Janet Bradbury ILLUSTRATOR

Tuesday 4th February 2025:

Here’s a cute project I’ve been busy with - the ‘order’ was for 63 ( 7cm x 9 cm and folded length-wise) place-names for wedding guests. Each place-name was to be a mini-map of the area where the wedding is to held, with room for a name - of course My first dilemma was how to create 63 mini-maps which would all look the same. After considering starting with individual cards, I realised that it would be easier to duplicate them if I had sheets of A4 paper divided into 8 sections (7cm x 9cm). I then drew 8 maps onto tracing paper and traced them onto the A4 watercolour (300gsm) paper. These 8 maps were then traced onto 8 more A4 sheets of paper (64 shapes altogether). I painted all the sheets cobalt blue, then when it was dry, painted a second coat of cobalt blue over the land shapes, leaving the sea a paler shade of blue. When this was completely dry I formed contour shapes with blue water-colour pencil, and drew with a 0.4 pen around the outline of the land-shapes. So far so good! The maps were cut out, and bent in half (scoring on the back of each card so they bent neatly). The most difficult part was choosing a font with which I could print 63 times names uniformly. This took some time as I tried out various pens and nibs, and practised the lettering. Overall the whole project took me about eight weeks to complete - including making 16 more maps, as I wasn’t satisfied with the printing on some of them. Not a bad effort - making about 80 maps altogether. Now they are all cut out and ready to go to a wedding!!

June 2024:

Here’s a little piece that is based on images from my surroundings. Flowers, the window on the house next door, plus some added imaginings to tell a story….

It was fun to work on the composition - how I wanted the viewer to read the image….. my aim was to take the viewer’s eye around the picture, starting from the bottom left and following around to the lower right, up to the upper right and across to the upper left - and down again. Did I succeed? I’ve got a theory that the composition is more important than the subject. Poor composition spoils the image no matter how ‘good’ the image…..

these children’s t-shirt were featured on my stall at the Christmas market, (palmerston north) in December 2023, now is The absolutely best time to buy a unique t-shirt for next summer!!! Ages from one - six, each with their own set of colours and graphics. $15.00 each.

And of course these can be ordered on line -  email me:  janetmace.bradbury@inspire.net.nz

Children’s t-shirts will be on my stall at the next market in Palmerston North. These little beauties are designed and produced by my two Melbourne daughters and are making their N.Z. debut! There are separate designs for each age/size from one-year-olds through to six-years-old. if you want your special small person to have a unique t-shirt - you know where to find them!

These are also available online - email me: janetmace.bradbury@inspire.net.nz

an important part of preparing to illustrate a story is to do research.

In my case I love looking through many children’s books. I’m looking at styles of illustrations. What colours are chosen? How are the illustrations placed on each page? How are the objects outlined in the drawings? What style are the drawings - are they tightly or loosely drawn? What figures are used - realistic or ‘cartoony’. How is the mood of the story conveyed? How do the illustrations link through the story?

And I’ll copy or trace figures,: experiment with colour schemes, positions of figures and expressions on faces, and compositions of the whole picture.

As I said to someone recently, “everything we do is copied, there is nothing original”. It’s not only OK to copy, it’s important that we do.

From the copying I do will emerge a style that I’m pleased with.

It’s almost too late to be planting tomato seedlings, but its not too late to be getting your own copy of one (or both) of the “Jessica” books. “Jessica and the Golden Orb” and “Jessica, the Seed Saver”. They are available to download from the website: www.heritagefoodcrops.org.nz/publications#jessica.

A new year - and a new story. Some ideas have come but haven’t had sufficient excitement to follow through. There has been a time of ‘stalling’. I’ve learned just to trust these spaces despite never being sure how long they may last. At times I ask myself questions such as “Is this going anywhere at all?” “Has this idea got any possibilities?” “Do I even want to write another story?” There’s a funny process where I have to start somewhere - the perfect beginning doesn’t happen all by itself. Often I’ll play with an idea, share it with a few people, get some honest responses and see if it ‘stays alive’ or if it just peters out. Generally I have to draw lots of pictures - as I need visual clues as to what is working, or not!

I was in our local Mall last week and noticed an elderly woman (yes, probably my age!) approach the young man who was checking bags at the exit at K-Mart. The woman greeted him with a smile and opened her bag to show him it contained no goods that weren’t paid for. It occurred to me, watching from a distance, that older women often are the ones who take those extra steps, smile at others, talk to the young parent with a baby, stand aside to let someone pass. They act as a sort of lubricant to the everyday social interactions. (That’s not to say that older men, and younger people don’t do these things, its just that I notice that older women do them more often.) And I began to think about having an elderly woman as the main character in my next story. She’ll be someone who is a trend-setter - determined and generous and ready to step out of the norm. Mmmmm, this idea has possibilities!