A Happy January Newsletter

Contents: pictures! And words.

Friendly greetings!

Right off the bat,¹ I’ve published to my blog the first instalment of my Interview with an Artist series. I sent a bunch of wild questions to

Aiko

of Papercut Prayers, and she patiently replied with full, rich answers, and introduced us to her beautiful art.

A Gallery of Portraits:

Now that Christmas is over, I’m sharing the commissioned portraits² that I’ve been keeping under wraps the last few months.

Scribble Club members probably remember one of them from that behind-the-scenes glimpse you got last month.

(I have a funny feeling there was another one, which I’ve forgotten. If it was yours, please don’t be offended by my forgetfulness - I often forget my most favourite things.)
Thank you to all those who told me how thrilled the recipients of these portraits were. It makes me feel all gooood inside to know that my drawings are making people smile.

A mini-rant about human connection

One thing I love about being invited to create real, physical portraits for real, non-AI generated people, is that it encourages human connection. Chatting to my clients, getting to know my subjects (even the dogs and cats), staring at their faces and drawing them repeatedly, and then sending the physical finished art to them - it is all so very human and connective.
That’s probably what makes people feel a little uncomfortable when I draw portraits live: a relative stranger is staring intently at them and there’s no escape and no screen to add a degree of separation. *smiles mischievously to herself*

Andy Williams

recently wrote that one response to all the AI-generated stuff taking over the internet, is that (hopefully) more people will seek human connection face-to-face, rather than online.³ I’ve been getting grossed out by AI generated pictures a lot lately - Pinterest and Google Images are full of them, and one of the books my daughters received for Christmas is illustrated with AI. The creepiness seems so obvious to me, but I wonder if people who are not immersed in art, photography or illustration can see it.⁴

Do let me know your thoughts: do you know AI images when you see them?
Do you find them creepy?

I think that one small way to counteract all this virtual reality is by making a real connection through a real bit of paper. It was a special feeling when I received some handwritten post from

Lisa Burda

recently,⁵ including some scraps of pretty collage paper. And I told you about the stickers I got from

Teresa Barroso

a few months ago, didn’t I?

There’s something delicious about getting a real thing from someone you only know digitally.
Maybe I should start handwriting these newsletters…

Anyway, I don’t really have much of a point here except that real connection and physical creations are things I am relishing, because the ratio of digital to analogue interaction is leaning very far to one side.

I’m going to be posting some of these bookmarks to my Scribble Club buddies over the next few months. If you’re a paid-up Scribble Club member, do let me know your postal address so that I can send you something nice.

Next Drawing Play-Date: 20th of January

We’ll be drawing: faces!
(I included the exclamation mark to make it sound as exciting as it really will be.)
First I will give a short demo on how I developed my style of drawing faces, then we will make all sorts of funny shapes and marks and when we put them all together we will have created a group of people! (I’m sure it will make sense on the day.)
The call is free for anyone and suitable for all abilities. For more information, including the date and time in your time zone, follow this link:

Happy Birthday!

In case you don’t know, January is the month of my birth. So here’s a little my-birthday present to you: If you don’t already get this lovely, live-blog-like peek into a day-in-the-life of a bookseller every Friday, then you are in for a treat! (If you already do then you know what I’m talking about.)

How's The Scribble Club?

If you don't know what The Scribble Club is, here's a handy explanation. And here’s what’s been happening in the Club since it started in November:

• I’ve posted some posts like: Adventures Behind-The-Scenes while Working on a Portrait, A Diary of a Monday (hint: it was not fascinating stuff); a Video of Me Talking about a Picture-Book. It’s been an exciting time, I’m sure all the Scribblers agree.

• I’m moving The Scribble Club over to Substack from Ko-fi. Posting even the exact same thing on both is too much for me to remember. But it also means it should be easier for Scribble Club members to connect, now that they’re not on separate platforms.

• Next up will be a Drawing Call with

  Citlaflor
  on the 21st where we’ll create a whole child character from scratch, I’ll be posting an insight into Finances as an Illustrator, and a few more Videos - some about Picture-Books, some about my Process and Materials…

…and now I’ll stop abusing and overusing the capital letters.

The girls and I have been reading a book about the history of English. I now know why there’s so much Latin and French in the language. So this time, our word is a pretty French one:
Pique: to pride oneself on something; to excite to anger; to wound the pride of someone; to stimulate interest or curiosity. (So many meanings for one little word!)
Let’s use it: She piqued herself on being the fastest of her kind, but a badly timed insult caused Geraldine the homing-mouse to have a fit of pique. She immediately spurned her orders and took herself to the nearest café, where her hunger was piqued by the aroma of freshly baked baguettes.

Hitting send now because Our Cat is demanding a lap. I hope you have a joyful January filled with human connections and hot baguettes.

New year, new logo.

1. This is an English idiom that means “immediately; with no preamble.” It comes from the fact that, in England, bats are always the first nocturnal animals to appear after sunset.*

* This is not the true origin of this phrase. I made that up.

2. I'm fully booked for commissions this month, but will happily take bookings for February and onward. Reply to this email or fill in this form on my website.

3. In this post.

4. If you don’t know much about it or don’t know it when you see it, here’s an article that’s relevant to children’s illustration.

5. Yours is in the post, Lisa!