some thumbnails of my illustrations

some thumbnails of my illustrations
Please click on the links below to view my portfolio ........ Images copyright of Carrie Osborne

Thursday 31 January 2013

Of Wolves and Words...


I love language with all the flow and rhythm of the river of words that when gathered and shaped and spoken become something more, something alive and powerful.

I was recently at Toppings and Company Bookshop in Bath for my brother-in-law Jack Wolf's fabulous reading, talk and book signing to launch his brilliant debut novel 'The Tale of Raw head and Bloody Bones' which deserves a special post all of its own (which will be coming up very soon!)
Its a real Aladdin's cave of beautiful, wonderful books and I came home with a small trove whilst looking back longingly at many others I would have loved to added to the pile... (to add to my ever growing collection here!)
One of those I came home with was Alan Garner's Collected Folk Tales in a beautifully decorated and gilded hard cover, a real treasure! The comment on the back cover by Philip Pullman says:

"The great collections of British folk tales such as this one, should be treated in two ways: first, they should be bound in gold and brought out on ceremonial occasions as national treasures; and second, they should be printed in hundreds of thousands, at the public expense, and given away free to every young teacher and every new parent."

But in the introduction Alan Garner says words that strike a resonating chord with me in all my love of language and stories. Of the folk tale he says:

"The real meaning is in the music; it is in the language: not phonetics, grammer or syntax, but pitch and cadence, and the colour of the word.
In this selection I have tried to get back, through the written word, a sense of the spoken. I have worked to recreate the moment of the telling, so that the printed word may sing."

Yes! I thought, exactly that!
Terri Windling on her blog Myth and Moor has been talking about Storytelling in a far more eloquent way than I and is always inspiring and thought provoking - a well of creativity for all lovers of words, art and story! Do go and have a read...

There is something about writing that I love so much. I often hear it as a trail of thought from another place, bringing with it scents and sounds and dreamlike bright or shadowy images. Very often in the past as now, I have written and illustrated in tandem - sometimes the words manifesting first to lead the image, and sometimes the imagery first, sometimes so vividly that all the words have left to do is describe the scene.
The story I am drawing a dummy book for at the moment arrived suddenly and very strong in its words, and I enjoyed the words so much for their own selves that even though it was always intended for a picture book, it stands alone, which I am pleased about.
I wish I could share this tale with you all, but I would really like to give this its best pitch to a publisher and don't want to scupper its chances... so not yet I'm afraid...
Instead I will show the you one of the double page spreads I have been drawing for the dummy book, sadly for now without the words which would sit on the empty right hand side of the drawing...

 
Here below is a detail of the top right corner...


 And a closeup of Wolf


Until I drew him I had no idea whether or not I could in fact draw a wolf... this was the first spread I tackled to make sure I could do it, so hopefully the images and words will knit together and sing! I really hope so!

10 comments:

  1. Wow... you are surely a Wolf Woman! Your wolf is alive and breathing... beautiful. Looking forward to seeing words and images together AFTER you find your publisher. Good luck!!

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    1. Thankyou Valerianna! He shares the story with a Raven, and I love drawing Ravens!

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  2. Beautiful Carrie, I have my fingers crossed for you that you find the right publisher and then I'll be able to buy a copy! I've been reading Terri's latest posts too, and the idea of storytelling is really powerful and important to me. I adore listening to accomplished storytellers, but they seem such a rare pleasure these days, it's a skill that has been lost, though it seems it's re-emerging and being rediscovered now. Even my favourite comedians are the ones that tell yarns, rather than 'jokes', like Billy Connelly. I have even joined my state storytelling guild, but I've yet to pluck up the courage to actually 'tell' rather than listen. I'm sure lots of people would find it odd, but I find it much easier to sing a song in front of an audience (small audience, that is!) than tell a story. But I've got an idea in mind, of a combination of the two. So, a vague project in the works...I'll see how I go!

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    1. Ooh I do hope you go for the storytelling, you really know how to weave a tale, you'd be brilliant... I think combining telling with music will be wonderful, afterall it was done like that of old wasn't it. I've heard Robin Williamson move between tale and music and back again, its transfixing...

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    2. Robin is exactly the one I had in mind, he's a master! I've only seen him once, many years ago, but he blew me away!

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  3. I'm with you. There is a music to language, a music that a good (oral) storyteller knows how to achieve. The neat trick is to get that music onto the page. One thing I've found that helps is to read it aloud. That helps you get the timing and the meter. I've replaced words for no other reason than because they "clunk" in the reading of the phrase. To me, language is about mouths and ears and the sound that travels between them. We've become so focused on the written word that we forget that language is meant to be spoken, not read.

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    1. Absolutely! I love the shape and sound of words weaving their music, that's why I particularly love Anglo Saxon meter and poets like Ted Hughes who understood it so well...

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  4. I loved reading this post and agree with the sentiments expressed by Philip.
    Your dummy book looks wonderful already, I wish you the very best of luck, you deserve to be published.

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    1. Thankyou Valerie, I will give my little tale its best shot and hope!

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  5. The wolf looks fantastic, and brilliant pitch. Can't wait to see and read it :):)

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