Funday Stickers from Moody Days

When Jamie Camplin managing Director of Thames and Hudson, publisher of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book first discussed the book with me. He tentatively enquired if I could add another section to the themes I had already planned, one just a tiny bit more up beat, a set of happy stickers and illustrations.

He was by no means forceful, it was just a suggestion. I liked the idea, it seemed a real challenge. I had already done the Bad Day Stickers, Stuck and Love and all were a reflection of difficult times. It seemed a good idea for the balance of the book to cover a more optimistic frame of mind.

 The Funday title was a photograph of art on a balloon by Oliver aged six

But Happy......? Actually, I ended up calling the section Funday, well that was hard for me to get my head around. Mainly because, my personal work exists partly to cheer myself up through the process of writing, drawing, exploring all the thoughts and feelings that make me and others I know feel bad. So the end result is often tinged with sadness.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I am a very negative person most of my childhood memories in particular reflect this. Just because unfortunate things have happened, it doesn't mean that everything need always be bad. That is the great thing about having the confidence in oneself as a creative being. Because in that world you can make anything happen.

So taking Jamie's suggestion on board I racked my brain for moments of happiness. All my happy memories of recent years have been with my own children and partner, ironically.

Luckily, for one of the illustrations for the book, I found the perfect collage already done, on a page in one of my current sketchbooks.

So for the accompanying writing I wrote down the true story that had inspired me to do the collage in the first place. For those of you who haven't seen the book here it is. 

The first lollies Oli ever had, he carried
around with him all day unopened. He'd never
had a lolly before, because his mum was very
strict, usually. But today she had relented,
when the shop keeper offered them, for free.

He held them tight all day, not once asking
if he could open them, his mum was surprised.

When his big sister came home from
school, he went and sat down next to her on
the sofa. He told her quietly that he had
something for her and he gave her one of the
lollies. She helped him unwrap his, before she
unwrapped hers and then they sucked them
silently and happily together.


 As silently as it was possible to suck a lolly.

 

Also included in this blog is the photo of Oliver trying to touch stickers that I had just stuck up in the street and holding the very same lollies mentioned in the text. 

Oliver Elephant and Castle 2004

Bad Day Stickers by Emma Calder

The day I started to design the bad day stickers that ended up in Emma Calder's Moody Days sticker book, I was feeling really fed up. Also I was thinking about my father who had died some seven years earlier.

 Bad Day Stickers

This is the piece of writing that triggered the stickers off.

On Bad Days

On bad days I think of the saddest things like the day my father died for instance. (I also think of my own mortality.)

I had been sitting in the hospital for about four hours my father had very bad pneumonia and couldn't breath without an oxygen mask. He hadn't spoken once but, then he said, “I feel so sad.” Those were almost his last words.

Then the nurse came and asked me if I wanted the priest to come. I didn't know what to do, so I said: “Yes” even though we were not religious.

The priest stood by my father and my father opened his eyes and said, “Oh fuck.”

And those really were his last words. I knew then that getting the priest had been wrong.

Two hours later he was dead it was exactly 9.20pm.

Later I slept.

I began to fall

and fall.

Then a dull thud.

He had landed somewhere.

When I woke up, I went out to the shopping centre.

Somehow I did what I did.

But it was odd, my feet didn't touch the ground and my head was up to the roof.

Floating home out of my body.

Then to the hospital to pick up his things.

The grey plastic bag with his shoes, wrist watch and old clothes.

I know it's still down the garage somewhere.

Orginally the bad day stickers were cut up to make a long thin book, that is partly why the woman featured was so long and thin, but it was also to reflect the strange feeling of tallness I felt after my father died.

 Bad Day Woman

Google Me

It's been a long Summer Holiday and I am just getting back into work, even though one child is not even back at school yet (due to the rebuild of the once iconic Pimlico School) and the other is ill and off school. 

As I try to pick up the threads of what I was working on before the holidays, I have been going through my notes and ideas for stories. Flicking through my file, I came across the piece of writing that inspired the cover of Emma Calder's Moody Day Sticker Book and also one of the other illustrations featured in the book.

Emma Calder's Moody Days in Foyles April 2010

Black Paper

A large piece of black paper dropped in front of her face.

The tears pushed towards her eyes.

A pain spread down her throat.

She felt sick and desperate.

Her head buzzed and buzzed.

The room became smaller.

The windows had gone.

She walked from wall to wall, up and down.

A trickle of brightness came from nowhere.

Dust particles danced in the light.

Now I am grown up I google myself all day long

Emily The Inventor

Emily The Inventor by Emma Calder

When I was digging through old stuff, I found my first ever attempt at a children's book 'Emily the Inventor', which I wrote when I was thirteen. It was a story about a little girl, who hated doing things and was very lazy. She invented loads of gadgets to save her the bother, unfortunately she got very fat, so she chucked them all away and wrote a book instead. It was very before it's time, or maybe not. People were very aware in the sixties and seventies about environmental/ consumerist issues.

They just forgot it all in the eighties.

I never did anything about getting it published, I suppose I thought it was too scrappy looking. Or I had just moved onto other things and thought I could do better. The story of my life...

So before I forget, if you haven't seen a copy of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book yet, please check it out. 

In the Shops

My book is finally out in the shops and I am sorry that I have neglected this blog for a few weeks but, I have been busy finishing off a children's book. Paper Angels for Bloomsberry which will be published on October 4th 2010. 

Also I have been writing a proposal for a film submission, which I so hope to get funded, but I have to keep that numb feeling going in my head when it comes to expectations and concentrate again on Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker book. As this Friday 19th March 6.30 - 8.00pm is my London book launch and signing at Beaconsfield art space in Vauxhall. If you are interested in attending please email Maudie Gunzi at Thames & Hudson to be put on the RSVP list.

Moody Days is dedicated To all the friends I never see any more...

And today, one of them rang me up from Australia, because he had just been walking down the street in Melbourne and in the window of a trendy little bookshop was my book. He was very impressed, went inside the shop and asked to see the book. It was shrinked wrapped, so as he is a very shy person he didn't dare ask the shop to unwrap it and as he hasn't sufficient funds at present to buy the book, he was unable to look inside and see that the book is actually dedicated to him. I was so pleased to chat to him on the phone, I forgot to tell him.

And here is the illustration that ironically inspired me to to do the dedication, which just goes to show how different days and different moods can transform ones attitude totally.

I know I was feeling very bad about one old friend the day I did this.

The lost generation

Today I woke up and my daughter came into my bedroom and exclaimed. “You know most of my friends can't even sew a button on!”

And I thought of this button picture that I did back in 2005. It just made me think of her friends. The lost generation (at least when it comes to buttons), the result of their parents success. 

 

At least my daughter can sew buttons on really well. And mine too.

another button picture from 2005

What is it with people, too lazy to cook, or even sew, or mend stuff. The throw away culture. 


Two stickers from my 2008 XXXmas Sticker Book. On the theme of toooo to much.

 

 

Here is an illustration that nearly made Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book, but didn't.

Don't forget it's valentines day next week. As if you could.