time for rabbit-tea

Hullo poppets!

If you haven't already perused my 'exhibitions' page, chances are you missed this little series. I drew these last year to submit to the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Of course, competition is stiff, so like 2,000 other hopeful illustrators, mine didn't make it this year. After so many rejections, the Capricorn in me has reared it's sadistic little head and I have kept my promise to myself that I will enter every year until I can get in there- even if I'm old and grey!

Anyways, enough of that, here's the little story to accompany 'Time for Rabbit-Tea':

For better or worse, I work best after 4pm. It’s funny; after so many years working jobs that forced me into the habits of an early bird, my brain still refuses to work before midday. Early-morning starts coinciding with a shortage of coffee are so much the worse for everyone in the house!

 If I’m working on a very detailed painting, a large body of work or thinking a lot about the pace and flow of a storyboard, I find myself getting very tired after a few hours. Napping in the afternoon is the only way I can switch my brain off.

 Of course, it’s not really natural to sleep like this. Humans have something like a 90-minute sleep cycle, which goes through the motions of R.E.M., then a deeper sleep and then that sort of shallower window when you can resurface and feel refreshed; your body’s natural time to wake and use the stored energy in a useful way. Alarms interrupt all of this and can leave you feeling, well, alarmed. When I finally acknowledge the snooze button I’ve already punched in a variety of inelegant ways particular to drunks and the sleep-deprived, it is dark outside. You wonder, for a moment, whether it’s morning or night and it dawns on you that it doesn’t matter anyway since sleeping most of the day has not helped tick things off that growing to-do list.

 ‘Time for Rabbit-Tea’ is about a mischievous rabbit and the mad things that happen inside your brain when time becomes fluid.  

Have an awesome day wherever your heart may roam.
♥ Mel