Ongoing CALL OUT to Authors and Poets – Textual Illustration for The Image.

art, Design, drawing, metamorphosis, Painting, poetry, press, Prints, Quotes, short story, text and image

In reverse of the usual order…illustrating drawings with text… to be combined into a book, and exhibition.

I’m still looking for contributors/collaborators for this project.

There are over 40 artworks to be illustrated and I’ll be publishing them gradually here and on my social media @BlancheEllisArt as the project progresses… so keep an eye out here. I may also be putting up snippets of the writing I’ve received… with permission of the authors.

Changing shape…

Even since I posted about this last week the idea has developed, mostly because of the amazing responses I’ve had already from friends, strangers, other artists, an art-book maker and poets and authors from different backgrounds, and languages. And have found many secret authors in my acquaintances.

I’m so happy to be receiving this fount of creativity!

Words lead words…

It’s even leading me to write myself, in an attempt to track what I am looking for. Other people draw out my words with their own wonderful phrases and I feel the pitch, the roll and magnetism of the word collaboration, a force all of it’s own… changing the shape of my intension as it unfolds. Perhaps a preface…

“Word-turns apt in riddle and rhythm to trip and roll the mind causing backtrack, retrace, and circled in so turning, the sentence sense embraced. The way a picture leads the eye, not forward to finality but, with concentric in-conclusions, as a dance that makes sense-of-a-step does so by leading you both too-and-fro and leaving you, not locked, but poised by punctuation.”

Drink Me –

The Story-World…

The initial idea was that each piece of text be another ‘moment’ from the images story-world, a suggestion or clue that opens up the narrative to further interpretation rather than attempting to complete, or explain the picture itself. Instead of finished stories I’m looking for writing that echoes or extends the sense of mystery and magical-realism, and may do so without obvious reference to the image itself. It could be specific, detailed, atmospheric or impressionistic. All and any ideas appreciated!

As the project opens up I think the writing could be in anthropological, an impossible recipe, a critique of a non-existant novel (think J. L. Borges), a short letter, a completely brazen critique of a character, or of the picture itself .

Ideas abound

Please share any ideas here or by email at blancheellis@gmail.com

See more of the images on Instagram and in the previous post and call out…

Thank you for stopping by!

CALL OUT to Authors and Poets – Textual Illustration for The Image.

art, Design, drawing, Exhibition, exhibiton, folktale, Illustration, metamorphosis, Painting, portrait, press, Prints, short story

‘Cubs’ – Another from the series – Mythologies.

CALL OUT: I have plans for a book and am looking for a writer.

This series has over 40 pieces and most of them emerge as if from some old myth, folk tale or strange internal narrative. This is why I call them ‘Mythologies’.

But… the tales they tell have never been written.

In the reverse to the usual relationship of text and image I am looking to collaborate with someone (or several people) to write text to accompany each picture, to illustrate the images, if you will. The idea is to combine these into a book. This writing, be it a paragraph of prose or a few lines of poetry, will sit opposite the artwork on each page and make a pair to be ‘read’ together.

The Story-World…

The idea is that each piece of text be another ‘moment’ from the images story-world, a suggestion or clue that opens up the narrative to further interpretation rather than attempting to complete, or explain the picture itself. Instead of finished stories I’m looking for writing that echoes or extends the sense of mystery and magical-realism, and may do so without obvious reference to the image itself. It could be specific, detailed, atmospheric or impressionistic.

I’m very excited to see what emerges from the birth of this project…..

If you are interested….

I’d love to see any snatches of writing inspired by this as starting points and inspiration for the project which is just beginning and is a brand new idea, so do share this with anyone who might be interested, and email blancheellis@gmail.com for more images if you’d like to try writing something, or to discuss ideas for the project.

More images from the work can be seen on my Instagram @BlancheEllisArt

I also plan to have an exhibition of these artworks with the text in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blanche

New work… Strange Friends….

art, drawing, Exhibition, folktale, Illustration, Painting, poetry, portrait, Prints, sketchbook

A new body of work has been growing… always bodies, always metamorphosing, always emerging from I’m not sure where, and becoming strangely familiar by the time they’re finished, as if I’d seen them a long time ago, and only just remembered them.

As usual I don’t know their story before hand, but after I’ve seen them I can guess, and these guesses go into the titles.

The series is growing quite fast, the question really, is whether the pages of this sketchbook, or this particular 8B pencil, will run out first and mark the limit.

I would like to exhibit them all together, as a community, but for now the community is still growing… you can see them emerging here

There is a narrative stream working its way through these figures, like a collection of short stories, myths or folktales. I’m not sure of the theme, but the work reveals itself, and answers are dead ends.

So, many minds, the crown hands, tea, and more to come.

Illustrated short story

art, Design, drawing, folktale, Illustration, Painting, Quotes, short story

Here I have illustrated the shortest of stories, or a poem, by the writer Aniqah Choudhri.

‘The Fox and the Woman’ by Aniqah Choudhri ~ Illustrated by Blanche Ellis

On the road one summer‘s evening

A fox met the woman he would marry.

She smelt like otter blood and barley

With top notes of sage and honey.

~

He followed her all the way back

To a sleeping village where men spat

Whiskey on cobbled streets and

Cats urinated to mark their territory.

~

Go away they hissed to the fox

But the fox slept behind the rubbish bins

That his bride threw orange peel

and chicken bones in.

~

He killed a rat to woo her

and laid it on the kitchen floor,

And heard her scream of delight

when she opened the door.

~

His bride threw a butter knife,

A wine glass and an apple core.

Dragging his loot behind the bins

He knew their love was for evermore.

~

~

Fin

~

~

A wonderful mix of the mundane and the imaginative, a folk-tale of subtle simplicity. I hope to collaborate more with Aniqah on her writing and poetry in both illustration and song.

What’s a ‘Poet for Hire’?

art, folktale, poetry, short story

Let me tell you a story.

Tonight it is hot, and the people, strolling and sauntering, occasionally rolling or rambling, down the street, catch like threads on street corners as they swing between the bars holding beers or tubas or flannel towels – to wipe off the sweat.

There are four crates set out in a rectangle on the side of the pavement. Typewriters on two of them. “What’s a ‘Poet for Hire’ man?” comes the question…

It’s each to their own, and the man with glasses and the wide brimmed hat has a knack for the poem, writes his thoughts that way, fast and brief as bird wings on the back beat of flight. But if you take my advice, you’ll talk to the other, the one with bands of ink below each shoulder. Without keys on his carabiner. Tell him your story. It will be easier, more open and more full than you think. And, when you leave, and have returned some minutes later, he will give it back to you, on a thread of receipt paper, in pressed black ink. You may pay him what you feel, he will only suggest.

Tell him your story. I never did, I only watched. And they all walked away, with more than the paper in their hands.

I said I would be back. I haven’t been back, yet.

I also plan to have an exhibition of these artworks with the text in the future.

On the road one summer‘s evening

A fox met the woman he would marry.

She smelt like otter blood and barley

With top notes of sage and honey.

~

He followed her all the way back

To a sleeping village where men spat

Whiskey on cobbled streets and

Cats urinated to mark their territory.

~

Go away they hissed to the fox

But the fox slept behind the rubbish bins

That his bride threw orange peel

and chicken bones in.

~

He killed a rat to woo her

and laid it on the kitchen floor,

And heard her scream of delight

when she opened the door.

~

His bride threw a butter knife,

A wine glass and an apple core.

Dragging his loot behind the bins

He knew their love was for evermore.

~