Jan Brett’s Blog

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