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I have recently become obsessed with the period of Revolutionary France and many of the interesting characters who lived at that time, circa 1789 into the Napoleonic era. I have developed a great interest in the tragic life of the fascinating Josephine Bonaparte, thanks to a highly entertaining, well researched and annotated trilogy of historical fiction by Canadian author, Sandra Gulland. Her books inspired me to read biographies of this interesting woman who has been reduced to a caricature and footnote in history. I am starting with the life of Josephine and have plans for other notable women from that period. I feel that we have much to learn from the French Revolution and that there are many parallels in modern politics and life. I love researching and wish there were more hours in the day to burrow down the many rabbit holes that lead from one to another. I am not sure what triggered this sudden interest but am compelled to pursue it. Perhaps it comes from my French ancestry. I am working on paintings of Josephine as well as writing and illustration in my linocut technique. This is a spread depicting a Victims' Ball, a social fad that was said to occur following the "Reign of Terror" circa 1794, after the fall of Robespierre. Victims of "The Terror" gathered to dance wildly as a release from the horrors they had experienced under the Jacobins. Some historians from the French Revolutionary era describe these balls in which women and men sheared their hair at the nape of the neck where the guillotine blade would have fallen. The women purportedly wore red chokers for the same reason. The historical accuracy of these accounts is contentious but it makes for an interesting story. 
This is the preliminary sketch of a Victims' Ball. I usually do my roughs in felt tip pen but this was so detailed I thought it would be more efficient to use pencil and eraser rather than continually retracing as the drawing develops. I got into the habit of working with pen on tracing paper from my days as a retail layout artist.
This is the scan of a detail of the inked linoleum carving. The image is bigger than my scan bed and in this case I pieced together the black and white print lifted from the linoleum plate. I am so accustomed to thinking in reverse after all these years in printmaking, that I have trouble discerning reality from its mirror image. I can, however, read text backwards with great facility.
This is the scanned and assembled black and white print before I cleaned up some of the unnecessary marks. I sometimes get carried away cleaning up the line and wonder if I'm not removing some of the hand made charm. This dilemma arose when I switched to colouring digitally and was able to zoom in to the nth degree.
And here is the cleaned up black and white print.
I wanted rich detail in this art and added patterns downloaded from a great site, CG Textures (the image link will take you there). You can download many textures for free and if you need a higher res the price is reasonable. You are allowed a certain number of free downloads per day. I also colourized the line brown to give it a more historical feeling by adjusting the sliders in Selective Colour under Image-Adjustments in the Photoshop menu.
I often use a textured background under my line work and colourize it in Photoshop with Hue/Saturation. This is one of my favourites, a scanned brown paper bag.
Et voila, all the layers get flattened in the final stage. The process may look rather laborious but I have gained speed over the years and still enjoy the combination of hand carving and digital work. La variete est l'epice de la vie. This is a literal translation of "variety is the spice of life," and probably grossly inaccurate as I am a mere novice in the French language department, and mon ordinateur n'a pas des accents:-)
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This was a fun exercise for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Canada East Chapter. Peggy Collins, the creative genius behind the blog came up with the idea of pairing an author and illustrator with a few key words. The creatives have no contact with each other and the results are often hilarious. I was teamed with Stephanie Maidens and our attributes for were - Name: Luke, Species: Kangaroo, Occupation: Lumberjack, Location: Cave. You can see Stephanie's wonderful story with a surprise ending, and more mash ups at The Children's Illustrators' Studio.
 Artist and designer, Patti Gay, kindly invited me for an interview on her blog, The Illustrator's Market. You can see my interview and many other talented artists, including Patti Gay herself!
 Lino-carving supplies including sheet of linoleum, clamps, carbon paper, carving tools, glass paten to roll ink on, roller, burnisher and baren for hand printing.  This happy illustrator has never injured herself because she clamps down the lino and carves away. This makes for safer, faster carving.  When the carving is finished the plate is inked. I usually use black ink and colorize in Photoshop.  The inked lino is placed on my tabletop press and a blank sheet of paper is placed on top. If the lino is too big I will hand print using a baren, burnisher and lots of muscle.  The lino is rolled through the press and paper carefully lifted off.  Et voila! The print is ready to be scanned and coloured in Photoshop.  This health clinic is driving around Phoenix right now. I hope to get down there to see it one of these days - just love the desert! I know size isn't everything but this is my largest assignment to date!
Here's the book trailer for a picture book I illustrated recently for Skinner House Books. It's a beautiful creation story written by Laura Alary.
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AuthorI am an illustrator with many years of experience in publishing, editorial, advertising and corporate. My illustration technique is linocut, printed and scanned with color applied in Photoshop. I love mixing old school and digital technologies and now am learning to paint in oils and with a wacom tablet. I'll post my learning curve here. Variety, the spice of life! Categories
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All images copyright ©️Sue Todd Illustration
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