Thirty one birds, 130 fiddlers, and one elephant's ear

Story Street #25

Welcome to Story Street – a monthly newsletter from children’s author and illustrator Jane Porter. Read on for ramblings about my life as a picture book maker, community artist, comic diarist, under-confident fiddle player and very, very amateur luthier.

October is the month for drawing challenges - there’s Inktober, Quinktober, Drawtober, and many more ‘tobers. Each comes with a list of prompts for every day of the month, with the results to be shared on social media. I’ve fallen at the Inktober hurdle many a time, but when I spotted Birdtober I thought I’d make another attempt at completing a challenge. And I did it! Here they all are:

The secret, I discovered, is batching - making 5 or 6 drawings at a time makes it much easier to keep on top of the challenge. I used Flashe matte acrylics, mixing everything just from primary colours - paint on first, then adding detail with a dipping pen and brown or blue ink, with the odd bit of coloured pencil. I spent just a few minutes per bird or I knew I’d never finish.

It’s an interesting exercise to look at them all and think about which I like best and why. In second and third place it’s the Roadrunner and the Burrowing Owl, but this little Ruby-Crowned Kinglet is my No.1 favourite:

It turns out my top three are all the ones with minimal outlining. There’s definitely a lesson there - put the pen down, Jane, don’t over-work it! Now I just need to decide what to do with this postcard aviary. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thankyou to Andrea Holmes in Dallas for setting this challenge - you can see how she painted her birds onto local buildings throughout October on her Instagram page.

Bob’s Ear

Whenever I have a new picture book coming out, I like to make a 3D toy of the main character so I have some company on visits to schools, bookshops etc. Here’s His Majesty King Otter with Pink Lion and some Tiny Penguins…

…and they are about to get a new friend. I found some slate-blue needlecord for the main character from the book I have coming out on January 2 with Walker Books, illustrated by Jenni Desmond - meet Bob’s ear (and an experiment with a denim toenail).

Bob is a small elephant who loves to sing, but not if anyone is listening - yet he longs to perform in public. The story is about how he learns to overcome his stage fright… I’ll tell you lots more about Be Bold Bob over the next couple of months.

If you’d like to pre-order a copy so you’ll get a nice surprise in the post at the beginning of January, here’s a link for you:

A confession: I am Bob

As far as playing the fiddle goes, I am Bob. I have been learning to play (from scratch) for seven years - but playing in front of people filled me with terror for the first few years. Slowly, s l o w l y I am getting a bit more confident and have found myself joining in at sessions.

In fact in the last month I have taken my fiddle to sessions in Wooler, Berwick, Hampstead, Hammersmith, Aberfeldy, Inverness and Beauly - phew, who even IS this person?! The me of ten years ago would be astounded.

I’m still not very good, and tend to fumble when things get fast, but I have met lots of lovely people who have been very kind and encouraging, and this journey is bringing me much joy.

I’ve just been to the fiddle week ‘Blazin in Beauly’ in the highlands of Scotland for the third time and it was just wonderful - a huge happy family reunion of friendly fiddle players with classes, concerts, sessions and a big ceilidh at the end. If you’d like a flavour, I made an Instagram reel about it. The band Blazin’ Fiddles run the event and they really are the most open-hearted people as well as incredibly talented musicians - if you get a chance to see them, GO! We had Duncan Chisholm as guest tutor too, and most of us were somewhat starstruck…

Thursday night in Beauly is the participants’ ceilidh (I learned the first time I went that there are two types of ceilidhs - the dancing sort, and another one where people stand up and play or sing to everyone. This was the second sort).

The first year I went, I put my name down to do it, despite being exceedingly nervous - and this year I did it again. This time my knees were slightly less wobbly, but I still had to watch at least an hour of soothing videos about Finnish knitting patterns to calm myself down first.

I played the tune I composed in Ireland (see Story Street #24 for more) - and was so happy to have Sarah from Bonfire Radicals backing me up with some beautiful harmonies - thankyou Sarah! That’s the magic of Beauly.

When it was my big birthday a couple of months ago, my lovely husband gave me the Best Present Ever - a tune composed specially by Jenna Reid from Blazin’ Fiddles. ‘Jane’s Birthday Waltz’ is the most beautifully jazzy, jaunty tune and I was so touched when Jenna taught it to the Int 2 group at Beauly and they all played it to me! I checked with Jenna and she said I am very welcome to share the dots, so if you’d like to play it too, here it is:

Thankyou Jenna, and thankyou George!

There is a crack in everything

For me, violin-making seems to be a constant case of ‘two steps forward, one step back’. Just as I was ever-so-carefully steaming and bending my ribs, I heard a tiny little crack - and sure enough, my rib had split. I thought I might just about get away with trimming that bit off and proceeded with extreme caution - but then it happened again… and again… and again.

Four cracks later, a fellow student came to offer some sage advice:

It seems I was under-sizzling. The following week I turned the dial up - but was too cautious to put any pressure on the bending strap. I tried to be braver, and eventually ended up with two ribs that are almost a snug fit in the C-bouts.

The next step is glueing and clamping, which will almost certainly be more tricky than it sounds. I’ll let you know…

Why I love libraries

The second week of October was Libraries Week - and as there’s nothing I love more than a library, I was delighted to celebrate with a double-school visit at Southfields Library. I had a lovely time talking to the children about how I use a lot of recycled materials in my collage work (there’s a green theme to Libraries Week) - I was even able to show them a little scrap from a decimal currency converter book that I bought for 10p in that very same library many years ago.

Here’s me with Library manager Sucheta, and brand-new children’s librarian Catherine - thankyou both for having me, and for ordering in lots of my books too. There’s nothing nicer than seeing children choosing them to borrow.

Looking in the lucky bag

At the start of the month I went to a very enjoyable workshop at The Straw Yard, led by Alison Mountain. It was to make a sketchbook, and as a starting point Alison gave us a lucky bag of very interesting scraps as well as plenty of inky things.

I was completely charmed when I found the photo shown below in my bag - it seems to be some sort of presentation in a 1970s office in Germany. I’d love to know more about the dynamics of this particular group - just look at that raised eyebrow on the chap with the loud check jacket! And the one with huge mutton chops is so thrilled with his mystery gift. What do you think is inside that wrapping? I think I might have to use this one for a future comics class prompt…

Sneaky aardvarks and wholesome hornets

Today is the deadline for this term’s comics class zine swap - and all sorts of wonderful things are arriving on my doormat. I’ve even had a Zine with sparkly bits for the very first time! The class is one of the highlights of my week and I love chatting about ideas with students all around the world on Zoom. We share our work on a Padlet, and this term we were surprised by a delightful new feature - when you post something without logging in, it gives you a new name.

We’ve had Humble Tiger, Kind Gorilla, Helpful Newt, Honest Butterfly, Charming Rhino and even a Studious Ostrich. I would love to write a picture book about each one.

I’ll be announcing enrolment for the January term in my next Story Street newsletter on Dec 1st, but in the meantime if you’d like to know more, click the button below and email me if you’d like to go on a waiting list.

Also in October: Lisa Stickley had me as a guest on her ‘With What Do I Doodle’ feature in October - I really enjoyed answering the questions. Thankyou Lisa! If you’d like to know more (and I do recommend Lisa’s newsletter heartily), take a look by clicking this button:

I’m going to leave you with a fungal find - just look at the marvellous camouflage on this little gem, growing like a puffed up toasted marshmallow on a fallen birch trunk. I don’t know what it is, but I’m impressed with its adaptation - if you know the name, do tell.

See you on December 1st for the next episode. If you enjoyed reading Story Street, do share and subscribe.