Gremlins

Printing, paddling and plans...

Hi! It’s me, Catherine Fortey - an illustrator and artist, turning voices and stories into pictures. You’re reading a free post from “The Quiet Blackbird”, where I talk about my illustration journey into children’s publishing, but often get sidetracked by the million other things my brain wants to share.

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Hello Swifts,*

See! This is exactly what happens when you’re late with a post. Everything gets pushed on, and before I’ve even noticed the calendar has clicked over to July! In an attempt to rectify the problem, I’m rushing the June post out to you today. Reset, and we will be back on track.

Last week I sent the paid subscribers among you a behind-the-scenes of the process for my first middle-grade fiction book cover. I hope it satisfied your inquisitive minds, and answered some questions you may have had about working with an art director and sales team on book covers. If not, throw me any questions in the comment section.

Knowing The Score Process

This month, I’m working on a studio tour and daily blog for you, so look out in your inboxes around the middle of the month.

What I’ve been working on in June

My Explore project with Bradford Producing Hub is swimming along nicely. After some very persistent tech gremlins, I finally have a second-hand MacBook that can speak to the RISO machine, and I’m playing around with some print and zine ideas.

As an extension of the Explore project, I had a meeting with Anna Franks who completely changed the way I look at marketing myself and my creative practice. Our meeting has left me with a long list of bitesize actions to take, so you might see some changes and improvements on here, my website and the socials.

I’m still paddling like mad underwater to secure an income for the next few months. Two micro grants have been applied for, as has a part-time barista job in a local cafe - do you think it matters that I despise coffee(?) - I make a champion brew though! I also have the seeds of a larger project percolating round my brain, if I’m brave enough that would mean applying for some big funding, and also is hugely contingent on whether I’m still a practising artist come autumn. We will see what happens…

July Plans

Haha! July is busier than December in our house - with both kids having birthdays, and the chaos that is the last three weeks of school term. So between two sports days, a school trip, a dress-up day, a musical, two birthdays, and a graduation celebration, I will be:

• Finishing up my Explore project for a sharing event on the 19th July

• Doing colour roughs for my final year project with Pathways and Usborne

• Writing a big funding bid

• Applying to more jobs and grants

• Trying to find a way to keep my studio space

• Meeting with my mentor

• Getting better at marketing myself

• Figuring out how to work AND look after the kids for 6 weeks of holidays

Forging through July, like Moses.

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Just a fistful of distractions this month:

1. These Best Bird photos of 2024.

2. I’m a strong proponent of ‘research as a leisure activity’ - ermm…you think?

3. Wow!

4. No hate for feral pigeons here, all birds are equal - except maybe seagulls, they need to work on their attitude 😜

5. Love a dance video, especially one with some *chefs kiss* styling and a tooonnnne!

See you at the end of July (sooner if you’re a paid subscriber), I’ll be the one crawling and crying,

Love,

*Not Swifties - although I am quite partial to a bit of Taylor every now and again.