Category Archives: Inspirations

The Year Ahead

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Two weeks in and 2013 is looking pretty eclectic. Just the way I like it.

There hasn’t been any time for hibernating. I’ve just finished inking the interior illustrations for The Shadow Lantern and, any day now, the typeset script will come back to me for proofreading. By the end of this month, the book will be ready for reproduction and I will begin looking forward to the first of May, its publication date.

I’m also juggling a couple of other projects right now: a downright fun illustration commission that I hope to reveal later this spring and my two new websites. Yes, two. One will be about the writing side of things and the other will be about my art and illustration. Stay tuned for the launch date!

Throughout this year I’ll be presenting at various book festivals as well as leading some exciting writing and illustration workshops for young people and for adults. As each event is announced I’ll post information here and on my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

This looks to be a year of rich variety, change and experimentation. One of my favourite bands, I Am Kloot, is bringing out a new album soon and their song, These Days Are Mine, sums up the surge of optimism I’m feeling right now. Consider it my January anthem. (And you can have a free listen to the whole album here.)

Special Places: Pasila Library, Helsinki

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Pasila Library's water feature

I was given a lovely tour of Pasila Library last week (which has this stunning water feature). It’s Helsinki’s main library with almost 200,000 items, including materials in over 100 languages which can be sent all over Finland to other communities. Pasila Library does a particularly good job of supporting immigrants who are learning Finnish and about local culture.

I was very impressed with the whole library, but especially the children’s section, which had an excellent selection of books in English and many other languages. Many older Finnish children read in English, which I find pretty astounding, and there is plenty for them to enjoy here. The children’s area is decorated with quite a few animal sculptures and one very pretty water spirit. There is also an activity room where children come to paint and even to knit while they are read to by the librarian.

The library takes an active role in inviting young children to become library users, creating brochures, invitations and games that encourage them to visit. They even produced a high-end sticker game showing cartoon characters using the library.

The tiger is one of many sculptures in the children's department.

Many thanks to the enthusiastic librarians for showing me around and giving me some of their very interesting materials to take back to Scotland. And you can see a few more pictures of the library’s sculptures here.

Special Places: The Estonian Children’s Literature Centre

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Mural at Estonian Children's Literature Centre by Jüri Mildeberg

I recently traveled across the Baltic Sea to Tallinn in Estonia and found not only a beautiful, atmospheric medieval city to explore, but a fantastic children’s book centre and library in the Old Town. The Estonian Children’s Literature Centre was established in 1933 and its archive library collects children’s books and periodicals in Estonian and published in Estonia, world classics in children’s literature and awarded books in their original languages, reference materials on children’s literature and illustrations from children’s books. It maintains an information centre and performs research on Estonian children’s literature, as well as organising conferences, workshops and lectures. It also runs major projects such as the Young Reader’s Choice Awards, exhibitions and creative competitions. To get a sense of what Estonian children’s books are like, click here.

I was impressed from the start by the Centre’s permanent exhibition by one of Estonia’s foremost children’s authors and illustrators, the late Edgar Valter. He was a self-taught artist who is well-loved by Estonians. Not only were there examples of his illustrative work but also his paintings, which I thought were gentle and luminous. There was also a showcase of current award-winning Estonian books, which had a distinctive look.

The Centre’s library is comprehensive and very welcoming. The librarians showed me various Scottish books in the collection, just some of the many foreign editions they collect. We climbed upstairs and took in a wonderful exhibition of Russian illustrators’ work in the stairwell. This show, The Water of Life, features many artists’ interpretations of Grimms’ fairytales, and while I didn’t like every piece, I found most of them lovely and beautifully rendered. On the next floor there is also a comprehensive exhibition on the history of Estonian children’s books, including beautifully decorated stools to use in the space.

The back of each seat is unique

The real magic of the Centre began, for me, in the lecture space. Each chair was decorated with a unique chair cover made by an illustrator. There were also gorgeous shutters covered with murals by Jüri Mildeberg. This grand space was made even more special by these original designs.

But perhaps my favourite area was the top floor, with its relaxed reading and activity area for children. The walls are covered with stunning murals by Piret Mildeberg and giant wooden puppets. To see photos of these, click here. There were showcases full of puppets and dolls, many from Russia. I wish I could have documented every painting on the walls, because each was amazing. I felt very inspired by the Centre and would love to spend more time there and in Tallinn!

Shutter mural by Jüri Mildeberg

Sunday on Suomenlinna

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The view from Suomenlinna

The fog lifted and the sun came out this morning. For the first time, I saw Helsinki under crystal blue skies and realised how close it is to Suomenlinna. Helsinki is a low-rise city. The Russian Orthodox church pictured next to the two Viking Line ships is one of the tallest buildings on the skyline. I watched the trucks loading onto the ferries bound for Stockholm and could actually hear the clanks and bumps from across the water.

The quay at Suomenlinna

Suomenlinna is one of the quietest places I’ve been in some time. There are only a few cars, which one hardly sees, and the loudest noise I’ve heard is the toot of the ferry horn as it passes nearby. But over the last two hundred years, as a Swedish and then Russian military fortress covered in cannons and fortifications, it can’t always have been so quiet. I climbed around the shoreline, enjoying the warmth and listening to the crunch of the sea ice breaking up. I was intrigued by dark tunnel entrances and windows in stone walls, but left that exploration for another day when the snow and ice recedes a bit more.

Fortifications and cannons

Even Suomenlinna Church, built as a Russian Orthodox garrison church when Finland was controlled by Russia, has old cannons forming an eccentric fence around it. The church doubles as a lighthouse for sea and air traffic.

Suomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s such a great privilege to be here, attuning myself to the island’s rhythms and watching it shed its white winter coat day by day.

Suomenlinna Church

Helsinki: Exhibitions and Events

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Sometimes you arrive in a new place, knowing absolutely nothing about it, and you are guided, as if by magic, to where you want to be. One of the first things I hoped to see was a bookstore. But a chance visit to the tourist info office meant that I found a brochure about a children’s book cafe that’s been set up in cooperation with World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. What caught my eye was the jubilee exhibition of Little Golden Books published in Finland by Tammi Publishing. Little Golden Books have been published here since 1952 and there are 188 titles in the series.

The Tammi Golden Books jubilee exhibition at the Children's Book Cafe at Annantalo.

The cafe is light and airy, with a giant walk-in book and nicely presented spreads on the walls, plus a carpeted reading area with soft furnishings. I had a funny feeling of deja vu while I was looking at the illustrations. I grew up with Little Golden Books and there are plenty of Finnish editions with internationally-known characters I recognise. The artwork has a gentle “retro” feel and yet there is something timeless about it.

A peek inside the giant book in the display.

Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone available to speak to about the exhibition, which I would have liked to do. I wondered what some of the commentaries next to the spreads said, but in the end the illustrations were eloquent enough!

Some of the artwork from the books.

My next stop was the famous Academic Bookstore, which has a fantastic collection of books in several languages. If I were living in Helsinki, there would be no shortage of English-language books to choose from in this flagship store designed by Alvar Aalto. I was attracted to three small towers made out of the covers of old books. One had electric lights inside and another had paintings on one side. When I asked whether I could photograph the installation, I was told I should come back in an hour when the person who’d made the towers would be there himself.

An hour later the bookstore was packed. Because I don’t understand Finnish, I was not sure what the event was. A quartet of men in tuxedos was singing on a small stage next to the installation. Then a guitarist accompanied a jolly man with a flute who sang a ditty in English. The next thing I knew that flutist was seated onstage being interviewed about his children’s books. I had admired one of the books earlier because of its striking illustrations – and here was the author. He turned out to be Esko-Pekka Tiitinen and the book is The Drops of Life, which will be published in the USA on April 1.

Did I get the photo of the three towers? No. There was too much going on, too many people. But I didn’t mind. I’d been in Helsinki for less than 24 hours and I’d already seen an interesting exhibition and attended a lively book event in a “happening” bookstore.

Children's author Esko-Pekka Tiitinen with his installation at the Academic Bookshop, Helsinki

UPDATE! Serendipity intervened over the past week and Esko-Pekka contacted me out of the blue. It turns out he’d been invited, as one of a group of Finnish authors who appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival last August, to meet me while I am here, but wouldn’t be able to make it. Instead he invited me to come and photograph his installation at the Academic Bookshop and here he is in front of my favourite painted tower. The bookshop asked him to create the installation, which is made from old water-damaged books, as part of their 150 year anniversary. That’s what all the musical entertainment was for last time I was there.

We had a good chat over a coffee and cake, comparing notes about what we do. Esko-Pekka’s been writing for many years and has had the good fortune to collaborate with both his sister, Tuula, and his 23 year old son, Nikolai, who both make beautiful illustrations. I was struck by one of his comments about Finnish children’s books. He had observed that they were darker than books from the UK and Japan, for example, and were more like books from Poland or the Czech Republic. This was perhaps because eastern European countries had lived in the shadow of the USSR and the stories and art reflected this.

Esko-Pekka gave me four lovely books to take back to the Scottish Book Trust and, of course, we got the mandatory snapshot in!

Esko-Pekka and me

The other nice news is that I’ll be getting a little guided tour of the Children’s Book Cafe next week. I’m sure this will give me a great insight into how the cafe came about and where it is headed.

A Visit to Doon Hill

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In which I encounter fairies.

Clooties tied to trees on Doon Hill

It started as a typical forest walk in the Stirlingshire countryside. We passed the Old Kirk cemetery (of that, dear reader, you shall hear more close to Hallowe’en.) and set off past a few houses towards a path leading up the wooded mound that is Doon Hill. I have always wanted to visit because of its strange legend. A seventeenth-century clergyman, the Reverend Robert Kirk, is said to have either died or disappeared there after conducting lengthy research into the fairies that he believed lived on the hill. His spirit is said to reside in the ancient pine in the background of my photo (left).

As we climbed, we noticed the dirt path glittered with silver and purple metallic fairy silhouettes that previous visitors has strewn. This was just the start. After the short climb we arrived in the clearing at the summit and found all the trees and many bushes festooned with clooties, strips of cloth covered with handwritten wishes.

A clootie branch

Clootie wells and clootie trees are a fascinating part of Scotland and Ireland’s Celtic heritage. I couldn’t help but be touched by the variety of cloths tied to the trees and tiny talismans tucked into the moss.

Pilgrims had left letters in sealed plastic bags, half-burned candles, scraps of paper wedged between branches. The place was alive with visitors’ hopes and intentions. And even the mass-produced fairy figurines placed there seemed to have developed individual personalities.

One or two of them looked almost sinister in their hideaways of dead leaves. Under the green canopy of trees, the air was still and we felt far, far away from the town, which was only a fifteen minute walk away. We decided to head downhill along the same path we had climbed. But it became clear we were on a different path when we got to the bottom and found a grassy crossroads.

We agreed that we should turn right and set off. We came to a bend in the river which was so quiet and dark, I thought it was a pond. There were no footprints in our path, only hoof prints, and the reeds grew taller and taller. We could no longer see the town or hear traffic. Suddenly we turned around and saw that we had left Doon Hill behind. It loomed on the horizon as dusk began to fall. I wouldn’t say I panicked, but I felt distinctly odd. There was that slight ‘Blair Witch’ sense of having consulted the map, known where to go and still ended up someplace one shouldn’t. The idea that a fairy horse would come swooping down and take us away to meet Queen Mab would not have been out of place.

We quickly turned back. The hill took shape on our left and it felt like we were being watched by a thousand eyes. When we got to the crossroads, it was obvious that we were just a few paces away from the main path back to town. Somewhere behind us, the owners of those thousand eyes were laughing at us.

The Lost Thing

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Those of you who have read my blog from the beginning might remember this post about extraordinary author and artist, Shaun Tan. He is one of my creative heroes – and I am honored to be published by the same UK publisher, Templar Publishing.

There was brilliant news for Shaun this week when his short animated film, The Lost Thing, was nominated for an Academy Award. This film, based on the picture book of the same name, apparently took nine years to complete!

The website is beautiful and contains a movie trailer. To see it, click here – then enjoy Shaun’s stunning artwork and original ideas.

My New Studio Mascot

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Everyone needs one of these! This little guy was given to me by the excellent Karen MacDonald, creator of Nameless Wonders. I gave Karen a load of fabric scraps, notions and other oddments I had been hoarding in my studio. After years of good intentions, I kind of realised I would probably never make anything with those cool pieces of crushed velvet and gold braid, so I gave them to a person who would.

Lo and behold, I got this little critter from Karen. I know she must have told me what species he is, but I can’t remember. He/she/it has a bit of rat-ness, mouse-ness and slight fox-ness with the long tail (you can’t see that), furry body and ears. I like the fried egg/daisy quality of the eyes and the unhinged red grin. Perfect for me!

I must come up with a suitable name…