Art for Pembral Forgets

A Creative Life, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, ebook, fine art, illustration, Narrative Art, Pembral Forgets, publications - publishing, published art, visual story, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

I’ve illustrated Pembral Forgets written by Steve Tubbs and in my last post I talked about my process of creating the cover and my leaf motif that flows through the book.

Well here, below, are some of the finished illustrations with the text so you can see what I mean.

Later on in the story there are some really large leaves… but as you can tell from the images above I depict leaves from a distance as well as nearer to hand.

I also use leaf shapes as logos on story related objects… for example in the photo below look for the leaf on the sugar and the market sacks. I do this in multiple places within the story in order to emphasize the fall leaves aspect of the story – and to visually bring the leaf motif and good food motifs together.

There are illustrations on every one of the 38 pages of Pembral Forgets… lots of leaves blowing through this book!

Since the author Steve Tubbs was inspired by thoughts of himself as a kid and memories of his own mother – I wanted my illustrations to have a warm soft nostalgic feeling in addition to the colors of Fall. So I used a cream colored handmade watercolor paper for my ink and gouache illustrations.

If the pages above tempt you to see the whole story. You can see it for free on Storyberries.com where they’ve published both ebook and audiobook versions of Pembral Forgets! Here’s the link https://www.storyberries.com/bedtime-stories-pembral-forgets-short-stories-for-kids/

And here, below, is what the printed artist book cover looks like. My leaf pattern reproduced well and I’m very pleased with the color reproductions! You can access the printed books here https://www.blurb.com/b/10507043-pembral-forgets

Since the warm, creamy, yet fall colors are what I wanted for the pages in the artist book reproductions – I’m also making the original artist book box (talked about in my last post) have a similar cream color on the book-shaped box edges where pages are.

I still have lots of work to do on the one-of-a-kind artist book box that will hold all of the original illustrations and text. Also there’s a few more pages for the one-of-a-kind book to do…. more about that in future posts.

And I’m in the process of making a webpage about Pembral Forgets. It includes a short conversation with the author, Stev Tubbs, as well as images of more of the finished art. You can see it here: https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/pembral-forgets/

But in case you think I came up with the cover and these illustrations perfectly right from the first: Here’s a leaf motif pattern I tried before hitting upon the motif and color scheme I finished with.

I decided this leaf pattern was too green and too uniformly regular. Then I proceeded to do the pattern I showed you in my last post and what you see on the Pembral Forgets finished book cover. But as a pattern design goes this more-green autumn leaf pattern was fine – it just didn’t fit the creamy nostalgic vibe I wanted for Pembral Forgets.

But I decided the green autumn leaf pattern would be fun fabric for dinner napkins for a fall table setting. You can access this fabric on my Spoonflower shop here https://www.spoonflower.com/designs/6316427-autumn-leaves-by-sueclancy

Speaking of good food and the fall dinner table: I made this soup this week and it was satisfyingly heart and tummy warming. https://gratefulgrazer.com/home/vegan-potato-soup/

I’m still happily reading “European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman” by Theodora Goss – and taking things a wee bit slower but I’ll see you here next Monday! Stay safe – and here’s hoping for a better new year for everyone.

11 thoughts on “Art for Pembral Forgets

  1. I love the way you have sprinkled the leaves as a subtle motif throughout the book’s illustrations even when they are not an overt focus. I have pinned that soup recipe on Pinterest too as I am always after new, delicious recipes. I never would have thought of adding sundried tomatoes to soup.

    1. Thank you!! Yes, I had fun hiding all the leaves! Lol!! Glad you’ve pinned that soup! I’d never have thought of putting sun dried tomatoes in either but boy were they perfect in this soup. The soup was easy to make and that was a bonus. Hope you and your family enjoy it whenever you have it. 😊

  2. What a treat to read the entire book! Once Momma’s food was introduced, the warm fuzzies flooded my body. The maple leaf on the sugar bag reminded me of maple leaf sandwich cookies from Quebec. They were a favorite when I was a kid. Speaking of food, when I checked out the potato soup recipe, the sun-dried tomatoes sold me on saving it to make.

    1. Oh good!! I’m so glad you enjoyed the book and got warm fuzzies!!!🤗 We all need those and I’m glad I could share some!! ❤❤ I had those maple leaf cookies too!! A memorable treat!! I wonder if they’re still being made…🤔? And I’m glad you saved the soup recipe…I’d never thought of sun dried tomatoes in soup before and they really make this soup feel like a warm hug! Enjoy it when you have it! ❤

      1. Yes, the maple cookies are still being made. I gave some to my daughter for Christmas a couple of years ago. I’ve made soup with sun-dried tomatoes before. They do add a special lift.

Thank you for reading and sharing encouragements!