COLLABORATION: Sidekick Books

About a year ago I got involved in a collaborative poetry and illustration project with publishers Sidekick Books, an offshoot of Dr Fulminare's Questionable Arts. The book is based on a 1960s guide to British bird life - all the poems in the book are based on one of the birds listed, and each has an accompanying illustration of the appropriate bird. Well, the book arrived in the post last week and it looks marvellous (it's a very high quality print). I have three illustrations in there - a collared dove, a robin, and a blue tit. I created them with cardboard and paper cut outs, materials, and collage bits and pieces before laying out the elements and photographing them. I then also photographed some suitable bits of text relating to the birds in question and created layers on layers digitally. I am very pleased with how they turned out in the book (I'll dig out the originals shortly and share those too).

The poets I'm illustrating are really talented - Matt Merritt, Beth Settle, and Caroline Crew (her post about the book is here). 


And if after all this, you're keen on having your own copy, you can buy one here.


PS: apologies for the appalling pictures...it's quite difficult to hold open a new book, manually focus and compose a good image all at the same time it turns out!