This is a tiny corner of a picture book project I have been working on with the experienced eye of a children's book editor.
Like certain pieces of music can evoke memories, the textures I created by hand for this illustration will always remind me of my current home and 2015. Our old, scarred chopping block made the tree hollow. A clay disc by potter Johnathon Garret I bought 17 years ago and which survived tribes of kids playing in the garden created the bears fur. The weathered 80 year old shed doors (keeping the shed up!) and a rushmatting door mat created the trees. Everything I have used to create texture using wax crayons, graphite and inks has a story and a practical use.
I travel back in time to Cambridge 1990 whenever I hear the evocative Koln concert by Keith Jarrett and the beginning of a romance. And I will look at this illustration in years to come and remember how much I disliked chopping the logs!
