Tudor Houses

Illustration for "Can it be true?"
written by Susan Hill for Long Barn Books.

I thought you might be interested to see some of the thought processes and inspiration behind my recent illustration project for "Can it be true?” for Long Barn Books.

It was decided from the beginning that this book would have either black and white illustrations or restricted colour, we wanted to give a more simplified “printmaker” feel to this new edition in contrast to the very detailed water colours used previously.

When I had to think of an image to use to illustrate the towns page I immediately thought of Tudor style houses. This very decorative style of building lends itself to black pen and ink drawing and so was a natural choice. There are very many wonderful examples around our home and county town of Chester. Some date from as far back as Henry VII.

The illustration started as a black and white pen drawing, which I scanned into the computer. I then added colour and a lino print texture on Photoshop. The original idea was to have gold on some of the pages but to do this would have added considerably to the costs. We decided to add a gold effect instead, this was also done on Photoshop by scanning a piece of gold leaf and then “pasting” the effect in the windows and onto the stars. (see top)

The illustration suggested a repeat pattern so when the book was finished I turned the page into a textile design. To see how this would look on fabric I decided to try out the Spoonflower site. This is a place where you can upload your own designs and have them printed for your own use or for sale in an online shop.

The problem for me was choosing the right fabric, in the end I opted for Kona cotton, thinking it might be nice to quilt. The obligatory sample arrived in due course and when I saw it my mind turned back to books again. I thought it might be good to try out the fabric as a book cloth;- here is my very old and tatty address book sporting its new cover. It seemed an appropriate choice.

If you feel so inclined you can try out the fabric yourself, you will find it here-

You can find "Can it be True?" here-

Mountains and Valleys.

We are halfway through June already and my poor blog has been sadly neglected. We have been out and about and, between jaunts, there has been a great deal of work and catching up to do, so only now do I have time to reflect on recent activities.

We had a wonderful week of sunshine, which coincided with a trip to the Lake District and an artist book workshop run by Emily Martin of the "Naughty Dog Press". The book arts weekend concentrated on paper engineering, making pop-up structures by various methods including cutting into valley folds and mountain folds. I can’t think of a better venue to learn about mountains and valleys!

There was so much to see, lovely walks through forests and lakeside gardens and wonderful houses to visit."Blackwell House" was first on the list; this Arts and Crafts house had an exhibition of Arts & Crafts Stamped Cloth Book Cover Designs which included several book designs by my hero Walter Crane. The house is set on the hillside overlooking Lake Windermere and is a treasure house of Arts and Crafts style furniture, stained glass, books, and textiles, everything in keeping with the architectural style of the house which was designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott

Later in the week we visited Ruskin’s House “Brantwood” which perches on the hillside overlooking Coniston and has the most beautiful garden, which winds down to the shore. I remember visiting when I was in the sixth form studying geography and geology. Ruskin was fascinated by the natural world and collected and drew inspiration from fossils, shells and plant forms. There is something extraordinarily intense about his drawings which spoke to me all those years ago. Later I was to learn about his influence on Art theory, architecture and design, and how he inspired the Pre Raphaelites and designers such as William Morris and Walter Crane who in turn influenced The Arts and Crafts Movement. Looking at the position of his house and garden it is easy to see why he was so influenced by nature and beauty.

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."

John Ruskin

Of course we had to visit Hilltop farm, home of Beatrix Potter. We even caught a glimpse of Peter rabbit, happily nibbling grass in the orchard. We also visited London but I shall keep that for later. I hope you managed to catch a bit of sunshine too; for the most part we have had the dreariest wet weather.