U is for Underneath #atoz2025 #booksky

Underneath the Sink. This was the prompt for my art group’s February sketching challenge. It’s the A to Z Challenge, and I’m continuing the illustration theme. I usually feature illustrations from my books, but… well, finding a Z was just as difficult.

My ten Princelings books and the two for younger readers, Messenger Misadventures and Cavies of Flexford Common all have illustrations. Most are chapter headings. Cavies is designed for younger readers (c 7 yrs old, Key Stage 1 in UK educational parlance). That has illustrations throughout.

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The A to Z is a blog hop, so do go to other people who are doing it. You can find the links here.

Underneath the Sink

My art group had the bright idea of doing a sketching challenge in February, with a prompt every morning, and we could post our efforts on a private Facebook group when we’d done them. You didn’t have to do them, and it was just for fun.

One of the prompts relatively early in the month was ‘Underneath the Sink.’ I was glad I’d had a delivery of toilet rolls a week or so before—they’re really easy to draw!

I enjoyed this, and most of us agreed it was surprisingly difficult. The most difficult thing for many was simply getting a half decent view. This was one where I had to take a photo, as I could neither bend down, nor sit on the floor to see it! I should take more random photos and draw some more odd things.

More Illustrations

I have done an exhaustive search for other possibilities for the letter U.

There are a lot of ‘Inside’ illustrations, even entitled ‘Inside somewhere’. ‘Underneath’ does not appear anywhere. I decided that, as Fred was hiding in the basket in the first picture, he must be Under Cover. And perhaps the pirate ship caught in the storm could be Under the Weather. As it happens, a short while later it was underneath the waves, but maybe I’m trying too hard.

The funny thing is, I do have a short story that appeared on the blog but nowhere else with the title Uplifting something or other. But I can’t find it, although I know what it was about, but never illustrated it.

I start by using pencil (Derwent Cassell HB or 2B) on paper. Then I use an inkpen over to create the line drawing (I have a set of three Pilot Drawing pens, nos 01, 03, and 05). After that, I usually erase the pencil. By book 9 I was doing all my illustrations on the iPad, and I could take a JPEG copy of a hand-drawn castle, and amend it, or change it about a bit, rather than start again. At present I’m using the iPad from scratch, using the Tayasui Sketches app with my iPen.

Today’s chapter illustrations were from book 2. the Princelings and the Pirates, and 3. the Princelings and the Lost City. And I’ve added Willoughby’s book since he spends a lot of his time under cover in there too.

I’m Jemima Pett, author, blogger, illustrator and guinea pig wrangler. My interests are in fantasy, environment, science (inc. fiction) and thrillers, to name a few things. This is my nth AtoZ Challenge. Mostly I talk about books. This time I’m talking about something I do without much thinking about… my illustrations.