Art in the Blood: a Beekeeper’s Gallery

“Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest of forms…”

Feeling artistic? For this spring’s Twenty Weeks of Buzz, we’ve opened four contests to help you express yourself: the Beekeeper’s Gallery, the Mary Russell Colouring Book, the Illuminated MyStory, and the Russellscape.

You can also revisit the Beekeeper’s cover art through the years.

Art Contest One: Beekeeper’s Gallery

Here’s the place for all the visions of Russell, Holmes, and their world that don’t fit within the frames of a Russellscape. We’d particularly love to see what you make of the Green Man, but any image, from past or present stories, will do fine.

You may find some of the Russellscapes helpful, or wander through the individual book pages for photos and ideas. You can also head over to the VBC gallery for inspiration. And anything you can photograph or scan is great: not just paintings, but etchings, wall frescoes, rooms converted into Russell’s World spaces, soft sculpture, you in a Russell costume, YouTube videos, you name it. (Fanfiction? That goes elsewhere.)

Then let your imagination loose on the world of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, and send us a picture of the result. (Make sure to include a copy of the permission form too, so we know that you want us to use it.) You can also snail-mail your submissions, or if you want to hang onto the original, a color copy of your submission, to:

PO Box 1152
Freedom, CA
95019

Either way, send us your art work by April 12 for a chance to win! (Click on each picture below to enlarge.)

Bret Herholz, portrait of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes	Marisa Fife, Russell and Holmes in Wales (8/9/96)	A fan dressed as Mary Russell
The winner’s edition of the Venomous Death broadside, whose name was drawn from among Independent Bookseller receipts.	By Elina Kivimäki from Finland	An ink drawing of Holmes and Damian taking a stroll on the high street of Orkney. By Rori Shapiro.
Painting by Rori Shapiro.	A version of The Language of Bees cover by Sonja Lodder, from Rotterdam.	‘Spring Reflection’, by Tamra H.
Mistress of the Hounds, by Bret Herholz	Beth H, dressed up as Russell	Beth H, dressed up as Russell
Beth H, dressed up as Russell	Kelly Walsh dressed as Russell for a costume party.	Kerry Kilburn, based on Locked Rooms; digital collage

Art Contest Two: Mary Russell Colo(u)ring Book

By popular acclaim, we’re adding a project to the Beekeeper’s Gallery: The Mary Russell Colouring Book. For this, we need a simple ink drawing that depicts a scene from one of the books–Kim’s picture of Russell at the American Colony (from O Jerusalem) is an example (click to enlarge):

If we get enough, we’ll put them together as a colo(u)ring book. And we’ll need the permission form from you, so we know that you want us to use it.

At the end of the Twenty Weeks in May, we’ll vote on the submissions here and add it to the prizes of a copy of the new broadside for “Birth of a Green Man.”

Let the colo(u)ring begin!

Holmes and Russell, by Tamra Arnold	Russell reading, by Tamra Arnold

Art Contest Three: Illuminated MyStory

In the spring of 2009, as part of the online celebration called “Fifteen Weeks of Bees,” Ms Mary Russell posted a series of fifteen blogs on her MySpace page telling how she had come to send her memoirs to one Laurie King. At the end, the fifteen episodes were arranged for printing into a booklet called “MyStory”: here.

To mark the 2010 celebration—“Twenty Weeks of Buzz,” which leads up to the April publication of The God of the Hive—we’re turning “MyStory” into an illuminated manuscript. For instructions, details, and inspiration, visit the Illuminated MyStory page, or download the PDF.

Once you’ve illuminated Russell’s words, you can either scan the pages and email them to Bees[at]LaurieRKing.com, or post them to PO Box 1152, Freedom, CA 95019. Please submit your art work by April 19, and then check back at the MyStory page to see the submissions and cast your vote on April 26.

Art Contest Four: Russellscape

The Russellscape is an endless landscape of Russell and Holmes-related images, set to unroll across the screen like landscape from a train window. In spring 2009, we held a contest for the best Russellscape panel as part of the Fifteen Weeks of Bees, with the winning design made into a T-shirt at the LRK Cafepress store.

We’re doing a similar contest this spring, so head over to the Russellscape 2010 page for more details on how to submit your own. The deadline will be April 26, and you can vote for your favorite on May 3!

Cover Art

Even before The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was published in January of 1994, the book wore some interesting cover art. Below are a few examples, including one that St Martin’s Press proposed some months before. Fortunately they listened to their author’s plaintive cries and changed it to one of greater dignity.

Click on a cover to view a larger image.

The original proposed St Martin’s Press cover	Japan	United Kingdom	France
US trade paperback	US mass market (1)	US mass market (2)	UK mass market
Germany	Holland	Poland	Denmark
Sweden