CINDERS a Chicken Cinderella jacket

Happy January!

This is my January Hedge a gram, the time each month I stop working on my book and give you an update on the work I’m doing.
I’m painting very intensely the finishes of my 2013 picture book, CINDERS A CHICKEN CINDERELLA, set in olden days Russia. Most of the interior spreads are finished, I have four more to go. The jacket, probably the most crucial art in the book is finished. Marikka, one of the talented designers at my publisher, Penguin Putnam, has shown me the final design of the jacket. The “display type” is what the the letters spelling the title of my book is called. Marikka found a type face in a giant book of different type faces that looked like it came out of a fairy tale. Then a calligrapher, a person who artfully forms letters with strokes of a special pen wrote out the title and my name using the type face as a guide. The calligrapher can pull the letters closer or further apart to balance them perfectly. If you are illustrating a story of your own, the cover of a book report, or any art that incorporates lettering, you have the opportunity to reflect the content with the style of lettering. For example, if you are writing something short and humorous, like a funny short story, you might choose an informal lettering style. If you were writing a story about dragons, for another example, you could be a little playful and decorate the display type with reptilian scales. Let’s say you were writing about volcanoes. The display type could be smokey and vaporous on the top of each letter, and the gray could turn to a molten orangey red an the bottom of each letter. Next time you are in a bookstore you can see the work of some of the world’s most talented book designers on the jackets of the books. The size and shape of the letters are important, as well as where they are placed on the jacket, and the color too. Sometimes its easy to guess what kind of book it is by the display type.
In this book, I have added a fold out page showing the fancy ball at the ice palace, the place where Cinders meets the Prince Cockerel. I needed a lot of extra room to show the chickens in all their finery dancing and swirling to the music. Normally, a children’s picture book has 32 pages, but in this one instance the printer will configure the dimension of the pages so they will open up from a folded position so I will have twice as much space to draw the dancing chickens. When the pages are folded, it will look like two ornate doors carved out of ice. I admire all the different breeds of fancy chickens, and it was fun painting them and choosing ball gowns for the hens and elegant jackets and britches for the roosters. When my husband Joe and I were in St. Petersburg Russia last spring, we visited the Museum of Ethnography, where I was able to see close up, and from all sides, the traditional dress from many parts of Russia. During early January I’m visiting my daughter and her family in Okinawa, Japan. During the long flight, and a few hours each day, I work on the doors to the ice palace. Because they’re ice I mainly use the colors; ultramarine blue (a deep icy blue) Prussian blue (a turquoisey blue),Van Dyke brown(the color of coffee), and Viridian green( a mineral green with not much yellow in it). I only need a very small palette to hold those four colors and that makes it easy to balance everything when painting in a small space. I also brought a special lamp that mimics natural daylight, and it takes up almost a whole suitcase. In case you have never noticed, the light bulbs in the lamps one uses can make colors look different.
Besides working on the finishes for CINDERS I am working on the manuscript for a book titled THE ANIMAL’S SANTA , hopefully for 2014. One night last summer, at about 12:00 AM I got an idea that intrigued me so much I had to write it down. This never happens to me because my mind is most ready to be creative in the morning. I couldn’t stop writing until the whole story was written down. My editor Margaret likes it but she doesn’t think its quite complete. During my trip I will work on it by reading it over and perhaps doing a simple dummy version of the book. This is probably one of the more difficult parts about creating a book. The publisher is the final decider so I must push myself more than I normally would to get the results that will make us both happy!
Since it is the first month of the New Year, I make a New Year’s resolution. This year I’m going to be more prompt about answering emails and phone calls. I am going to pick up my art desk and surrounding work space more often and not be late on my book next year. Those are very difficult goals for me.
I hope you will begin an exciting new creative project as well.
Happy New Year! Your friend Jan Brett

    In Norgorod  Russia for CINDERS a Chicken Cinderella research

Happy December,

This is the time I stop everything to write down a few thoughts about what I’m doing with my books. Since I begin work on the story in January, December is the time I’m tying things together – in this case my “chicken” Cinderella story. I love going out to visit my chickens in their backyard coop and in our barn. It is a beautiful warm day today for December in New England, so my chickens are taking sun baths in their enclosed outdoor pen and dust baths too. The ducks are in courtship mode, so the male Mandarins and East Indies are displaying to the females. For male Mandarins, I have a colorful one like the type seen in the wild, and a pale whitish one that stretch their heads up high and spread their hood-like feathers. All of the time they call out as if making sure the female is watching. The Indies who are a beautiful beetle green-black color, flap one wing on the pond surface repeatedly, or pretend to drink over and over to impress the females. I chose a Swedish duck to play the part of the horses to pull the sleigh. The ducks are harnessed three abreast in “Troika” fashion that is traditional in Russia, and their harness is set with bells. If you’ve ever seen the movie, Dr. Zhivago, you’ll remember the indelible scene where Dr. Zhivago and Lara sleigh to the snow bedecked abandoned estate with it’s onion domes. There is much traditional architecture in the movie, but it is not suitable for children as it has adult subjects. But I was very moved and inspired by it.
My editor has dear friends that have chickens and our conversation often turns to the chicken societies we observe in our flocks. We both thought of a chicken Cinderella when we discussed different strategies for helping out the chickens who were low in the pecking order. Lately, my chickens have been getting along well together. Around Valentine’s Day when the days get longer and the females begin laying, the chickens have more intense relationships. The roosters are fun to watch as they vie for the hen’s attention. Sometimes they’ll jump up into a box of soft pine shavings and twirl around until the nest is made. Then, the rooster who by this time has rounded up an interested companion, will call to her to get her attention. The roosters really do make a lovely purring sound to coax the females onto the nest. Usually the hen will hop right up and lay her egg. When I feed live mealworms in the morning, which is their favorite treat, sometimes the roosters will forgo, instead tossing the mealworm up in the air for the hen to notice. Sometimes they gobble them up themselves, you never know. Roosters are famous for the little dance they do if they are interested in a particular hen. It involves stamping their feet in a circle around the hen, or being next to her dragging one wing on the ground. It’s hard to describe what they do with their head, but they tip it and look out of the corner of their eye. I think that is what is meant when someone says a person “cocks their head” as the expression is short for cockerel, a young rooster. I’m not sure I have been able to put in all my chicken’s body language in my book that makes watching them such a treat. Truthfully, a chicken is hard to paint and to capture its beauty. The colors and shimmer of the feathers is gorgeous. When I do go to poultry shows where there are thousands of chickens exhibited, all sparkling clean and in top condition, it is enchanting to see all the varieties of color and patterns. Lacing, stripes, spots and spangles to say nothing of the iridescence of most plumage and you have a chicken fashion show. I was able to design a double page spread with two foldout pages to show different chicken breeds dancing at Prince Cockerel’s ball in the Ice Palace. Of course it’s a perpetual disappointment to paint the chickens because in real life, movement causes the light to shine in different ways that show a shimmer of changing colors on their feathers.
In the olden days, farms and estates would often have collections of fancy chickens above and beyond their table birds and egg layers. When we went to Russia, I was happily surprised to find the elaborately painted panel in Catherine the Great’s winter palace depict different elegant chickens, including the very unusual breed I keep, called Polish. It has a poof of feathers on top of its head like a snowball. Cinders of course is grey but when she is dressed for the ball and transformed by her fairy godmother the gray looks more like silver, and you can see how elegant she is. The male counterpart of the Silver Phoenix, which Cinders is, has a 4 foot long tail and flowing saddle feathers that sweep the ground. He has a huge red comb that sets off a snowy Collar of feathers on his greeny-black shining chest.
Fairy godmother is a White Silky, a fascinating breed that was described in the 1200’s when Marco Polo traveled to the Far East. The silky has fluffy fur-like feathers, a fluffy topknot, turquoise ear-lobes, and five toes instead of four. Strangely underneath all the feathers the Silky’s skin is dark, almost black, as is its eyes. I could not think of a more ethereal chicken to play the part of the fairy godmother than the Silky.
In CINDERS, inspiration comes not just from my journey to St. Petersburg Russia but also for my own backyard!
I hope you will transform some of your experiences to stories as well – happy imagining!

Your friend,

Jan Brett

Bend Oregon MOSSY

Happy November,
This is Jan Brett with my November Hedge a gram. I’m here to tell you what’s happening in my year of being an author-illustrator. Although I have written and illustrated children’s books since 1981, with the publication of my first book, FRITZ AND THE BEAUTIFUL HORSES, every following book seems like the most important book I’ve ever done. Like any creative project there is a feeling of vulnerability, because an artist’s work is so personal.
My husband and I spent three weeks in October on our tour bus, following down the East Coast of Florida to the South and into Texas, and up the Imperial Valley of California, ending in Washington state. Thank you to everyone who attended my booksignings. I hope many of you had fun drawing Mossy along with me. If you weren’t able to go to a booksigning, you can see the How To Draw demonstration on a video on my website. The demonstration also will appear on a smartphone when you place it over the QR code on the flap of the jacket on MOSSY.
The turtle organizations that joined me at many of my stops added a great deal of excitement to my appearances. I hope reptile lovers were excited to see live turtles and that nature lovers learned, as I did, that turtles have rich and fascinating lives. In Fresno, California I was astounded when the gentleman waiting to have his book signed told me of his one hundred and ten year old Sonoran tortoise. It is indigenous to the Southwest United States and lives in the Sonoran Desert. The turtle belonged to this man’s grandfather and has been passed down from grandfather to father to the man at my book signings, and someday to the man’s son. And, from the excited look in the boy’s eyes, I hope their turtle will live even longer and be cared for in the future by the boy. I don’t think tortoises of this size have natural predators, and the danger would be not having food or water. From what I understood, the tortoise had the run of their large yard.
I saw quite a few turtles that were very beautiful at the signing in El Dorado Hills, California. The local turtle Society brought a huge African tortoise that marched across the parking lot, stopping only to visit with children which it was especially attracted to. The best part of the tour was seeing the wonderful drawing the children bought for me to see. I’m sure they will be well known artists in a few years!
I learned a great deal from booklovers at my signings. I was pleased to hear that ARMADILLO RODEO is often given to children when studying the five senses, that THE UMBRELLA is used when studying Central America, and that THE THREE LITTLE DASSIES is one of the books compared when reading all the versions of the three little pigs folktale.
Now that I’m back in my art studio, I am hard at work on CINDERS which I need to complete by just after Christmas. I took special time with the jacket, a very important element in the book, because it asks the viewer to open the book and read it. I like books that have an element of curiosity or ask a question in the illustration. I picture CINDERS riding her sleigh on the way to the ball. She is wrapped in a down feather cape so her dress isn’t a giveaway. I saved the dress for when she stuns the revelers at the ball with her entrance. After seeing the gorgeously lavish and elegant fancy dresses in the St. Petersburg, Russia museums, it was hard to choose the right one. I finally chose white, because it looks innocent and Prince Cockerel was after all looking for a bride. I did add some pink feathers and rubies for glamour. I love working on the final drawings, it’s my favorite time in the creation process. The best part is when I start with the basic concept and then as I paint it goes in an unexpected direction. Memories of my trip to Russia flood back to me as well as the happy times I’ve sat on a hay bale in my chicken barn in the midst of my flock. After the chickens realize I’m not bringing them a treat or (horrors! trimming their beaks and toenails) they hop all around me, often flying onto my shoulder acknowledging it makes a nice perch. The most curious are the young males, or cockerels who often fly up to my shoulder or onto my head. It is interesting to see who’s the boss, because it changes from time to time in what season it is.
As CINDERS gets completed, my new story for 2014 is evolving and I have a go-ahead for my editor. It is about the wild animal’s Santa, who is a snowy owl.
This is Jan Brett wishing a creative fall as the days get shorter until December and our imaginations, larger!
Jan

Happy October,

Every month I gather my thoughts and try to describe my activities as an author illustrator. When I was a youngster, I knew I wanted to illustrate children’s books, but other than a notion that I would be coloring all day long, I didn’t know what else was involved. Now that writing and illustrating picture books is my profession, I find that there are many ways to be creative and support my books,

Next week a big bus will pull up outside our house, covered with artwork from my new book, MOSSY. Our publisher, Penguin Books, arranges for the bus to take us on a three week bus tour.  It’s indicative of the age we live in, that we can be rolling down the road, focused on the next signing, when we will receive an email from someone driving by who has seen the web address displayed on the bus. It is especially rewarding when the child of the passerby tells his parents that I’m the author he knows about from school.

You can see all the towns we’ll be stopping at all cross the country on my website. The bus travels long distances at night when we are sleeping in the back. We can watch a sunset in the desert in Arizona, and wake up the next morning in a fog bank next to the Pacific Ocean.  One thing is consistent, which is that many parents who have a child that either loves art or writing will visit the signing to encourage their child to create their own work. It is fascinating to see the artwork that kids bring to the signings. It is original as only children?s artwork can be, and it reflects a personal style that is fresh and authentic. I have high hopes that the child will keep on with their habit of creating works of art, precursors of future art projects that may shape our world. I am also in awe of the teachers that come with arm loads of books from their personal libraries. I sign one book for everybody, but I have bookplates for any extra books. If time allows I can sign every last book! It’s also exciting personally to meet teaching students.They will have so much impact on our country’s future. My sister Sophie is a teacher and she specializes in speech pathology, after teaching 6th grade for many years. I can always count on her to think up new ways to use my books with her students. For example, I write a newsnotes letter for children about each book that is published. For Mossy, I painted a box turtle, then all kinds of vegetation so a child can cut out the moss and flowers and create their own garden on Mossy’s back. In case you haven’t read my new book, Mossy the turtle grows a garden on her back. Sophie took my idea a step further. She cut out the pieces, laminated them, and then put a velcro dot on the back of each of the flowers so her students could craft their own gardens for Mossy. Now she’s going to add to the fun and find all kinds of objects Mossy can carry on her back, from toys to food. Then she can work on categorizing skills with the kids.

Since my husband and I travel on the bus, rather than fly around our country to booksignings, we  can set up my signings in a unique way. We are able to bring our own sound system, and a backdrop in case someone wants to take a photo.  We bring a huge amount of posters, which we give to the first 100 people at each signing.Since there are 25 destinations, that adds up to a lot of posters! We give buttons to everyone in line, and we also give out the All About letter I just mentioned. As everyone enters the bookstore, Hedgie the Hedgehog will be there to greet the children. He loves having his picture taken. I will be bringing my art materials so I can give the children a drawing lesson on how to draw a turtle. It will be like the video you can see from the the QR reader on the back flap of Mossy. If you like, bring a pad of paper and pencil for your child, I’d love to have children draw along with me.

In the past, I’ve left my artwork at home while I’m on my book tour, but this year I’ll be bringing artwork for the book I’m currently working on, CINDERS, a chicken Cinderella. I have a few mornings off, so I will work on the paintings. The book is set in olden days Russia, and I am intrigued by the gorgeous ball gowns and fancy uniforms that I will dress the chickens in. I’m at the stage in the book when I’ve got over 1/2 done, and my Russian chicken coop, that I am painting feels like a real world to me. Usually, I’m able to visit my chicken characters, because I have lots of real chickens at home, and I’ll miss them on the bus tour. They are getting quite agreeable about posing for me!

I hope I’ll meet lots of book lovers on the tour. I hope to see you there.

Your friend, Jan Brett

July Hedge a gram

Happy July!

July is an important month for me because of the celebration of our country’s independence.  Because our daughter is in the Marine Corps, as well as her husband, I’ve seen firsthand the sacrifices our military men and women and their families make for our country.  I would like to appreciate them in this correspondence.
July is also the beginning of the Tanglewood season ? the music festival that my husband, Joe is a part of.  In fact, it is his 50th summer playing with the BSO in Tanglewood.  I love the concerts that unfold throughout the summer, with the Boston Symphony playing in an outdoor setting.  Soloists and conductors from all over the world travel to Western Massachusetts and I’m always astounded by their artistry.  Joe and I especially look forward to a concert conducted by the talented St?phane Den?ve, with superstar Yo-Yo Ma as soloist in August.  The concert is named in honor of my mom, Jean Brett, who was a wonderful teacher and a lovely person.
I love letting my mind wander and be directed by the music ? I find lots of creative ideas are sparked by the complexity an extraordinary art of the live concert.
My books are inspired by events and places.  We planned a trip to St. Petersburg in order to gain knowledge about Russian culture, hoping it would add to the setting of my chicken Cinderella story I’m working on right now.  We spent about a week in St. Petersburg with a trip to  the city of Novgorod on an additional day.  We were guided by a most knowledgeable and professional guide, Tatiana Ivanova, who was in addition a lovely travel companion.  We visited Peterhof, Catherine’s Palace and the Hermitage which were awesome in their scope and representation of Russian culture.  But it was the living arts that made the trip a lifelong memory.  We heard a magnificent concert in the Grand Hall of the St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with conductor Yuri Temirkanov and piano soloist Vladimir Feltsman.  The musicians were incredible, and the Hall was intimate and invoked the different era.  We also went to a ballet, Parc, it was one of the most indelible and moving performances we have ever seen, with dancing that was so natural and compelling that we were limp with wonder.  Because, in my book the chickens wear Russian folk costumes, we attended a concert and folk dance recital that was also at the upper limits of performance art, and will be a great resource for the characters in my book.  I can’t even begin to describe the Russian character and culture from our small trip but our experience of the performing arts was explosive, and romantic and proud in a way that I deeply respected and admired.  I have a lot of pent-up excitement about our sampling of the arts in St. Petersburg which will surely come out in my book CINDERS!
Probably the most significant time I spent in St. Petersburg was at the Russian Museum of Ethnography.  There were many traditional clothes on display as well as handicrafts and samples of houses and unique decorations.  There was a bookstore that was like a treasure trove for me, with outstanding books of photos of Russian dress and others about traditional dwellings.  Photography was allowed, and the Russian safe keepers of the collection even allowed us get behind some of the barriers to get certain angles of the artifacts.  There was one huge volume I brought back showcasing the work of a Russian whose life work was documenting the traditional folk dress across the country.  It is truly a labor of love, and I will find it inspiring and authentic for use in my story.  It is by Serguei Glebushkin, and it has an English translation.  I spent almost every night paging through the book, amazed by the extraordinary traditional dresses.
We took a far drive southeast of St. Petersburg to the wooden shingle style old settlement of Novgorod .  It was a thrill to be in these old structures with the gingerbread woodcarvings and onion domes.  On the way we passed the most lush, unspoiled farmland and countryside, at this time unused because of the collective farm model of production.
We also visited a dacha or summer cottage by the Baltic Sea, in an arts colony.  One of the dachas once upon a time belonged to the composer Shostakovich, another to Ivan Pavlov the famous scientist.  Our hostess was from a famous acting dynasty and she entertained us with the traditional dinner including a yummy dish called ?Herring under a fur blanket?, and let us use her banya or Russian sauna.  I loved steaming in the Birch enclosure, but I have yet to master the stoicism of not screaming out loud when the freezing cold water is poured on you!  This will probably be the one Russian experience I will not put in my book!
Now that I’m home, I’m looking long and hard at all my chicken?s expressions for use in my story.  The body language is ever changing and never fails to make me laugh.  I have lots of baby chicks, and there is high drama with their mothers, and in one case, a father who take their jobs very seriously.
Between a trip to Russia and many new additions to my flock, I have lots to be inspired by.  As I settled in to put the pieces together, my thoughts go out to all of you and to all of the creative minds out there that I hope will join me in creating your own unique and wonderful stories.
Bye for now, your friend,

Jan Brett

June Hedge a gram

Happy June!

This is Jan Brett with my June hedge a gram.  Follow along with me every month and I will give you an overview of how my children’s picture books are created.  It doesn’t matter if you are under contract, creating a picture book of your own, or have a similar creative project, especially a story for a school assignment.  Many of the hurdles and problem solving are the same, as well as excitement of putting together the pieces that make up a work of art.
I am retelling the Cinderella story, with a cast of chickens.  The book will be set in the palaces of St. Petersburg Russia.  I have many chickens myself, and I’m fascinated by their luminous plumage and characterfulness.  The personalities within the flock vary according to age, gender, and breed, and it is very easy to imagine them in humanlike interactions.  The romances, petty jealousies and overreaching maternal instincts are just a few of the transparent behaviors the chickens exhibit that bring to mind human counterparts.  The Cinderella story tells of a young girl who was shoved aside and treated meanly by her stepmother and the stepmother’s daughters, but in the end she perseveres and makes a happy life for herself.  In my backyard chicken barn, there is a pecking order too, but as the chicken’s overseer, I try to arrange things so that no chicken gets bullied!
Besides creating overdrawn personalities for my chicken characters, I’ll be dressing them in outlandishly dramatic ball gowns.  The guys will have an elegant on ornate jackets and britches.  I’ll be going to St. Petersburg this month to study the traditional dress and decide where on the scale between colorful folk dress from the provinces and extravagant court dress my chickens be dressed in.
The festive ball were Cinderella meets the Prince will be set in an ice palace – completely concocted of ice and snow, but in the architecture of northwestern Russia.  The onion domes, wooden gingerbread trim, and fanciful woodwork will be studied and turned to ice in my illustrations.
Every ball has music for the dancing, and one of my goals is to go to a balalaika concert in St. Petersburg.  I saw the movie Dr. Zhivago in my late teens and I love the soundtrack as well as the sleighs pulled by three horses and the accompanying bells.  Luckily there are scenes in my Cinderella story where I can paint the balalaika musicians as well as a three horse sleigh.
I’m going to Russia specifically to get ideas for my book, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not excited about going to Russia just for the experience of it.  I wrote my version of the story a while ago, and I finished my book dummy last month.  My dummies are rough draft books that are smaller than the final version, but they have 32 pages sewn together like a real book and are quite elaborate.  After reviewing the dummy with my editor and art director I change the art around.  The best part is that I’ve written the text so I can lengthen it and shorten it to accommodate the scenes that I visualize.  I had an idea to make a foldout page, showing the chicken ball with lots of varieties of chicken breeds dancing to a balalaika orchestra.  It will probably take a month to draw, but it will create the atmosphere I’m hoping for.  This week I’ll start my first page of finished art I can’t wait.  I went to the art store and bought new brushes and I have stacks of brand-new and vintage books about Russian traditional dress and architecture.  I’m ready to go!
I hope you think of a story to illustrate or write that pulls in a new frame of reference for you, it’s exhilarating!

Happy creating, your friend,

Jan Brett

Happy August!

I have just spent most of July with my daughter, her husband and their two children. They are moving to Japan and I wanted to spend some time with them. Okinawa, their destination, is a beautiful island and I know they will have happy times there.  I spent a little bit of each day on my book, but now that I’m back home I can devote every day to CINDERS, my upcoming picture book.
I am still reeling with all the input I received on our trip to Russia in June.  I imagined St. Petersburg would be a atmospheric and fanciful place to set my story.  My instincts were rewarded because the folk tradition in the arts in St. Petersburg is still alive and respected.  We went to a spectacular performance of folk dancing, and a balalaika concert combined that gave me lots of imagery that I can use in my book to give it authenticity.  Although saying this I would like to say I will also use some of my own touches. I’ll be creating an imaginary world where the chickens will be dressing for the Ball.  I wanted my poultry characters to wear colorful and remarkable dresses, and elaborate suits. When I visited the Museum of Ethnography I found impeccably preserved and mounted examples of traditional dress from all over Russia.  I am really fascinated by the hats, which are made of rich fabrics and feature lots of gold and silver trims.  Each headdress makes the wearer look like a princess. The museum also displayed a beautifully painted and carved wooden sleigh which gave me lots of ideas for Cinder’s coach.
The breed of chickens I specialize in raising is the White Crested Polish. The males have a brilliant white long topknot instead of a comb and I will give them a special job as the balalaika musicians in my book. My husband Joe, plays the double bass in the Boston Symphony and I have a wonderful photograph of him with the bass balalaika player. The female Polish have a rounded” poof” on their heads and it perfectly sets off the elaborate head dresses that are traditional in Russia. When we visited Catherine’s palace, I was amazed to see paintings of crested fowl much like the ones I raise. It is a very old European breed.
I couldn’t wait to  get to work on the finished pages and try to replicate the architecture I saw in Russia. There is a style of building in the area around the Baltic that features intricate wood carving. The roofs supports are covered with elaborate carving, sometimes featuring mythological creatures like the Sirin, which is a bird with a woman’s face, fanciful birds similar to peafowl, lions, reindeer and roosters. The actual roofs can be any manner of domes and towers. When we visited the ancient city of Novgorod we wandered among the restored wooden structures built in this style, and it was like being in a fairy tale. The feeling you get from photos does not represent the scale. Everything is on a small scale and feels very friendly.  Of course, it helped that it was a beautiful day with the countryside surrounding us bursting with late springtime lushness. The latitude is very far north so it didn’t get dark until midnight, and the sky would get light again around 2:30 am.  I had to remind myself that in winter, when my book CINDERS takes place, it would be just the opposite with only a few hours of sunshine at midday. I’m glad we had traveled to Northern Norway in late December a few years ago to get ideas for WHO?S THAT KNOCKING ON CHRISTMAS EVE.
Often when I speak to school children, I mention that the process of working with an editor is like doing an assignment for a respected teacher in school. Even though I want to stay true to my vision of the story, I want  to remain open to suggestions and even criticisms that my editor makes, if the result will be a better story.  My editor is very keen on making the sizes of Cinders, the overbearing stepmother and the bossy step-sisters very identifiable, and I’ve been struggling to do so.
Cinderella is not one of the fairy stories that particularly appealed to me as a child, but I did love the part where the mice were turned into coachman and the pumpkin into a coach. Now that I’ve had a chance to retell it I’ve found the process creative and satisfying. I was the oldest of three girls and it was hard to relate to stories where the oldest sister was hard and mean and the youngest was beautiful and kind. I found ways to make the mother overbearing rather than cruel and the older sisters silly instead of mean. In our family we did have a beautiful little sister that every one loved so it was easy to write the Cinders character! I have a very beautiful breed of chicken that I used for Cinders called the Phoenix. It’s an American breed but it’s origins are from Japan. The female is ashy grey with a reddish breast, and they have a dainty comb and large luminous eyes, and a proud carriage. The hen I’m using for a model is called Eddie, along with her Phoenix Aunts, Gudrun and Freya. The male Phoenix is known for his extremely long tail which can grow 3 feet long or even longer if the genetics are right.  He has a large red comb and stately carriage, you could even say regal!  He is always a specific color, the “silver” variety is the one that I breed and it is different than the female with a pure white ruff or hackle and a glossy green  chest and tail. I can’t wait to paint him as the royal prince but am I’m afraid I won’t do him justice as it is difficult to show the iridescence in the feathers.
If you are working on a creative project I hope by describing my thought processes, it will help you sort out your decisions. Happy reading, writing and drawing,

Your Friend ,

Jan Brett

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