is especially keen to illustrate novels and can bring balance to stories or text.

A picture lays a memorable scene down like and additional bookmark

So I have wanted to illustrate this book because it is among the best informing my inner voice about living culture, tradition and story-telling. The narrator has a firm, insistent and patient voice which also seems to maintain the view that wonder is the most valuable thing in the world.

He relates a long rolling great feats of memory concerning the oral tradition from start to finish. These stories seem to have an invisible line that crosses into fantasy without claiming to define where truth ends and pure story telling begins. As a patient listener I find solace here and amazement that I should be capable of hearing the same voices in the wind when alone in the hills or trying to make sense of my own theories and stories.

It is not illegal to have an imagination but seems that most stories need checking up these days. Today’s story-teller is more common to me as a gossip who never stretches to myth. Social political opinions are of less worth to them than their own casual opinions and importance. Stories these days across the media have dubious origin, cutting us off from history. Interesting seems to have lost value . Nothing is to be learned, the facts are just observations reinforcing of everyday life for the teller. Little weight is on honesty but usefulness.

An interesting tale with genuine pushing boundaries tests the listener to raise moral sympathies. I think as much solid ground as can be introduced stops a mythical story being mocking. More communication is helpful. Better stories, better illustrated.

As facts leave me searching for truth, the rural communities in these stories are close to nature and are close to my heart it seems. Certain not to be unanimous and feel lucky to have read it, I have been drawn closer not to my own geographical background but the wider part of the cultural mix of the British Isles.

A picture lays a memorable scene down like an additional bookmark

From a narration about the coastal community storytelling tradition in the Northern British Isles. My illustrations by BrightCalmillustrations

contd - How I hear these voices so loudly that they get between the modern life and reinform me of my traditional upbringing is the result of a good story teller. It shows that new things can be learned and shared in literature and I feel compelled to say they make a picture, like art. I am not sure how this is due to the usual actual lack of old things or older living people so find even more reason to share widely the content. These stories bridge cultures according to touching a human level which the imagination knows is right.

Highland landscape like this does still ring where there are the seals, playful and inquisitive. The landscape is truly as brackish and mellow as a dream of whisky and loose tongues finding the thread. The major characters in many of the tales and folklore not lost upon being heard again. I think it is in fact the prevalence of wild nature that they came to life for me but pictures help it stay longer.

Rural life in fact still prevails across the entire British Isles. As a hillwalker and climber I have travelled widely and been surprised off the beaten path. To find old stories alive again in my heart, oh deepest comfort.

The highly generous culture of people living close to nature with farming at sustenance level versus abundance. Nature in times past commanded greater respect for the bounty and difficulties it might bring. According to how large their habitat is animals are less removed in rural communities. They are part human as a measure of how sympathetic they are to their communities.

Seals have the greatest parts in these stories. They were considered very fondly as they might guide a fishing vessel home in fog or bad weather. As human friends they have human qualities. It is much more than how many fish they eat which is common today in my reading of fishing related news. To hunt them was a highly debateable activity and leads to much rumour and concern. Because they are friends it is a betrayal. Greed is treated with additional superstition by the whole community.

contd - The oral tradition which enhances a story has to deserve to be passed on. Many would not share a view but there would be also a cross generation tradition in which it would survive. Language was searching, to hear on many levels, many voices. Debate about the quality of the stories, the actual basis of them, the strength of the oral tradition does not need to be resolved for me to add some drawings too. It is true art can accompany many books. While modern life has side-lined the oral tradition, writing and reading have increased the ways to link people from further afield. Today far too much information is required to wait for the umpteenth time for the only narrator who remembers all the story to arrive. Time seems to move on and seemingly casual tales are not so important. The joy of reading can still deliver a message direct from the voice of another person not present like the oral tradition hand in hand.

It is true art can accompany many books. While modern life has side-lined the oral tradition, writing and reading have increased the ways to link people from further afield.

Narration or novel puts art on a page. My illustrations by BrightCalmillustrations

The king’s return. The king has been on a tour of Ireland. As the royal party returns a joyous youngest daughter runs first to her father. He banishes her for she is pregnant to an otter while sleeping in the lake then repents and raises the son. A key scene and so the main story begins including a fight for the throne, a lost child raised by wolves and a kingdom that must not to fall forever into corrupt rule.
The king's return
Media Acrylic
Size A3

Where are otters a symbol of animal treachery and seals are a victim of human greed?

Well these stories force one into that place where you have to unmake sense of the world. If in life most of what comes your way you cannot change a single little thing, is the difficulty helped by having all the answers?

Nature returns here with power. It is like secret keys and secret doors yet with common communication, as plain as day that mystery holds sway. There is a thread of narration linking the creature world to the human one. Much as people do themselves, no longer with an oral tradition, with less respect to whole stories. Walking the hills of North West Scotland where I found folk stories in the local bookshops and the tourist information, I also found the selkies and found them living like in stories too. I found meaning in the whole stories, much more than just a feeling but like a whole culture of storytelling coming from nature itself. It was odd to find the tourist board had the top stories rather than just the ones for visitors.

Story Illustration. I have tried to express that I want to draw and paint for a project. Drawing for oneself can feel to be temporary and it is helpful to have a project. It is difficult to tell who reads and shares what you do in a private space. Illustrating is a chance to be part of sharing a story. Even if it remains only theory the creative process is linking to a tradition or idea and allows the art to be informative.

These images here have related to a time of over 20 years yet are one ongoing project. First sketches after several readings, next some people who I wanted to share the stories with made them neater. Then why should they read what I was suggesting with just one or two. Then turning the pictures into colour, rehearsing the lines of the stories to understand them better has been harder but fits how I read fiction. It is a debate and not over in one sitting.

The real seal.Nature,which informs as it changes. Nature is the real real storyteller.

seals at play
Media Pencil Size A4 2 separate photos used for reference.

Seals at play.

There is precious little you can see in a seal’s eyes because they are looking at you so I had not got this right here. In my picture they are like land dogs instead of the sea dog of their real environment when I had got to meet them several times for real. Dogs let us close and let us watch as owners’ to please us. A seal will race to get back in the water wild enough to scare you but in water will appear calmly from anywhere, one or a dozen, all fear gone and will observe you. This picture was the first before I knew they were not part of my understanding of our realm but I entered slightly into theirs.

When rural Whether we have an oral, written or a highly industrialised tradition I suspect nature will be described in a different way while it will be the same thing. In the nature ruled North West Highlands it was this same thing that (for a change) was speaking so that, when I read a folk story it was true or at least as true as denial. Folk stories I once recalled for only a phrase or two I read all the way through . Certainly I have been in rural areas before, so maybe it was the storytelling tradition being passed on though in fact for me by literature I purchased out of good bookshops as in truth I heard little orally. Also most specifically it was animals like these seals, never before seen by me in such numbers and they were significantly also part of the tales here. There was a big feeling that it was the last outpost before nature to the place.

In general there is such a difference between countryside and the town that is human too. You cannot succeed in much in the rural parts unless you have a plan, good reasons or funds. Unlike the city and due to human settlement you probably cannot even get started. Increasingly as you get more rural it changes. It is not you that is most important but nature.

You cannot ignore the voice of nature. Whatever your determination is, it commands all life about you. Simple stories in an urban environment that you would pass over as silly are difficult to dismiss. Often they have to do with animals, perhaps now to you they are beasts now as more natural to the environment than you and a mystery. Though I rate seals for their effort I would not expect the folklore to be so easy to feel a habitat that has been destroyed. The link to me I believe was natural through the community highly dependent on tradition. Like a twilight, the mind had many future’s that were existing together. The environment itself had more sway and also respect for natural things was on edge, nature was not on a pedestal but customary to a lot of modern interactions. Undoubtably superstition could seem to hold on by a wish and a desire, letting nature have a say. In the community observation and quiet telling of stories in books and art was revealing this aspect still where the oral tradition was lacking in whole tales.

More on story illustration

I have also illustrated (next page) the key characters in a crime thriller too. As illustrated they are old friends due to a shared profession and I felt therefore they could meet in a personalised office. It is highly detailed because in fact the book is detailed and the two main characters would deserve that. Over many unfolding scenes other images could also have been sketches or subtle watercolours. I can now show pencil which when I drew this was very hard to reproduce is now captured on my galaxy phone better than a canon scan.

contd - Before it had to be darkened lines by software selection but sketches can still be original at the moment.

A novel is happening inside and outside this office

Media Acrylic Size 600 by 400mm
A picture lays a memorable scene down like an additional bookmark

The bigger picture

My favorite art is landscape and character painting is my aim but a lot harder for me yet. I like portraits and work from photos or life so am confident that when I find the right characters I will be able to represent them. For professional or friendly portraits I would prefer to meet the subject as feel the intuition of the artist is undeniable and to me it is not a portrait without acknowledging some personal detail or opinion. I would prefer to have a base I could declare that detail from.


Online at www.trailtour.online which is incorporating brightcalmillustrations

This presentation of work concerns images made to further discussion about the scenes portrayed in a favorite book. Coming from the oral tradition it evoked strong impressions of both the fantastic and ordinary things in life. I have not entered into any discussion with the writer or publisher of the book so do not name it more closely than it’s contents but would love the opportunity to illustrate the work of many novelists. Please contact me if you would like to see what I do for your text.