign country, you may recognize the feelings I experienced after a trip to Africa. I did miss drawing and painting every day, which makes me feel like my true self. What made the trip valuable, was that I was filled with new images of landscapes, animals, birds and African people with traditional clothes and manners that impressed me in a way that makes me want to draw them. I am filled with a motivational excitement that makes me want to bring the images to life on paper.
In the traditional village I visited in Namibia, Otjongombe, I admired the long dresses, shawls and turbans the woman wore, especially since they were created from beautiful fabric. Most of the women made their own dresses and kept to a certain style that has been worn for generations.

Herero Family from Namibia

Click here to view the embedded video.

I bought many samples of cotton printed fabric to use when creating the clothes for the 3 Little Dassie (rock hyrax in English) that will be characters in my book. I brought colored markers with me, so I could experiment with just how I could transform the tradition dress of the stately Namibian woman to the dassie who I will dress just like them, but who are a bit chubby and short limbed.

Pimbi or Rock Hyrex in Namibia at Little Ongava

Click here to view the embedded video.

My husband and I went to a school where I met the children of the village. They performed a program of song and dance which we greatly admired. We had some time to chat with the children who liked practicing their English with us. Their birth language is either Herero or Himba. They were interested in how old I was, so I told them that I was 59. I left some of my books for their library, since they all could read English and a beautifully illustrated science book about extreme animals that I bought especially for them, as well as President Obama lapel pins since the President’s father was from Africa. Everyone we met in Africa is elated by our country’s choice of President Obama.

K.J. Kapewa Public School in Otjongombe, Namibia

Click here to view the embedded video.

     During our two week trip to Africa we went for our second time to Namibia and our first time to Tanzania. Spending time in the bush or wilderness area learning about African birds, mammals, and reptiles is my idea of an energizing, inspiring, awesome time. Our African guides, Martin Benadie, who is South African and specializes in birds, Uanee Karuuombe, a Himba guide who introduced us to the Herero people, and Peter, our guide in Tanzania, brought events and encounters into focus and shared their knowledge. For example, Martin could walk into a stand of acacia trees listen carefully, and then point out eight different birds. Sometimes he would hear a bird call and then would imitate it with a whistle, and the bird would come out to investigate. Often he spotted birds unknown to the local guide.
     In Namibia, Uanee helped me understand about the pride the Herero have of their beautiful cattle. Peter, whose family have lived on the Serengeti plains for generations, looked at a herd of zebra (properly known as a dazzle of zebra), and see that they were intently staring at a fixed point not far off. He drove us in his Lad Rover slowly that way, and soon we saw the elegant cheetah the zebras were looking at but who had been hidden from our sight.
     Excited as I am by all the new African ideas, I am still finishing my Easter egg book, correcting, polishing, and adding to the year’s work. It will take all my self control not to start work on 3 Little Dassie!     Happy creating, reading and especially drawing.

Your friend,

Jan Brett

July 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 02:16:27 +0000

Thanks for stopping by: Here’s the podcast version of this month’s Hedge a gram:

July 2010 Jan Brett Hedge a gram

http://janbrettsblog.com/?feed=rss2

June 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:27:45 +0000

Happy June! I’m Jan Brett, and this is my June Hedge-a- gram, the time I stopped everything to give you a time capsule of this month in my life as a children’s book writer and illustrator. In the last two weeks, I’ve seen my new book for the fall, THE THREE LITTLE DASSIE for the first time, and I’ve completed the dummy for my 2011 book, HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. My husband and I traveled to the Book Expo the US’s premier book festival held every year in May. This year it was in New York City. Although THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES won’t be sold in bookstores until next fall, the early copies were flown in to give away at the book signings at BOOK EXPO. It is the first time I’ve seen the book put together. I spent two weeks painting end papers, the usually solid colored paper that glues the body of the book onto the covers. In this book the end papers are decorative. We changed the jacket art just as the book was going to press which involve a lot of fast readjustments in Penguins professional and dedicated art department. The jacket has embossed or raised type face and I saw that for the first time. The goal is for the book to become greater than a semblance of its parts. We all want it to become a future classic with characters, setting, and plot all in balance, with an intriguing but warm and friendly jacket to welcome and entice readers. It was difficult to scratch weeks and weeks of work off by canceling the first jacket, but our goal is a jacket with the right tones, and a design by one of Penguin’s designers, Ed Scully, leapt up off the page and compelled the change. Marikka Tamura , the Penguin designer who chooses the typeface and colors that grace the jacket hit all the perfect notes as well. It is a privilege to work with such a talented team.

The dummy is all in my court, and after discussions about the basic plot of the story of HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and then an okay of the basic draft, I presented my dummy to Margaret Frith my editor of 20 years. I’ve just come back from a week and a half in Sweden, shepherded by our Swedish friends, Elof and Gudrun Eriksson. We were able to spend time on a farm abundant with wildlife in southwest Sweden and go on a guided trip above the Arctic circle. My book dummy reflected much of the impressions I got from the austere and elegant landscapes and encounters with wildlife in Sweden.

     The major achievement of our trip was encounters with habituated Moose in Kiruna, the jumping off place to Sweden’s Arctic North. We met an attractive and knowledgeable Swedish moose aficionado. He had five adult Moose and one calf that lived on a huge tract of land. When we called him to arrange our Moose experience he promised to wait and feed them when we arrived. To his word, the moose ambled toward the feeding station at the sound of his whistle. They have ample grazing, so they were quite relaxed about joining us. The bulls are not approachable during breeding season in the fall, but this was spring, and they were as affectionate as horses. The antlers, which were velvety knobs, because they had just started growing, were kind of itchy and they have learned that tourists will rub them. One of the moose gave our guide a trained kiss on the cheek and I managed to get a big kiss onto their velvety cushiony noses. It made me miss having a horse. Their eyes were very intelligent and once one adjusted to their bodies not being horselike, a person can appreciate the majestic presence of this animal, with its long brindled northern fur coat, its black cloven hooves and elegant palmated antlers.     On the day we left Sweden, traveling over a vast stretch of land with melting snow drifts revealing lichen, mosses and endless shining lingonberry bushes, we found a huge moose antler shed last winter. Hefting its heavy weight, it really felt like a fitting crown for the majestic King of the North!
In my book, the troll boy encounters an antlered animal, and I had to decide between a moose and reindeer. After my visit to Arctic Sweden the answer was obvious.
     This month I’ll work on the first finished spread, I’ll design the borders and nail down the characters - father troll, mother troll, sister troll, and my main character Rollo Troll. It’s always a wild ride in my imagination, and the best part of creating a children’s book - is all so hopeful.
     If you’re going on a trip this summer, close or far, familiar or unfamiliar, think of it as an expedition for getting ideas for your own book. Your experience may take you to an unexpected place!     Happy reading, your friend,

Jan Brett

May 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:36:02 +0000

Thanks for stopping by: Here’s the podcast version of this month’s Hedge a gram:

May 2010 Jan Brett Hedge a gram

http://janbrettsblog.com/?feed=rss2

May 2010 Hedge a gram

Jan Brett — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:32:20 +0000

     Happy May! This is Jan Brett and this is my May hedge a gram, the time I take every month to go over what I’m doing in my work as a children’s book author and illustrator.
     A curious thing happened with my just finished book, THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES as it was on its way to the printer. Every year my publisher prints a poster of the new book to promote it, and one of the designers at Penguin works with me. This year Ed Scully took my artwork from the title page to feature on the poster. When the poster came in the mail we love its sunny, buoyant feel of the three Dassie sisters in close-up. We liked it so much that we decided to use it for the jacket of the book, and not to use the other piece of art I created. It’s always hard to not use artwork that I’ve spent weeks working on, like the first jacket, but in book publishing the jacket is extremely important. It is an invitation to open the book and read it. It helps if it awakens a lively curiosity in the viewer, and it needs to reflect the feeling of the book inside. I can’t give away the ending either. I’m counting on the adorableness of the Dassie, and their unusual outfits to make kids think, “I want to read about their adventures!” That’s the way I felt when I first saw the Dassies in the wild. I wanted to imagine what their lives were like as they sunbathed on rocks around our camp in Namibia, Africa, and then disappeared down their little caves in the rock crevices when an eagle flew overhead. My first jacket pictured one of the Dassie sisters being carried away by an enormous eagle. Even though I wanted adventure and drama in my book, the jacket looked a little sinister, and the little Dassie looked pretty helpless. All in all, I’m glad that designer Ed Scully’s poster idea initiated a big change for the look of my book. Joe and I have a motto, “There is no arguing with a great idea”.
     I just finished the news notes for THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES. There are four African animals are illustrated in the book so in my news notes I tell little about each one, the Dassie, the Agama lizard, the Verreaux’s Eagle, and the Tent Tortoise. There are so many startling things to discover in Namibia that I couldn’t put in my book, but I wanted kids to know about, so I described them in my news notes.    Twyfelfontain, the Rocky Mountain where my story takes place, is the site of ancient petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are carvings in the rock. There is also a very rare plant, found nowhere else in the world that looks like a rosette of raggedy leaves about the size of a truck tire. It is low to the ground, and when you look closely you can see small orange red cones in its center. The plants are 1000 years old, that is the amazing thing. It is the Welwichita plant.
     Now that I’ve finished the news notes, I will give them away at my book signings next fall in output them up on my website starting this May 20.
     I’m on my way to Sweden to get ideas for HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, my book about a runaway troll. I started the book dummy — a simple roadmap of the future book. It is done with quick sketches and it will help me find the materials I need in Sweden to make their books authentic.
     I’m planning to ask everyone about any troll stories they might have heard as children. I would also like to visit an open-air museum where a farm from the olden days has been reconstructed, so I can envision the trolls homestead. I’ll have to rough it up a bit because the characters are trolls after all!
     I have to find out how Christmas is celebrated in Sweden, and what special foods are enjoyed. At the beginning of a book there is a lot of excitement about spending a year with my new subject, but I’m a little nervous too, just like at the start of any adventure.
     Happy reading,

                                                   Your friend,

                                                     Jan Brett