Illustrations by local artist Jeff Blackburn featured in children’s book Alphabet Dreams
By YUANTONG ANITA LIU
East Toronto artist Jeff Blackburn contributed his illustrations to his first children’s book, Alphabet Dreams And Other Poet Tree Scenes, recently.
The book is written by his friend Virginia Jahyu and features Blackburn’s illustrations.
“It (Alphabet Dreams) has a slightly more advanced vocabulary than most alphabet books. It is giving kids a wider breadth of knowledge as far as what words are out there and concepts and ideas,” said Blackburn.
He said Jahyu came to him with the project when it was fully written.
“She (Jahyu) and I ended up having a number of meetings and going back and forth with different concepts that I created to match each of the little vignettes that she had come up with. So, each letter is its own standalone little rhyme and little poem.”
According to Blackburn, the imagery for each letter can help facilitate and explain what those concepts are and play with certain ideas. He utilized “very simple and subtle things” in the imagery to help explain what was going on.
“A quick example for the letter ‘J’, there are people dancing from June until May and so being able to show that through the window I did a number of different trees. We’re able to show kind of seasonal change happening throughout the image.”
Blackburn said the imagery and the poetry mesh nicely together to give a fuller picture of the story.
East York artist Jeff Blackburn. Photo: Submitted.
Living in the Woodbine and Danforth avenues area, Blackburn moved to East York more than two years ago with his wife and two young children, looking for “a little bit more space and a more solid community.”
“It is nice. We are surrounded by young families right now and very close to the kids’ school,” he said.
Blackburn grew up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, moved to Toronto in 2003 and gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University. He majored in the studio painting, drawing and black and white photography; and minored in art history.
“I was always drawn to the art and always wanted to find something to do in the art,” said Blackburn.
Asked about future projects, Blackburn said he is always working on several different studio works and commissions.
“I’m in the process of our final stages of a children’s book that I’ve been working on with a doctor for different doctor’s offices about needle hesitancy,” he said. “So hopefully I’ll be able to finish that up and it’ll be showing up in doctor’s offices all over Ontario in the near future.”
Blackburn and Jahyu are very happy that their initial run of Alphabet Dreams was sold out within 48 hours after release. They are now looking forward to finding a publisher and releasing the book on a wider scale.
“One of the next goals of the book is getting a digital version online and making it more accessible,” said Blackburn.
