Jan Brett’s Blog

Happy September,

This is Jan Brett telling you about what’s happening in my life as an author-illustrator of children’s books.
I am halfway through my 2014 picture book,WHO IS THE ANIMAL’S SANTA? I love working on the finishes, and embellishing my original ideas and adjusting the text to enhance the story. It’s probably my favorite part of the process. The art takes a long time, and there are many steps backward when I decide to change the character or adjust the color of the skies for example. There’s a great deal of pressure from the publisher to get my book finished in a timely manner, but I don’t want to rush and miss an opportunity to make the book better with a different image idea.
My book is set in northern Canada, and the animals show the winter coats for which they are known – the Arctic Fox, Lynx, and Snowshoe Rabbit especially. In my book the animals exist in a tribe culture and their natural predator-prey relationship is suspended – it being Christmas! I wanted a neutral element to construct my borders like the Birch bark in THE MITTEN and HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and I chose quillwork, a native American, or first people’s art that uses porcupine quill’s to create designs on clothing and ornaments. I have collected quillwork boxes over the years, because of their beauty, and have designs of feathers, a great blue heron, chickadees, of beaver, a star and the four directions. When I researched these designs, I was struck by how the art of the first peoples is often story driven and how the image contains a strength focused from the artist’s mind. I’ve always loved stories and storytelling and it’s not only my job, but is the way I stay connected with my humanness. I love to think that generations before me created images that gave them beauty and significance and how they have lasted for hundreds and even thousands of years. I’m about to visit my granddaughter in Japan where she lives, and I’m already thinking of stories to have on the ready when she asks. Some of them are from my childhood and I love to think she is included in the family’s history by knowing them. Like the time Madame our cat stowed away on our sailboat, the time we were not allowed to swim off the boat in the ocean and then two huge fins swam by. The time I ran away, because I didn’t want a splinter taken out and got into big trouble. The time Richard our golden retriever brought home a wallet and money blew all over our backyard. Now that my granddaughter’s four, I’m hoping she’ll have some stories for me. When my daughter was growing up we had a read aloud time every night, even until she was in junior high school. I remember WATERSHIP DOWN, GONE WITH THE WIND, and M.A.S.H. as being great favorites. Communication between us was meager during that time, and books were great life-raft for informal chats.
My sisters are a little dubious about my stories, and I admit a good story takes precedence over the facts. I would even go so far as to say sometimes a story takes on a life of its own, and the teller goes along for the ride. Our minds are complex and rich and we never fully aware of what they’re capable of sending out.
Happy creating,

Your friend, Jan Brett

THE ANIMAL’S SANTA  Owl Sketch

Happy August,
This is Jan Brett, and this is my August hedge a gram – the time I take on the first day of each month to keep in touch with friends about my children’s books.
There are many aspects of my profession that I’m enthusiastic about doing, but none so much as painting away on the final pieces.  The book starts as an idea that I discuss first with my husband Joe and then with my long time editor, Margaret.  Come to think of it, my husband is long time too!  Joe is a musician by background, and is familiar with the creative arts.  He gives me a practical opinion and is very familiar with all my other books.  Margaret is a towering talent, who really understands how a book unfolds.
Sometimes a book sketch will change and morph into quite a different story than my original idea.  Last summer at about this time, on a hot night, the idea of an animal’s Santa sprang into my head with no warning.  It was a big surprise.  My idea was to describe in a poetic way how a Snowy Owl Santa would bring presents to the animals in the wild woods.  The owl has long been associated with mystery, knowledge and human-like roles in stories.  Its large eyes placed on the front of its head and its beautiful plumage have made it a marvelous creature to draw.  The snowy owl nests in Arctic regions, and then some travel quite far South in winter.  We have a population that frequent Logan Airport in Boston, as well as the beaches of Cape Cod.  They’ve always fascinated me.  The snowy owl seem to be just waiting to become a Santa character.  I knew owl’s feathers have a soft leading edge that enables them to fly without sound and that furthered my inclination to make him the animal’s Santa.  I e-mailed late at night my longish poem to Margaret the same night it came to me.  The next morning she wrote back that she loved the idea and she has questions.  That is Margaret’s nice way of saying that she thinks the story could be developed more.  In all honesty, I felt my story was ready to go so I had to settle my thoughts and think about it.  For several weeks I would turn over the story in my mind choosing certain characters to have expanded roles.  I needed to create more in the story line department and give the book some emotion and tension.  I’ve always been excited about how the common element H2O, water, has transformative powers.  It can be a gas, a liquid, or a solid.  I remember a story I read about a boy escaping pursuers across a huge frozen lake because he was the only one with skates.  The Inuit built tall towers out of rock by using snow to lift them to higher levels as they placed rock upon rock as the snow got deeper.  I decided to make use of the fact that ice can produce a tone when hit to make a chime.  That would be how the animals would discover who the animal’s Santa could be.  They set a trap for him, with warning bells made of ice, so they could see for themselves who was leaving presents.
As a child I remembered being in the upstairs bedroom I shared with my sister straining to hear the sound of reindeer hooves on the roof or maybe reindeer bells.  All those years ago people didn’t have snow tires, so to create traction on the snowy streets they put special chains on their tires.  The chains made a pleasant jingly sound, especially late at night when the lone car drove past.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only child who heard the jingle and thought “reindeer”!!
As I worked on my manuscript I really felt like I was just going through the motions until finally the story became something else.  I don’t like to admit it took another person to push me, but that’s what happened on this book.  I am grateful to work with an editor who I can trust.  Now, that the hardest part is done, I can enjoy painting the illustrations.
If you’re working on a creative project you know it is hard to juggle your ideas and be open to constructive criticism too.  The important thing is the goal of a good book, and to me that’s the important goal.

Happy reading and happy creating,

Your friend, Jan 

CINDERS, a chicken Cinderella

Happy July,

This is Jan Brett, and this is my July Hedge a gram – my monthly update on my work as an author illustrator. I often reflect on how lucky I am to wake up in the morning and look forward to work on my illustrations and book ideas. At the same time, I’m keenly aware that others enabled me to live and be productive the United States. July is marked with our country’s July 4th celebration, and for me it is time to thank all of the men and women, and their families, in the United States military. I know personally many members of the military and I’m particularly grateful for their dedication.
I am hard at work on THE ANIMAL’S SANTA. Every book evolves differently, and this book started as an ethereal description of who the animal’s Santa could be. It was poetic and simple. My editor suggested that I focus on the story behind my idea, that I form characters and put a little tension in the words by creating more of a story line. At the time it seemed a momentous task but to my surprise the story line just appeared. Sometimes a book will appear in my mind almost fully formed, or in the case of the retelling, like this year’s book CINDERS, the creativity was in taking a historical tale and putting in new characters and setting. When I come up with an idea myself I’m exploring, and I have to be ready with an open mind to get my story just right. In most of my books a great source of inspiration comes from travel. I usually decide on the setting, and then travel with my book dummy in hand, collecting costumes, architecture, flora and fauna, in a part of the world that fascinates me. I visited a school several years ago in Newfoundland, and I was very taken by the people and culture. For THE THREE SNOW BEARS a book published in 2007, I was in Canada in Baffin Island. Once I had sketched out the ANIMAL’S SANTA, I wanted to set it in the boreal forest of Canada a belt of wooded wilderness, very thinly populated by people that felt unspoiled. It seemed like a place my story could unfold, and I relied on my experiences in Canada for inspiration.
When I illustrate my books, I decorate the borders with folk art, or natural elements of the setting. I love birch bark with its pale color whorls of moss, and dark markings, but I used birch bark in THE MITTEN and HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. One thing you never want to ask an artist to do is copy oneself! Strangely, the fascination of painting something new and intriguing has an exhilarating effect I think it adds a magical ingredient for the illustrator. When I go to Canada, I try and seek out native American’s arts. It started with a small box made of native porcupine quill. I find the embroidery fashioned from the flatened quill beautiful. The colors are nuanced and the texture wonderful to touch. Only a very few Native Americans are doing this work today. They’re carrying on a tradition that goes back hundreds of years. The borders on my book are my version of this kind of embroidery. Rather than copy native American designs, I am following the craft but trying to search my own thoughts for the designs. In my reading about American Indian embroidery, the artist often say they dream about designs, so I am going to try it. The animals in the boreal forest are coincidentally animals I love to draw – Showshoe Hares, Arctic Fox, Lynx, Moose, and Wolf. Whenever I think of Christmas I set the scene at the North Pole. Although few animals live at the North Pole, I populated the mythical north pole with the animals of the boreal forest. When we went to Baffin Island, I was stunned to learn that nearest tall trees were 1,000 miles away. In my book, THE ANIMAL’S SANTA is a Snowy Owl, a bird that lives above the Arctic Circle. The elves are lemmings, and my cast of animal characters live further south, but still in the Canadian wilderness. These animals in the framework of my story are so isolated, they are untouched by notions of a commercial Christmas.
As I work through my story I am making one decision after another that will reveal the story to me. It sounds strange, but part of the fun of telling the story is when it turns the tables and takes charge, dictating the elements that tell the tale.
It is summer, and I hope that you can set some time aside to create your own story or pictures. It is something we humans have, the storytelling ability that tells us something about ourselves. In a way we can merge with beauty around us, and give freedom to the creativity that bursts out of us all in unexpected ways.
Happy creating,

Your friend, Jan

THE ANIMAL’S SANTA sketch page 28 and 29

Happy June,

This is Jan Brett and this is my June Hedge a gram. I stop everything once a month to tell about what is happening in my professional life as an author/illustrator. The BEA or Book Expo America is a big convention in New York City. The nation’s publishers present next year’s offerings to bookstores, libraries and book lovers. I was there thanks to my publisher Penguin and I saw bound copies of my fall 2013 book CINDERS, a chicken Cinderella for the first time. It looked classic but very ornamented, with special treatments on the jacket to make it stand out. My name is in a lovely copper foil, the display type for the title is in a raised, lightly textured pale sparkle ombre, the image of Cinders in her pumpkin sleigh pulled by Swedish Blue ducks is highlighted by a varnish which gives the image both depth, and lastly a jewel-like patina is added to Cinder’s ornaments. She’s in a fancy ball gown. The options for the jacket printing are ordered in advance and added during the printing. That means the full effect is only guess at. When I see the finished book it is very dramatic. I signed advance copies of the book which are given out for free at the Expo, and book lovers line up to receive an autographed copy. I’m even beginning to recognize some of the loyal BEA goers that stand in line every year.
At the publisher we spoke about our fall book tour which will last three weeks. Since the chickens are the main characters in this book, we had a great time imagining how fun it would be to have chicken owners across the country bring their feathered friends to the booksignings. However, the book store owners did not share our enthusiasm. My chickens are very docile and personable, but our bus is a very small space to share with chickens, and I would worry they would miss their coop where they have plenty of room to run around and perch at night.
My editor and I had a constructive meeting at the Standard Hotel before a party put on by our publisher, Penguin for authors, illustrators and booksellers. I have been working on my 2014 book, THE ANIMAL’S SANTA. I’ve completed the dummy, but a picture book is 32 pages and although I usually write for that amount of pages, this time I have one scene too many. We discussed which scene would be left out, and we will probably have to go back and rewrite part of the manuscript. I have a completed dummy, which is a smaller size book I sew together out of typing paper so I can visualize how the art will look in sequence, the way one would see a finished book. Not only does that problem have to be solved, but I was not happy about the border design. I have the “window” in the shape of an owl which gives a hint from page one about who the animal’s Santa is. In the past, the windows have been in the shapes of eggs, hearts, gingerbread cookies, mittens, and in the case of ON NOAH’S ARK in the shape of various animals. I like the owl windows, but I chose porcupine needlework as the background or to use the computer term, wallpaper. Because it is a native American handicraft that I love and collect I thought it would be perfect, but once painted in it looked drab, not beautiful and nuanced as it is in reality. I love the birch bark I used in THE MITTEN and HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, but I wanted to try something new. I’ll spend the next few days trying different solutions perhaps using knitted patterns that have a wonderful texture and are colorful and have a cozy feeling. I might also add some evergreens in the border, since the fragrance of balsam is so much a part of Christmas.
Once the book is finished and I see the beautiful bound copy, I sweep away all the challenges and disappointments I feel when creating the book, and revel in the world of creatures and folk crafts that form my new offering. Some books stall out during the writing, some take a long time for the characters to feel real, and this one may take extra time to iron out a perfect balance of narrative, in the big images and decorative flourishes in the borders. Although it is a Christmas book, I don’t want it to look like a Christmas card. It is children’s literature first and foremost.
Good luck with your creative projects, and join me in doing all that good problem-solving work that will hopefully produce a dynamic an artistic result.

Your friend, Jan