Encouragement

From the newsletter of the author of the book I illustrated:

There has been considerable encouragement recently concerning The Journey of Life (Ulendo wa Moyo). One missionary couple reports that they have had people queuing up in the villages to buy the book! We now know of two Bible schools that have started using the book with their students and a big, private Christian secondary school in Blantyre has made it part of their curriculum for their first years. There have also been some very touching stories, such as the orphanage that could only afford one copy where that single book was read, according to a missionary, by every child until it was almost in pieces! We thank the Lord that we are beginning to see the first fruits of a project that we undertook to bless Malawi with a version of Pilgrim’s Progress that would be meaningful and relevant to its people.

You can buy the book here.
More about making the book here.

'Contextualised parables'

An interesting article by the author of The Journey of Life. 

The article is really about his children's books - which I didn't illustrate - but a lot of the same things apply.

The Journey of Life

Look!!!

 

Just arrived this morning.

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out - particularly considering I photographed the pictures myself - I was a bit concerned how it would look in print.

Some random pages:

Not to say it's perfect. In fact, the whole project has been an example of how not to do it! But I've learned a lot, and I'm basically pleased with the result.

The layout was worked out by me, but the cover, all the fancy design and the typesetting was done by a designer called Paul Lewis. He's in America, and the author's in Malawi - what would we do without the internet!

Discussion questions at the back.

Not sure when it will be available yet (or price). Watch this space...

A low-tech art photography studio

Having drawn a blank at finding high quality, low cost scanning for the Pilgrim's Progress illustrations (£40 a picture being a bit much for a low-budget project!), I decided to photograph them instead. Watercolour paper is a pain in the neck to photograph, as a single source of light, such as the sun, will show up all the texture of it. So I adapted an idea I read on the internet:

You will need:

• One camera (obviously)
• A tripod (or something to sit it on), and some books/magazines if the legs aren't quite the right length (Broons books are ideal)
• Two 500W work lights. You will need to take the metal grilles off the front, or you'll get a grid pattern projected on your pictures. 500W lights get very hot. Be careful!
• Two 500W daylight bulbs for the lights, if possible*. As far as I know you can only get them in Australia. 
• An old broken clothes airer that was literally on its way to the bin
• Four clothes pegs
• A photographer's grey card

Please imagine the camera on top of the tripod - obviously I couldn't take a photo of the camera with the camera.

• Set the lights up at 45 degrees to the picture, and at the same height as the middle of the picture.
• Set the camera up in the centre, again at the same height as the picture.
• Switch the lights on, and set the white balance on the camera.
• Take the photos. You'll have to zoom in to fill the picture - that is better than getting closer, as there's less distortion. Strangely, I found the 'automatic' setting better than manual. 

Is the quality as good as professional photography or top-quality scanning? No

Is the quality good enough? Yes - if you do some tweaking on the computer afterwards. 

*If you can't get daylight bulbs, you'll have to block out all daylight to the room, and just use the lights, because it is a very different colour of light.

Home and dry!

At least, Christian & Hopeful are. 

I still need to do corrections, hand letter any text in the illustrations (signs etc), flatten all my paintings (my patent post-painting stretching method is annoyingly not working as well as it has in the past) and scan them...

But still - 72 paintings!

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

As I have a deadline for my Pilgrim's Progress book at the end of the month, I think I'd better concentrate on that!

A rather cheerier painting

The four sisters in the Beautiful Palace: Good Judgement, Careful, Godly and Love (aka Discretion, Prudence, Piety and Charity in the original.)

Valley of the shadow of death

Well, this was a tricky one!

Has to be dark enough, but not so dark you can't see anything.

I really like the cliffs; unfortunately a lot of the bottom will be covered by a flat black area for the text. As it will be published in several languages, all text must be in black. This is because the text is done on a separate printing plate which can then be replaced to translate it. However, I have discovered it will be OK to have white text on a black background here. A pale area at the bottom would rather have spoiled the effect.

Work in progress

And the advantages of having a dining table which unfolds to twice the size (and an understanding family :-) )

Lots more pictures

It was worth doing some simple ones, as it made me feel I was getting somewhere. So the many hours spent on the last one weren't so bad. 

I do feel I'm getting the hang of what I'm doing a bit better. It's 3 years since I did my last lot of watercolour illustrations - no wonder I was forgetting what to do!

The style's still a bit all over the place, though; the sad picture is far more 3D, for example. It's the more realistic style that's throwing me; I'm much more comfortable with the stylised watercolour pics I've done in the past.

Aaaargh! It's so difficult to lay out pictures in Blogger!

Another PP Painting

Sex Crazy, Wants Everything She Sees, & Wishes to Appear Important
(aka Lust of the Flesh, Lust of the Eyes, & Pride of Life)

Painting

As I've now got the book layout more or less corrected (i.e. altering layouts so arms no longer cross the gutter - oops!), I can finally start properly with the painting. :-)

Stubborn and Changeable (aka Obstinate and Pliable in the original)

Illustrating for another culture

In Pilgrim's Progress there is a guy called Ignorance, who keeps going on about his good heart. So I drew a picture of a heart. You know, standard loveheart, universal symbol.

Only it turns out that 'doesn't fit for Africa'.

Maybe not so universal after all.

Evil spirits Malawian style

This is where I've got to so far. Elbows were hard to have going the 'opposite' way, as arm joints rotate. So I've just gone for weird angles.

Joints go the way they do for a reason.

Knees were easier. Walking figures is going to be quite a challenge though! Probably base it on an ostrich walking. Doesn't matter if it looks odd - it's meant to be unnatural.(I swapped the legs & bodies, which is why there are gaps in the middle)

Illustrating for another culture is so difficult!
I'm working on the Malawian Pilgrim's Progress, and I have to draw evil spirits in the valley of the shadow of death.

I could draw evil spirits for here - I know what looks spooky or macabre or evil to us. But all I have is a brief description of witches in a book, and a few photos of masks. I'm reluctant to use the masks, as I don't know what they represent (they said they were evil spirits, but you never quite know if they're just saying what you want to hear). I think silhouettes is probably the way to go.

The book description is helpful: protruding teeth, red eyes, discoloured skin, ugly & distorted features, long snouts to eat corpses. But the coolest thing is - arm and knee joints that bend the wrong way. That would make them look really wierd.

But how on earth do I draw it?