Tania McCartney (author) and I are thrilled to share our book Ivy Bird has flown overseas and will be publishing with the wonderful Blue Dot Press on April 7th. Blue Dot create books that “aspire to empower the next generation of global citizens with empathy, resilience, creativity, and the shared value of nature and its stewardship” and we are just so happy that our book has found a home with them after Windy Hollow. Exciting times! 
Category Archives: children’s illustration
New Book – Love Was Hiding
So it’s been a crazy year, and this is my third book for the year. What the? Considering how much work they take, its crazy they all ended up in the first few months of the year, but there you go. There will be one more in a few months, but until then, I’m going to enjoy the release of this one, Love Was Hiding by Jennifer Loakes, illustrated by me, and published by Windy Hollow.
To explain this book, I thought I’d share a bit of an overview from the press release and some images…
Love was Hiding is a picture book that showcases a child discovering the love that his mother puts in to the every day caring tasks. From neatly tying shoelaces, to patiently waiting at the bottom of the slide; from patching up a skinned knee, to running a bubbly bath, the story highlights the sometimes hidden ‘acts of service’ that mothers so lovingly do for their children.
Through each turn of the page, children will feel the warmth of their mothers love. Younger children will enjoy the beautiful soft illustrations, and follow the adorable rabbit family in the story. Older readers will relate to the day-in-the-life of the sweet child rabbit and learn more about their mother’s love.
A heartfelt picture book that will be treasured by both mothers and children, Love was Hiding is perfect for ages 3 and upwards.
The book had only 90 words or thereabout and it was tricky at first trying to work out how to communicate visually the beautiful concept of a parent’s love being there even if they are not. I ended up combining watercolours, iPad illustrations and Photoshop to create a kind of mystical rainbow (!) and a starry theme to the bunny’s world. I feel really happy with the outcome and hope if you track one down you enjoy it x
SCBWI Event
Yesterday I had my first crack of presenting to adults a bit about my life as a freelance illustrator and working as a book illustrator, and surprisingly – it was fun (for me at least!). I felt like I had heaps to say, after a long road (working in publishing for ten years, and then taking on freelance illustration life over the past 6 years).
The lovely SCBWI team in Victoria run quarterly events with authors, illustrators, and people working in the industry, and they are always inspiring. I was speaking alongside the knowledgable, engaging and lovely Kaye Baillie (who taught us all about her research process for her books) and inspiring, talented and also lovely Melissa Kiel (an experienced publisher/editor AND award winning writer!). I think it would crash my site to load my whole slide presentation (!) but here’s a little soundless video of my process (and please ignore the ridiculous amount of unread emails in my email account in background!!). It may make no sense, but perhaps to some illustrators as I shared my process working between digital and watercolours, using Photoshop and Kyle’s Brushes, layers, blending modes and mucking about.
New Booky – See Hear
Hullo! In April a new book is coming out, a book all about the senses, written by my pal Tania McCartney and published by EK Books! It features all the same characters of the first book Smile Cry – and that same clever flip-over format. Fun! My lovely partner and kids made a soundtrack for a little video about the book you can see here, and here are a couple of my favourite images from the book…
You can purchase the book from your local bookshop or from EK Books. Thank you!
Year of The Dog
Happy Year of the Dog! I have recently worked on a new picture book celebrating dogs, the Chinese zodiac and explaining about some of the animal/personality traits. This weekend in Melbourne we are having a little party for the book and to celebrate the Year of the dog! 
A bit of a delayed review of 2017…
2017 was such a big year for my work – I wanted to make a note for myself for some of the new illustration projects that really made my year…
- Birds – I loved creating little watercolours for sale on Instagram, and this lead to new things like prints and bird pins (more on those later)
- Books – I finished FIVE PICTURE BOOKS!! It’s pretty amazing how much I cranked out considering I only had two official days a week to work (but kind of made up hours double that – nights, naps, weekends etc)
- Markets – due to babies, I had a few years off markets but it was really fun and rewarding to do Finders Keepers again and meet online clients and friends face to face, and just chat and sell my work. Super fun.
- New opportunities – I started working with a card agent who works with overseas companies and I am going to begin a range with a UK client, who are awesome.
- iPad – this wasn’t exactly a project but I was nervous spending the money on one late 2016, and it has become invaluable in my work practice.
- Pins! I was thinking about doing one for ages, but was too nervous to invest in a run which only really works with 100 or more. But since then, I’ve done something like 8 designs and they’ve all sold out! So much fun creating new bird pin designs and sharing online, and of course wearing.
Pin Design
Finally, While my poor little bloggy crawled to the finished line in 2017, I was busy loading all my recent projects and busy bits and bobs on INSTAGRAM – its such a happy little place for artists to share! My page is https://www.instagram.com/jessesmess/ and you can see all my latest work there. In the mean time, here was my “top nine” Insta posts for 2017. 
Big thanks for reading, now I have to start musing on 2018…. Hmm, next blog post.
Finders Keepers
I’m excited (and nervous) that next weekend the mighty Finders Keepers is on, and I’m going to be there! I’ve been a part of this amazing market every few years (in between kids!) and to be back in their tenth anniversary year is super special.
My studio is a bomb site of artworks being prepared for the event – prints, little originals, cushions sewn by my mum, and lots of other goodies. Come find me!
Merry Everything!
A long time dream has been doing a Christmas book, and it is now complete! A new book with Windy Hollow called Merry Everything is being released in October, and it was so fun to work on. Tania McCartney wrote a beautiful book and it was so fun drawing animals in Christmassy action around the world.
Tania made this lovely animation with all the art from the book, and details on the book launch are below.
SaveSave
If Baby Could Talk
It’s the first day of Spring, and the release day for If Baby Could Talk, my new book written by Michael Wagner and published by Windy Hollow. It was super fun to work on as my baby was just the right age to model for me for this book, and was learning to walk as I was painting walking babies… hurrah!
If Baby Could Talk
If Baby Could Talk
If you are at a loose end tomorrow, we are launching this book at The Little Bookroom at 3pm, with champagne, cupcakes, balloons and hurrahs!
New Covers!
My poor bloggy has been a bit neglected, but not through me not having anything to write. IT’S BEEN A MANIC FEW MONTHS! But in a good way (although many colds and flus – not so good too).
However… Two new book covers have been released, with the books coming out with Windy Hollow both in September!
First of all is If Baby Could Talk, written by the wonderful Michael Wagner. I’m so excited about this book, it was just so fun and easy to work on, and can’t wait to see it in person. Windy Hollow shared this sneak peek….
And following that in late September will be my first Christmas book, with my dear pal and colleague (having now worked on three books together!), Tania McCartney. I didn’t realise until now how the covers are similar colours! But the content is quite different, this one all about animals rather than kiddos, and it’s a really fun concept Tania created.
I am just sooooo happy that I have been able to keep creating kids books… A dream I’ve had since I was a kid. Looking forward to sharing these in more detail soon. x
Jesses Mess 