October 2024
Hello, my dear friend,
This month, I re-read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is such a heartwarming and beautiful story, told with compassion, acceptance, and kindness. It inspired me to take a side road and start a small collection inspired by the story. I will tell you more about it below.
In this month’s illustration, I wanted to capture the wonderful colours of October. If you are a subscriber to my newsletter, you can find it as a wallpaper here.
This illustration is also available through Redbubble as a print and other products.
The Lady of the River
Despite partially switching focus to the story of The Secret Garden, I finished two more patterns for The Lady of the River. The third one from the left, depicts peasants around the fire in the evening, as they get the news of the approaching flood. The fifth one from the left is (what looks so far like) the hero pattern. I realise I have not yet shared the text from the story with you. If you are curious and wondering what flood I am talking about, you can read the story here. Do let me know what you think about it!
I also made a pattern about a fish for Spoonflower. But because I was so engrossed in the story I used the she-carp as a subject and the colours from this collection. I might include it in the end.
The next pattern I work on will be “Down they go, to the underwater kingdom”. Here is the sketch for it. I like how the sketch looks like, it reminds me of a perfume bottle.
The Secret Garden
I hope you read The Secret Garden already. If you didn’t yet, I won’t spoil the story much, but I do want to say the Robin is an important character.
That’s why he gets his own pattern! I used my favourite brush and colours sampled from robin photos. You can get this pattern through Redbubble and Spoonflower.
This second pattern is an overview of the story.
Here are the links for Redbubble and Spoonflower.
I was telling you I made a little model house to test the Robin pattern, Here are some (process) pictures:
I printed the pattern at two scales to test and, as expected, chose the smaller scale. It is a tiny house! Cutting the cardboard proved more difficult than I remembered. Though I did the long stretches with a cutting machine, I had to do the detailed cuts by hand. The top of my right index finger hurt a bit for a week! I even made a small armchair to go with my house. It is far from straight and nails are visibly poking on all sides, but I love it. Luckily nobody will have to sit on it! I intend to make a lamp too, a wooden floor, a carpet and a portrait to hang on the wall. I must admit I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.
Sketchbook
I am still loving my little square sketchbook. This past month I drew my husband’s telescope with a bag on during the day (to protect it from bird poop), several plants and flowers, my shoes, the model, during live drawing classes, and many others!
More sketching
I needed a small camping chair for something else, but I already had a chance to use it for a session of plein air drawing. Drawing a subject from life is always different than drawing from a photo. A part of that life is being transmitted magically into the drawing.
In other news, I’ve decided to stop selling cards on my site. You can find some of my cards through Redbubble. I want to set up a shop for digital wallpapers and printable for gift/craft paper. I will let you know once I am ready.
This is it for this month, I leave you with warm wishes,
Ema
Find all my patterns and illustrations below:
Drawing is not about what you see as much as what you can make others see.
I am an artist and illustrator who believes in the power of images to make people happy. I’m most known for my colorful cards and patterns depicting people, flowers, and animals, in a sensitive and feminine style using flat simplified shapes.
I live in Beersel, Belgium, and I like to go on long walks with my little dog, Luther.
