Recap - December 2023
The Queen of Crime and a boy with only scissors for hands.
If I felt like a running monk last month, I felt like a running juggler this month. But I’m not going to grumble about how busy I was in this post. Instead, I want to tell you about my early Christmas break with my mum, which was filled with literary and theatrical delights.
Taking a week off from my book last month really paid off. It recharged and cleared my brain and creativity. I managed to finish the text and (more or less) all rough sketches for my next authored book just in time for my mum’s visit ✌️Her visit crashed with some illustration events and Christmas parties and I had to miss them but family comes first.
One thing you should know about my mum is that she is a big Agatha Christie enthusiast. I grew up watching Poirot and Miss Marple TV series with her. Over the past 20 years, we visited almost all places associated with Agatha Christie in the UK, from something well-know like Burgh Island (the setting for two of Christie’s novels, And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun) to something more niche like her parent’s grave and a pub she frequented. I thought our quest had came to the end. But this year she found out a life-sized bronze statue of Christie has been unveiled in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford, near where the detective novelist resided for more than 40 years. So we took a train and a bus just to see the statue. Thanks to reduced train services, it took three hours but we found it worth it.
The Christie theme continued. We went to see her world longest running play, The Mousetrap at St Martin’s Theatre for mum’s second time (and my third time). In the play, a group of seven strangers find themselves snowed in at a remote countryside guesthouse. A perfect setting for a born-chilling murder! The audience is asked not to reveal the name of the killer when they leave so I’ll keep the promise 🤫
“witty, bittersweet story of an incomplete boy left alone in a strange new world.”
- Sadler’s Wells
Talking of wintery theatre production, we also went to see Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells. You might think of Halloween when you think of the Tim Burton’s masterpiece about a boy with only scissors for hands, but it’s a winter fairytale. Matthew Bourne captured the heart of the movie and cast his own magic. And, oh the the music of Danny Elfman and Terry Davies! So haunting yet beautiful! After I saw the stage, I kept thinking how it would feel like to come up with such an iconic and ingenious character like Edward Scissorhands. I imagine Jarvis felt what Tim Burton must have felt when he came up with the character for his The Boy with Flowers in His Hair . I hope I could create an amazing character like these one day.
Talking of winter classics, Christmas won’t be Christmas without Nutcracker! I did classic ballet for 15 years and my mum started doing ballet when she retired 10 years ago. Ballet is our shared passion. This year we went to see English National Ballet’s Nutcracker at London Coliseum. There are many versions of the story and I think ENB version is relatively new. But it had everything you hope for - dazzling Christmas party, young romance, exciting flight scene, dancing snow flakes, a journey to a magical kingdom via exotic lands, and even a hot air balloon! It was a pure winter magic!
One of my dreams is to make a picture book about ballet, especially Nutcracker. But there are so many books out there already and some set the bar really high. I have gone at it over the years but nothing has come to fruition yet. I’ll keep at it though. Here are some attempts in the past:
Illustrators’ Fair
I shared a table with my friends at the Illustrators’ Fair in King’s Cross, London, every December past five years but I didn’t participate this year to spend more time with my mum. So we visited the fair as customers this time. When I had a table in the past, I was too wary to leave the table so I hardly looked around the fair. But this time I enjoyed looking at each stall and buying some illustrated goodies.
I usually design my own Christmas cards, but this year has been so hectic that I gave up on the idea. So, I asked a little help from some of talented creative elves at the fair. Here are the cards I bought. Aren’t they gorgeous? I wish I would receive one of these!
5 Questions for…
Lastly, I was interviewed by Chantal Valerie for her Substack, 5 Questions for… Like me, Chantal came to illustration via a very long, roundabout way and she felt quite inferior for a long time to illustrators who had formal art education. To encourage creatives like us, she started an interview series called 5 Questions for… In her newsletters, she only features artists who have not gone to art school but have found their own path to creative success. She interviews practitioners of not just children’s book illustration but all sort of art disciplines. The most interesting question I was asked was “Imagine you could get into a time machine and travel to the past or the future. You can, however, only meet yourself. Where would you go – to an older or younger version of you and what would you say to yourself? Click the link below and find out my answer!
So that’s it. That’s my December. My last newsletter of the year will follow shortly.
Speak to you soon!
Momo x
Any comments and question will be welcome!
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You certainly packed a lot in to your Mum’s trip - glad you had such a good time and it’s refreshed you for your book too!