freyja and the brisingamen necklace

written by J. C. Enno and illustrated by Liz Mckenzie

Back in 2015, Liz and J. C. met on the social platform Instagram. They quickly found a mutual creative interest in the works they were both producing. Within a few months plans were made to collaborate on a fantasy book that J. C. was writing. The book is based upon Norse Mythology and Freyja in her youth. The children in Freyja’s village are falling ill to a dreadful disease. The story journeys with Freyja in an effort to find the cure. This book is intended for children around the age of 12 but younger children would also enjoy hearing the tale. In addition, adults might find this tale of interest. Now available in ebook, black and white illustrated paperback, and a special full color illustration paperback on Amazon.

Freyja and the Brisingamen NecklaceBy J. C. Enno Illustrations by Liz McKenzie — Freyja and the Brisingamen Necklace
By J. C. Enno Illustrations by Liz McKenzie

Chapter 2 Illustration: Light The PathSample illustration — Chapter 2 Illustration: Light The Path
Sample illustration

Chapter 2 Illustration: Old Man FolkeSample illustration — Chapter 2 Illustration: Old Man Folke
Sample illustration

The Magic Behind the Art of Freyja and the Brisingamen Necklace

In all of us resides a child begging to be set free.

Whether you are 1 or 110 that child within continually tries to escape through a variety of means. It could be a giggle, an impish prank, or like me through my art in using the whimsical language of lines, shapes, colors, textures, values, space and forms.

Here within me the magic of the Freyja illustrations dwell. The remnants of my inner child I hold close to my heart. Through my illustrations I am setting that inner child free for you to befriend.

In looking through my drawings would you ever guess that I am in my “golden years”? At the time of this writing I am 66 and 1/2 years old…hahaha…notice I added that half like a true child. For me the “golden years” could be described more like an endless palette of rainbow hues. Anytime I pick up a pencil or a brush I can ride that rainbow of color into a world beyond ordinary.

Early on as a child I was heavily influenced by the various artists that illustrated books, Especially pop up picture books. My grandmother (Mom Mom) had a collection of books that severely ran on the side of artistic. I believe they had belonged to my father when he was a child. He was born in 1928 so we are speaking of eras gone by. My Mom Mom would take great delight in climbing upon her step stool and reaching high into her brocade curtained closet hideaway to retrieve these treasured books. Mom Mom was only 4’ 10” tall with hair as white as snow. She wore it in two braids that crossed upon each other at the top of her head like a crown. She recognized in me a light glowed when I connected to lines, shapes, and colors. We spent many special times carefully looking through those pop up books. She would turn the pages like they were made of gold. I would climb inside those pictures and reside there for a while with Pinocchio and Johnna and the Whale. Those treasured times were like no other and have continued to bring me great happiness throughout my life forming the artistic being I am today. As I encountered things in the newness of being a child, the simplest of things touched me with a unique awareness. The color and texture of foods, my clothing, the forms of certain toys, the varied shapes, colors and forms in nature. These all serving to bring a great happiness that I filed way in my heart. Other things around me including, magazine advertisements, product labeling, music album covers, clothing styles, and the art of the 50s, 60s, and 70s always spoke to me finding a place into my soul. It has always been this way. I always recognized this place within me and went there frequently to find joy. The artistic elements of these sometimes ordinary things made my heart sing grandiose operas that often time led to an active creative response.

I have been creating big eyed kids since I was 15. At that time my drawings were a bit different. There has been an evolution of style that followed over the years. Throughout it all though those big eyes remained the focal point of my illustrations. Long ago, I was told by a friend that the eyes were thought to be the windows to ones soul. That thought has always carried through into my illustrations giving them a unique sense of personality and character.

As time marched on, adulthood arrived, though some might question that…hahaha. Over a span of 40 years I taught art to many real live wide-eyed beautiful young children. During this time, my head filled with images and memories of the eyes of the thousands of precious children that were in my care. These pictures in my head have served to light the fire for many of my big eyed drawings and paintings throughout that time and onward.

In 2015 I retired from teaching and became involved with the social media platform Instagram through encouragement of my artist son. The child within me began pulling forth the colors and lines that flowed onto paper and landed on the Instagram site on a daily basis. My big eyed kids started to fill my online gallery. There I met J.C. Enno. His writings touched me in an extraordinary way. At times while reading his words, I felt that he knew my very soul though they had not been written for me. The connection grew quickly and we collaborated on some short story pieces that he would write and I would I illustrate. Sometimes we reversed it and I first provided the image and he wrote the story afterward. These collaborations were shared on Instagram over the course of a few months. Around August of 2015 the Freyja journey took form. At that time J.C. suggested that we collaborate upon a story that he had in mind. During the next 3 years seventeen chapter illustrations and a front to back book cover were born.

In the very beginning I was a bit stuck. Though being stuck is not a place I visit often, the thought that I had to get this right in a BIG way intimidated me a bit. I overthought how to begin the illustrations. This happily was quickly resolved. J.C. sent me the illustrations one chapter at a time and then I would create an illustration for each. I finally realized that it was pretty simple…just put the pencil to the paper. Let the words connect with my inner child and let it all spill out. Retell a moment in time from the story in the language of art using not words but lines, shapes, colors, textures, and patterns. In over thinking sometimes the creative process can be compromised and ruin a potentially great illustration. I dug in deep and immersed myself in the story enjoying every word. I placed myself alongside Freyja and the others as an invisible character. Sometimes I became the actual character or characters as I drew them. Simply put, I took a leap of faith and touched my pencil to the paper and let the tale begin.

Much of the time preliminary drawings or sketches in formal sketchbooks did not happen. Much of the time this the way I work as an artist. There were times, however, that I did create inspired sketches for the illustrations while away from home. These ideas often landed on bits of paper I found near me. Napkins, advertisements with big margins, and paper towels sometimes became surfaces to work out ideas. It was not uncommon for me to have a church bulletin covered in drawings. At other times I would determinedly create illustrations and recreate them over and over trying out additional details or moving elements around. I used a variety of methods to achieve the best results I could make happen.

Old Man Folke was the first of the characters I drew. As I was getting my ideas formed onto paper, I realized that I was going to be challenged to keep all of the amazing and varied elements of the characters and their world straight. I made some short marginal notes to keep everything organized in my mind. Quickly I knew this was not enough and decided to make an indexed book of characters, places, and things to keep them arranged in my head. This indexed book served as a reference in the beginning until I clearly knew all of the elements of the book. In short time, I became familiar enough to put that indexed book aside and simply walk along side Freyja, her friends, her family, and the others in my heart. At all times it was important to me to get the details right. The clothing and all of its tiny nuances, the environment and all of it’s characteristics and details, and the characters and all of their amazing attitudes and characteristics needed to be spot on. I took all the information that J.C. provided in his image filled writings and placed them within me and let my heart and hand work with his words to form the visuals.

To explain in additional detail how each of the images came from within me is really nothing short of magic. I can’t really explain how each line found its place on the paper. I know the role that the elements and principles of design played were key. A good base knowledge of successfully using line, shape, color, form, value, space, texture, pattern, rhythm, balance, center of interest, etc served me well. I know how to use each of these without thinking. I had taught them on a daily basis for 40 years. For me that part comes like breathing. When viewing each illustration some elements present stronger than others. I would critique each illustration examining its strengths. Though the mechanics of the elements and principles were important they weighed secondary to the unique expressive act of creating for me. The magic lay In the personal artistic interaction of expressing and bringing to life a moment in time inspired by the words of J.C. Enno. This happened with each Freyja illustration and with great joy.

As I sat down in all seriousness to draw the Freyja illustrations I took into consideration that Joel and I had decided that he would send me each chapter of the story as he wrote it. I then worked on the illustrations in the order that they were written one chapter at a time. When I received each chapter, I would read and reread it and within no time connected with a moment in the story that I thought would provide great imagery. The drawing would then begin. Prior to that time there was a discussion with Joel concerning the size that the illustrations should be. Since they might be used in different reading formats I needed to figure out which format would serve us best. I did extensive research on the internet and finally chose to work in a 3:2 ratio. The illustrations were then formatted by hand. Using a special watercolor paper designed to work specifically with my watercolor markers, I penciled in a 8”x 12” rectangle to create the boundaries. The illustrations were then drawn within this measured area. Successive chapter illustrations were done in this same manner.

Creating each illustration in pencil was the first step. I used an ordinary #2 writing pencil to draw the images. This is a good inexpensive grade pencil that is neither to hard nor too soft. I emailed each pencil image to Joel upon completion to make sure it was to his liking before proceeding to inking. In that way I could easily change illustration elements as necessary by erasing and redrawing before making them permanent in ink. As the pencil drawings were completed each were either photographed or scanned to maintain a record of the drawing. These backups were sometimes used if there was a need to redo the illustration at a later point. At other times if extensive correcting was needed I achieved this by using a light table. Use of the light table made it possible to take my original work and tweak it by using tracing methods upon a layered paper.

The second step in creating each illustration was inking. I used Pigma Micron archival ink micro pens. I fluctuated between using sizes 01, 03, and 05. This step was pretty easy. It required tracing the pencil lines to darken them permanently. After each line was traced, I left the image alone for a day or so to let the ink set. Any pencil lines that remained were then erased. Sometimes there were issues in erasing that took away the top layer of the paper if I was not careful. Many times I used micro erasers to avoid sweeping into large areas of the image and compromising it. Other times, I took my pencil illustration, placed it on the light table, layered it with another watercolor paper and traced the image directly with the Pigma ink pens. In this way a clean illustration resulted devoid of abrasion from an eraser. As each inked illustration was completed, I took it to the copy shop and had an image printed onto watercolor paper. This effort was a time saver if I needed to do some extensive correcting. I could use the copy to make major changes without redrawing it by hand. Luckily, I never had to use the machine copied illustrations until I reached creating the book cook front and back. Scans of these inked drawings were also made as a way to archive the work for yet unforeseen needs.

The third step in creating each illustration was adding color. Color makes my heart sing! Prior to beginning the Freyja illustrations I had been experimenting using watercolor in my personal illustrations for a few months. I had tried many types of watercolor mediums including pan watercolors, liquid watercolors, tube watercolors, water-soluble colored pencils, water-soluble crayons and finally Winsor and Newton watercolor markers. I fell in love with the watercolor markers! They were perfect for my illustration purposes. They coordinated with the other watercolor mediums that Winsor and Newton made. When one hears the word marker you might think it’s like coloring with a crayon. In this case that’s not so. With this marker you can place a strong area of color directly on the paper and then use water to create graded or flat washes. These washes are also capable of layering. They essentially work just like the other watercolor mediums. The color was striking and laid on the paper perfectly. One thing that was a must with these markers was the importance of using them with the special paper that was created to go with them. I live in a small town in southern Indiana, finding the paper and markers was sometimes difficult. However, I was able to order it from the internet for a while. In the last year or so this special paper is not available anymore. I have placed phone calls to the company and searched for back stock all over the internet. Ive also searched in stores throughout the United States to locate it with no success. I learned that there had been some issues with making the paper and at this time Winsor and Newton no longer can provide it. I have hoarded a few pads of this special paper but they will be gone in time. Other brands of watercolor paper work ok with these watercolor markers. However, clearly the colors do not melt onto the paper as the original partnered markers and paper do.

As the illustrations ware painted, I took pictures of each with my iPad Pro. The iPad photos were acceptable but I felt I needed a higher quality images in order to progress further. To produce a good photo of the illustrations I exhausted numerous avenues. It seemed there was not a copy shop near me that could provide acceptable color images of my illustrations. I sought out and worked with many people from graphic designers to professional photographs to obtain the needed photos. I finally made a big decision and replaced my aging apple laptop and bought a magnificent Epson V600 photo scanner. I also loaded Photoshop Elements onto my new computer. This software has some pretty significant limitations but it worked great for most of my needs specifically stitching together larger scanned images.

After the watercolor illustrations had been successfully photographed there was the need to correct the color of the images as a whole. As I had worked with creating the images over several months it was clear that some of the original watercolor illustrations were slightly richer in color as viewed in a group. I wanted the body of work to be color cohesive. Also, color correction was necessary to insure great image appearance as viewed on a computer screen and eventually viewed in print. These are two different things entirely. That’s when I began looking for a third party or parties that had the knowledge to help unify the color in the whole body of illustrations. This third party involvement also involved putting the illustrations into files that supported both print compatible and computer screen reading compatibility. Due to an inability to immediately locate and find accomplished available graphic artists to do this, it took several months to successfully accomplish cohesive color correction and to make the illustrations file ready. Fortunately, in the end my talented graphic designer daughter in law was able to do this for me.

The final step in completing the illustrations for the book was to design the book cover. This was a process that took multiple redos. As I worked on the front cover illustration I was also aware that lettering was going to play a big part in the design. I was interested in designing the word Freyja with a certain “look”. One that when viewed was immediately recognizable. It was important that the lettering effectively work in order that future Freyja books would have the option to use the same identifiable lettering with success. Joel and I worked though several images until we agreed upon a final illustration and lettering style. In addition to the front book cover design, a back cover design was needed as well as a spine image. There were many design elements that had to be considered while creating the full cover including correct format size, bleed margins, and planned areas that would not interfere with added text.

As a final word about the creation process I feel I need to mention the importance of a good knowledge base of integrated subjects. When I was teaching art to young people, I always would remind them of the value of other subject matters in the act of creating art. From my experience with creating the illustrations for this book I used English, Math, Art, Social Studies, and Technology. Without a good combined working knowledge of these subjects the illustrations would never have made it to publication.

Finally in a most heartfelt and grateful way I must say in that I am still in awe and amazement at the way this book came together. I am truly honored to have met and worked with J.C. Enno whom I consider a brilliantly gifted author and friend. I can’t thank him enough for allowing the child in me to shine alongside his brilliant words.

What a journey…”Let’s go find father”…

Peace,

Liz