The Creative Filter - issue #1
All the creative things that have filtered through my life rcently
I’ve been wanting to write a regular post for a long time, but I wasn’t sure what form I wanted it to take. I wanted it to be. Maybe an update, maybe things I’ve been into recently, maybe things I’ve bought at charity shops… (I love shopping in charity shops/markets etc… and regularly bring back books and objects I want to talk about.) I also wanted to just write more about what I’ve been up to in the studio.
And then one day it came to me - of course - The Filter! When I wrote that down, it sounded a bit like it could be a fashion mag, so I’ve decided on: The Creative Filter, and this is its inaugural outing. I was going to do it monthly at first - I was thinking: The May Filter, etc… But I have to be realistic about how often I will actually do it. And also, having to filter everything I’ve done in a month could become a bit too rigid for me. I can see myself laboriously writing posts, trying to remember everything! And actually, this way, maybe I’ll do every two months, or I might want to pop some in more frequently than once a month - who knows!
I was actually inspired by this great post by Rosalind Maroney where she was talking about using Substack in the casual way you might make a post on Instagram back in the day. And I thought - right! I’m going to get this post made, imperfectly! Better this way than as a draft in my Substack, where it’s been sitting the last few weeks. So thank you, Rosa, for this reminder to be imperfect!
This first one might be a bit of a whopper1, as I filter down the full random collection of things in my brain since I started thinking about this post.
SOME NEWS AND REPLAYS:
An Exhibition
I’m taking part in an exhibition! It’s been organised and curated by the wonderful Sharon King Chai. Sharon and I used to work together at Macmillan Children’s Books in the Design Team, and since then, we’ve both left to pursue full-time careers as author-illustrator-artists.
Sharon is a power-house! She’s illustrated three BEAUTIFUL Julia Donaldson books, written and illustrated her own books, has recently created the super fun (and beatiful) Mirror Magic series of board books; and if that wasn’t enough, she also designs and illustrates greetings cards that have been sold in Selfridges and Liberties, no less!
Sharon invited a group of 50 illustrators to design an illustration on the theme of Nature. Here is mine below - inspired by our funny old cat, Sonny, who we inherited from my mother-in-law when she developed dementia. We, of course, immediately loved him and his unique ways. Including finding weird and wonderful spots to sleep in the garden in all sorts of stretched out poses! I wanted to capture that - and my growing love/obsession with gardening, so I combined the two in my piece.
When Sharon first asked me, I thought I would go out and draw on location, which is something I love to do. But this time, I wanted to challenge myself to create something illustrational, as I would for a book. It was fun to literally go out to my garden for reference - to see both Sonny and the plants modelling for me. The book I am working on at the moment (it’s my first author-illustrator book) stars a cat (and bird) and also has a spread with lots of insects, which I’ve discovered I really LOVE painting (any publishers out there?!), so it was fun to add those in too!
I’ll be selling the original artwork on the night, as well as a limited edition of 30 archival prints. Do get in touch if you can’t make the exhibition, and would like to buy anything.
The exhibition runs from June 9-14th at The Gallery at the Playroom in North London, where all the prints and artwork on display will be for sale. If you can’t make the exhibition and are interested in buying a print - or the original - do get in touch, and we can organise a private sale.
Drawing EMMA inspired Springtime with The Time Foragers Club.
Way back in February, I joined Helen C Stark for a session drawing together inspired by the 2020 film adaptation of Emma.
The Time Foragers Club is a wonderfully inspiring (and bestselling) Substack run by Helen C Stark. She is a Yorkshire-based artist and illustrator who makes beautiful illustrated journals and artwork. She runs regular meet-ups drawing and painting with her community as well as doing regular meet-ups with fellow creatives - like me!
We began with some warm-up drawings from beautiful still selected by Helen, then moved onto longer timed drawings (15-20 minutes) of scenes from the film. While drawing, Helen asked me about my journey as an illustrator. I won’t pretend that I was entirely coherent - I remember struggling to draw at speed and talk! But it was a lovely way to spend an hour, and I really enjoyed myself. Thanks so much for having me Helen! Helen has kindly given me a copy of the recording for my paid subscribers, You can watch it here.
Interview with Words and Pictures
I did an interview with Naomi and James Jones a few weeks ago. I’m rather late posting about it, but I really enjoyed chatting with them, and if you’ve followed me for a while, I hope you might find it interesting. So I am finally posting it here!
They start by asking about my creative process, and I inadvertently explain how the title of this newsletter came about: Gather, (chaos), Filter, Make. I talk about my publishing journey, and at the end they ask me for the one piece of advice I would give students at the Cambridge School of Art - but actually, it is advice for everyone - including me! (One of the things that frequently floats through my head is Alice (of Wonderland) saying to herself: I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom take it!)
Words and Pictures is a brilliant Substack aimed at aspiring children’s book writers and illustrators run by Naomi and James Jones; They’re a Cornwall-based couple with 35 years combined publishing experience (she’s a former editor/author, he’s a former art director/illustrator), whose books are published by Penguin, Hachette, and HarperCollins.
The newsletter aims to demystify children’s publishing with advice on agents, how advances work, what happens at book fairs, plus monthly live Q&As and interviews with industry professionals - like me!
They make super helpful posts like this and this. Such a great resource!
Here is my interview:
SOME THINGS I MADE
Observational sketchbooks
I’ve always loved observational sketching and painting, but since graduation, it has slipped more than I would like. I do still get out and paint a lot, but these days it’s more sporadic and definitely weather-dependent. When I was at the height of my sketchbooking obsession, I would paint every day, rain or shine. Now my sketchbooks tend to come out during the warmer months and holidays. In Bologna2, I made the brilliant decision to have a Substack meet-up while we were there, and planned a sketching day on the last day (hello to those of you who were there!). I have to admit, I got a bit lost in sketching and felt a bit guilty that I didn’t talk to more people while I was there. But actually, it was lovely to sit and paint, chat to those closest to me, and also listen to and watch everyone around me chatting to each other.
I was reminded what a meditative thing it is to sit and focus on your surroundings for an hour or so, attempting to capture the mood and colours. So I came back determined to continue with renewed vigour and regularity. And so far, a few months later, I’ve been fairly regular at getting out and about. Here are a few of my recent sketches; well, I call them sketches, but I suppose they are paintings. I’ve planned a sketchbook look-through video soon (as soon as I finish my latest book), and I will talk through how long everything takes and what materials I use then.
Pottery
I’ve started a block of beginner’s pottery classes at our local FE College - Cambridge Regional College. I’ve wanted to do pottery for the longest time, but it’s always been so ridiculously expensive and also, always oversubscribed, that I’ve never quite got to it. For my latest birthday, I asked my husband if we could find some pottery classes as a gift from him. I had asked last year, but they were all booked out when we researched. But I was talking with a family friend earlier in the year, and she suggested I look up our local FE college, and lo and behold, they had classes with spaces. And yes, they were expensive as a block, but actually work out as £20 a class! So we booked! It’s been unexpectedly great. I know that sounds weird, as I’ve wanted to do them for so long. But I thought I would be so bad at it, and I was worried I wouldn’t like having stuff all over my hands all the time. But I’ve found that although I’m obviously a beginner, I’ve taken to it a little more intuitively than I expected (although I’m sure there are many hills to climb there!), and I haven’t minded the messy hands as much as I thought!
But the real unexpected thing has been how soothing it has been. It feels like a wonderful, meditative break from life for 3 hours a week. All the noise quietens down, and I am super focused and calm for the duration of the class. The teacher is really lovely, and patiently explains everything with a smile on her face. She doesn’t put the radio or music on, and it reminds me a bit of those ambient sound apps - everyone talks quietly, a bit like we’re at church! - and there’s this hum of quiet chatter, wheels turning, taps gushing water, scraping, plonking of clay on the surface, the rustling of bags, as people retrieve chunks of clay. It’s all very calming and soothing. Here are some pictures of what I made in our first classes, I have more drying in the studio.
Knitting!
I spent months knitting the Norma Sweater. I don’t know what went wrong. I often fall short because of poor yarn substitution, but it knitted up SO BIG on me! I undid the sleeves (you can see on the left pic) and made them shorter (I hate hanging sleeves, a bit of a phobia of mine!), but it just felt like it swamped me. I thought it might fit my mum, so when she came to visit, I suggested she try it on, and it’s PERFECT on her! Look how great she looks in it!
Lessons learned: spend the extra few ££ to get the exact recommended yarn, and look properly at the pictures! I could have easily noticed that, actually, the sleeves are long in the pattern, and that it’s a fairly oversized sweater. Ah well, at least I mastered the pattern technique, and I would be tempted to knit again with some tweaks, because I love the colours and pattern.
SOME THINGS I BOUGHT
Books that celebrate the gutter
Dad's Back - Jan Ormerod
I’m not too familiar with Jan Omerod, but the books I know of hers are really special, so when I saw this in a charity shop, I immediately picked it up and looked through. It’s deceptively simple; Dad comes back from work3 and greets Baby. As I looked through it, I began to notice how Dad and Baby begin the book on their own separate pages, and as the book progresses Dad crosses the gutter4 - so playfully, it’s lovely! - and eventually they swap places. I love the way Jan uses the gutter to explore their connection. When separated by it, they're each still in their own world - Dad on the left, scarf on, and Baby playing with the cat on the right. As Dad greets Baby, the scarf comes off, he leans across the gutter, and in doing so symbolically and literally transforms from Work Dad to Dad.
In the module The Sequential Image on the MA, it was my first introduction to the idea that a book is really a sequence of events. This is a lovely example of a small moment in time, told through a simple, pared-back sequence of images, using the book as an object to explore the Dad and Baby’s coming together at the end of the day. So glorious!
Don’t Cross The Line
Isabel Minhos Martins (author), Bernardo P Carvalho (illustrator), Daniel Hahn (translator)
This book uses the gutter in a wonderfully meta way. A soldier stands guard in front of it, telling the characters emerging from the left that they cannot cross the line. There is no line; it’s left as an assumption for you to make that the line is the gutter. A crowd forms - with lots of subplots for you to follow - until a pair of boys playing with a ball drop it, and it bounces across the right-hand page! Of course, everyone slowly crosses the line, winning the soldier over until he lets them pass. Until his boss comes along! But by the end, they are all playing happily together across the whole spread - mostly! In this case, the author and illustrator are exploring more adult themes of immigration, war, territory. Using the Picture Book as an object this way is a really clever way to draw children into a more grown-up conversation. Such a great book!
It was a fun coincidence to come across two books that explore the gutter like this a few weeks apart. I know there are lots more - do you have any to recommend? Let me know in the comments.
SOME THINGS I DID
We got a car!
Somehow, Nick and I managed to grow up without getting driving licences, and then, because we lived in London until 2018, it never seemed much of a priority. But now we live in Cambridge, it has slowly gnawed at us. Also, even in London, sometimes not having a car made life difficult. You end up with piles of things that otherwise would be recycled, taken to charity shops, the dump. I know they can go on bikes, and because Cambridge is so bike-friendly, we have made do that way for a long time. But - for example - we’ve had a chez longue under our bed for the last year (it was the bottom bit of an L shaped sofa), meaning all the clothes I had under the bed have been distributed around the bedroom on shelves, in cuboards, in boxes etc… So awkward! And holidays…. Because we can’t drive, we’ve never been able to take advantage of the cheaper options that are usually only accessible by car.
Very sadly, Nick’s mum Liz, passed away in October last year. It’s been an emotional few years; she suffered from dementia for a few years and was very weak and confused at the end. Even though she had been very unwell for a while, it somehow came as a surprise when she went. But in a way, it’s meant we could finally grieve for her, which has felt important. She didn’t have a lot to leave, but she left Nick just enough for us to buy a small second-hand car, and for Nick to get driving lessons. He wisely decided to get lessons on an automatic, which I think was a good decision - it meant he passed relatively quickly. Although it did mean the cars were more expensive.
It’s not all been plain sailing - first of all, driving together with Nick at the wheel was quite the experience for both of us, I think! Which film is it when they dig their fingers into the dashboard in terror!? And there were the inevitable problems with the car, which meant negotiations with the not-very-helpful people at the garage. But now it’s up and running properly, and we’ve both got more used to being in a metal box hurtling along the road together (!), it’s given us this sense of freedom that we both feel quite giddy with! I will admit to feeling guilty about the environmental impact, but as we’ve both spent just about 50 years each without a car, I feel we can pootle about in our little car with slightly less guilt and in the future, I hope perhaps one day we can go electric! When I write my bestseller!5
I won’t write about everything we’ve done in detail, but here is a snapshot. I genuinely feel like I’ve been on holiday recently, simply by getting out of Cambridge, exploring and discovering new places. We both like to say thank you to Liz when we’re whizzing along a beautiful road or walking a newly discovered path. It does feel like a lovely legacy she left us. I know she would be pleased.
A visit to the Fry Gallery
I’ve wanted to go to The Fry Gallery for SO LONG! I love Eric Ravillious & Tirzah Garwood, Edward Bawden, Enid Marx. Since I’ve moved to Cambridge, I’ve discovered they were called The Artists of Great Bardfield.
Since we got a car, I’ve finally been able to visit! And excitingly, there was an exhibition, curated by Mark Hearld6, and the Keeper of the Fry Collection, Colin Wilkin. It was just a one-room exhibition (always a bit of a treat! Ha!) a small, but perfectly formed collection of paintings and objects.
There was a room at the back full of objects from the archive collection - what a treat! I was gutted, because I had seen one of the funny goats (second pic) on Vinted, and not bought, as I was trying to be restrained.
I love the variety of creative projects the artists all worked on - ceramics, prints, cards, packaging…and more. It feels like a fulfilling life to me, to spend your time working on projects big and small. I like the idea that in time I might have a portfolio that includes projects like this. I came away very inspired.
A visit to the Garden Centre
This was something we’ve always had to do piecemeal, picking up plants ad hoc, ordering soil online, or biking back small bags in our panniers. So it was a real treat to be in a garden centre and have a browse, and just be able to bring them home in the boot. Am I finally a grown-up now?!
I started to get really into gardening last summer, and as soon as the dormant plants came back to life this spring, I was excited for another year of gardening. I can feel it becoming a bit of an obsession - but it’s not a bad one to have, I suppose! I need to learn how to propagate and sow seeds, so I can keep it really economical. Below are some before/after pics of the garden, plus our laden trolley at the garden centre!
SOME THINGS I READ/WATCHED
Artists of Great Bardfield
I’ve always felt inspired by groups of artists working together, influencing and inspiring each other. The Bloomsbury group, The Lost Generation writers, the artists at the Bauhaus. In fact, it’s partly what inspired me to do the MA. I was musing with my husband about how I wish I could have gone to The Bauhaus, and how the Cambridge MA felt like it had a similar feel, of people connected by a shared way of looking at things, working closely together. And that conversation led him to tell me that student loans were available for the first time for MAs. And the rest, as they say, is History. After our recent visit to The Fry Gallery, I dug out this book. I’ve never been great at non-fiction books; I tend to trail off after a chapter or two, but I found myself racing through this. I’m one chapter down, and really enjoying it so far.
Talented Mr Ripley
I picked this up because I kept reading about how well-written and plotted the series is. And I hadn’t realised there were five books, having only seen the film7. I’m a sucker for a book in a series; If I love a world, I want to come back to it. Series of books I’ve loved:
My Brilliant Friend books by Eleanor Ferrante8
The Vera Stanhope books by Anne Cleeves
All the Fred Vargas books9 : I read the Inspector Adamsberg series first, which I LOVED, and recently read the Three Evangalists series and LOVE those too! They’re all completely gripping, yet somehow surreal and off-kilter crime books. Highly recommend!
What else? Northern Lights. Wolf Hall. I could go on… How about you? Favourite book series?
N.B. I’ve read a few more books since then, but for the sake of the length of this post, I’m stopping at these!
Arrested Development
I’m really enjoying quite how weird this series is. The plot is there to serve for the jokes. It feels slightly surreal, and I don’t know why. I seem to like things when they slightly tip into the surreal and off-beat (see the Fred Vargas Books, above). A bit like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, whose voices go slightly off tune and off-beat. It feels more real than a perfectly sung note. Same with illustrations and art. Picasso vs Chuck Close. etc…
30 Rock
We watched this ages ago, probably decades ago, and loved it. And it’s back on streaming after years of being locked away in the digital archive somewhere. It was probably around the time I read Bossypants, Tina Fey’s memoir, where she talks about learning improv. I don’t remember much about it, but my overriding memory is that everyone is so nice and generous to each other in improv. The very act of saying “yes and…” is such a nice way to be in the world, and I remember finding that very inspiring. 30 Rock has a real enthusiasm about it, which makes it fun to watch. It takes a season to warm up, but it’s worth it!
Pachinko
I just read the book in the Spring, and I knew there was a highly regarded TV series on Apple TV, so I wanted to watch it as soon as I finished. The book follows a Korean family across four generations from the early 1900s to the 1980s, navigating life as ethnic Koreans in Japan, facing horrifying discrimination. Although it is tragic, heartbreaking, and horrifying at times, it is also warm, uplifting and beautifully told. I really enjoyed it.
One of Nick’s friends from college had recommended it a while ago (he’s a director and also has great taste!), so I knew it would be good. It meanders slightly from the book, but I don’t mind, as I think it actually fleshes parts out that add to the overall picture and story of the book. And they’re done so well, you don’t mind. And I absolutely love the credits. Season one credits are great, but the ones for season 2 are so brilliant (we just started season 2) that after we’d watched the first one, I declared: “they’re the best credits I’ve ever seen!” Love them, so joyful!
Yellowstone
We’ve also been watching Yellowstone - we often like to watch a few shows concurrently - you’re not always in the mood for the same thing. Anyway, it took me a while to get into - it’s one of those shows where everyone is so awful, you can’t hook in at first, but somewhere into season 1, I found myself thinking about it as I went about my day, and realised I was enjoying it. It feels clever and insightful; about fucked up families and people, America, about the humanity that lies underneath politics. Power, loyalty, family. Succession for cowboys.
And that’s it! Thank you for reading my very first issue of The Creative Filter! Of course, I have another long list of things I would love to talk about, but this is epic enough, so I’ll leave it at that!
See you soon, and in the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this, I’d be so grateful if you’d give it a ❤️, share it with anyone you think would enjoy it, and subscribe so you don’t miss Issue #2!
Until next time,
Ella xx
It’s too big for email, apparently. So click on the post to read in full on the app!
I really want to write a post on this. More anon.
Yes, it’s pretty dated in this way, but also, it was probably the experience of most children in the 80s, when this book was made.
The gutter is the middle of the double-page spread where the pages meet in the middle, where the book is bound.
This is our refrain, we joke to each other at home, with just a touch of hope!!
Another artist whose artwork I love. As our son is now at university in York, I’m hoping I can finally get to see his infamous house at the York Open House festival. Another thing I’ve seen from afar, and yearned to see.
And some of the TV series - we stopped watching, not sure why. Maybe we’ll come back to it
Elena Ferrante is a pseudonym - she’s always kept her identity a secret, although I know there’s been some speculation. So intriguing!
“Fred” is actually a woman, Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, a French historian, archaeologist and novelist. I love the comical, surreal and gripping world she’s created!
Loved reading this Ella! So much treasure. And your cat piece is a stunner xx
Loved this, thank you.
I love Elena Ferrante's books and Pachinko - the credits are absolutely the best, though I prefer Season 1's credits. I have actually been known to play a You Tube of just the credits on repeat when I am feeling stressed because they just exide joy.