Storybook Brushes & Our Calendar Project

What happens when 4 illustrators from 4 corners of the globe join forces?

A 12 month calendar by Storybook Brushes is born! 

When Maria Bogade contacted me about forming a group with the main purpose of producing group mailings to the children's book publishing world I thought this is exactly what I needed. While I've handed out promotional postcards at conferences, I was still working on establishing a mailing routine. I was so honored to be asked to join this group of brilliant, established professionals.....Katriona Chapman, Juana Martinez-Neal, and Maria Bogade.

And so began months of emails, to chose a name, design the logo, the calendar cover & inside pages, the website,....oh, and critique our calendar pieces. Juana hand painted our logo, which we all fell in love with. When I was home for Thanksgiving I drew a little squirrel tribute to our group on the cherry pie I baked with my mom.

For our fairy tale themed calendar, we were each responsible for 3 months. The horizontal format is meant to mimic a double-page spread. I chose to create a series from The Snow Queen, although oddly enough the queen herself never makes an appearance in my 3 pieces. I was unfamiliar with the full story, so I enjoyed reading the tale of Gerda and Kai in search of illustration ideas. Choosing 3 scenes with Gerda would allow me to work on my character consistancy. The chapter with the old flower woman who conjurers seemed appropriate for a summer June illustration.

There were many sketch revisions, and many, many more character development sketches, but I'll get back to that in another post.

I would have painted these on thin 1/8" wood boards, but I have my first local solo show coming up, (this Friday), and I wanted to include these pieces, so I would need to make them presentable to hang on a wall.

work in progress

final painting - acrylic on wood

scanned and color adjusted

Now, I'm very proud to announce that I finally opened my Etsy shoppe! Wow, how many years have I been talking about opening an Etsy shoppe? Hmmm, pretty much since I started up this blog 7 years ago. In the next several days I'll be working on filling up angelatoshoppe with prints and original paintings. I'm pleased to announce my very first listing is our calendar! As this is the Pre-Sale I'll also include my Penguin vs. Chicken/Hansel and Gretel piggies 2-sided promotional postcard with the first 10 orders.

Our calendar is only $10, and besides being sold in my USA shop, it may also be purchased at Kat's Etsy shop in London, Maria's Etsy shop in Germany, and Juana's Big Cartel shop here in the USA.

Working with the Storybook Brushes crew has been a most awesome collaboration. There have already been many thank yous in our private emails, but I wanted to publicly thank my amazing illustrator friends.....Maria, Kat, and Juana. Thank you for being so incredible, and making all of this possible! :)

We invite you to visit our new website to learn more about Storybook Brushes.