Russellscape Archives - Laurie R. King

The Triumph of the Maryorama!

November 18, 2016 by Laurie King 14 Comments

It’s been almost eerie how the wider events of this past week have found echoes in my own working life. On the dark side of things, it’s brought me face to face with the final scenes I had written for next year’s Lockdown.

Not that the book has anything to do with politics (thank goodness), much less with the man who will be occupying the White House during the coming 48 months. And not (sorry) in a way I can explain here, because a) this is a book you won’t see until June, and b) they’re the final scenes: do you really want a spoiler? I will say merely that the book’s key end scene, the one that materialized out of nowhere—

(Indiana Jones’ leap of faith into the abyss)

—to tie together this many-pieced, barely-controlled sprawl of a story that I’ve been niggling at since the day I agreed to write a short story for Lia Matera 16 years ago (“Paleta Man,” in Irreconcilable Differences)—that key scene, written many weeks ago, came into very sharp focus for me during the days following the election. Why the characters’ act matters. What it means, for the characters, for the author, for the reader.

Anyway, it’s been odd and filled with mystery—awesome in the proper sense. And because I’m still working on shaping the book so that ending is both unforeseen and inevitable, you won’t get to look at it for months and months. Sorry.

BUT.

More immediately, and also filled with mystery, thrills, and odd electional reverberations, there’s this:

The Maryorama is finished!

You and I have been building this thing (formerly called Russellscape) since I ran a contest for The Language of Bees, in 2009. And in this, of all years, I am happy to have built a work of community creativity, one that literally brings together a spectrum of people celebrating the characters we adore. The original winning entry in 2009 was by Sara McClelland:

This year’s eight winning panels I announced and showed here yesterday. They join Sara’s panel and 48 others (hmm…) done over the years. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present:

Maryorama

The Travels of Russell & Holmes

(If it’s not embedding here, you can pop over to my YouTube channel.)

What do you think?

Take that, cut-throat divisiveness! A pox on your houses, two-party system! We in the Russell world know what matters, and we get on and do it.

As we will during the 48 months to come.

Maryorama winners!

November 15, 2016 by Laurie King 8 Comments

The Maryorama is finished, polished, and will be up soonon YouTube. But in the meantime–our Maryorama contest has its winners!

The Grand Prize Winner—with a complete set of Russells coming her way—is a lovely depiction of Justice Hall with the rays of the sun falling on it, a subtle digital image by:

Katie Olson

First runner-up (a set of the posters done by Team LRK) for her charming Holmes & Russell on a hillside, is:

Susan Echaore-McDavid

Six runners up (who get an assortment of the smaller-sized posters from what we used to call the Illustrated Russell & Holmes) are:

Gloria Gonzalez

Linda

Sara Phillips

Charlie Shene

Rebecca Turner

Tarryn Vavrushka

All the panels I got are fabulous, and look AMAZING in the final version. So happy about it!!

And I should say that these images, as well as the ones in the original Russellscape (plus a few that arrived a bit late for our video guy to incorporate) will eventually appear with their credits on the Maryorama page on the web site (here.)

But watch this space VERY SOON for:

Maryorama

The Travels of Russell & Holmes

Mary-o-prizes

October 18, 2016 by Laurie King 4 Comments

Two days left to win!

GRAND PRIZE: a complete set of Russell & Holmes paperbacks,

including Mary Russell’s War & other stories

FIRST RUNNER-UP: Four full-sized illustrated broadsheets

FIVE RUNNERS-UP: a collection of art from

“The Illustrated Russell & Holmes”

For instructions, go here. And–work fast!

Travels & Travails

October 13, 2016 by Laurie King 3 Comments

[A letter, to those of you who don’t see my News.]

I’m not sure if you, my dear Friends and Readers, have all just been super busy with the new academic year, or too swept up in the election to focus on anything but else, but the deadline is fast approaching for a contest that so far has only generated one response. And although it’s a lovely entry, I was really really hoping to have some new panels to put into the new, professionally-created video of The Travels (Travails?) of Russell & Holmes. (Here’s Sabrina’s, of Dreaming Spies. Gorgeous, no?)

There are prizes!

GRAND PRIZE:

A complete set of signed Russell & Holmes paperbacks,

including Mary Russell’s War & Other Stories

FIRST RUNNER-UP:

Four full-sized broadsheets for framing

(“A Venomous Death,” “Birth of a Green Man,”

Pirate King movie poster, and “Dreaming Haiku.”)

FIVE RUNNERS-UP:

A collection of 8½ x 11” art from

“The Illustrated Russell & Holmes” (including the four above)

Any scene, any book, from The Meeting in Beekeeper’s Apprentice to the balloonist uncle or Christmas tales in Russell’s War. Acrylic or needlework. Photoshop or Pastels. You simply need to have your image meet the colors of the frame like Linda has done here:

And truly, you don’t need much artistic talent, which I proved by printing off a bunch of Japanese art and taking out my scissors and glue stick:

Please, let’s make this a really fun project that can become a proper video on YouTube, showing the world how the Friends of Russell know how to have a good time!

The deadline is now October 20^th. Instructions and the frame to print off are here.

And please, please tell all your Russell-loving friends!

Miss Russell’s Brilliant Friends

October 3, 2016 by Laurie King Leave a Comment

Many and many a year ago, in a (LR)Kingdom by the sea, we started celebrating various events (new books, Library Week, St. Swithun’s Day) by running contests. Some of these involved art, others words. We did crossword puzzles, pirate haiku, Russellscapes, “My Dream Library”—you name it, we’ve done it (next up: videos.)

When we moved the web site this past spring, one of my demands was that these “fan” contributions be preserved. Despite the huge number of bytes all that art took up, despite the need to find high-res files for some of the older pieces, despite the hair-pulling of any number of programmers, developers, and (yes) authors, we kept our hands on all that art.

And now it’s there. Most of it anyway (let me know if we’re missing yours!) and more of it will be added as we locate missing files or fiddle with those we have to make them less minuscule. Take a look at our new FUN STUFF tab on the web site, beginning with the soon-to-be-reinvented Maryorama (the art piece formerly known as Russellscape.)

Some of the art is by Team LRK (ie, me and the Photoshop Guru, Robert). Much of this (my web people had to shift me to a bigger, faster server) is of a printable size, in case you feel like framing a Pirate King movie poster for your wall

or printing off some Dreaming Haiku sheets

for your book group.

There are also printable crossword puzzles, some samples of fan cosplay and tattoos, and even the original proposed cover for Beekeeper’s Apprentice that caused the author to quit before Russell’s memoirs even got underway.

And of course, the Maryorama (Russellscape), with a (yes!) contest, for prizes of a complete set of Russells (including the mouthwateringly gorgeous Mary Russell’s War) or some of those printable posters in full size. The contest is in its last days, since it closes the 15^th, so sharpen those pencils, run your mind over your favorite scene from the Memoirs, and get yourself creating.

Or puzzling, or printing, or just enjoying the amazing work of the Russell & Holmes community. Start here.

The Maryorama begins!

September 21, 2016 by Laurie King Leave a Comment

The transformation from Russellscape to Maryorama begins with this fantastic piece by reader Noémia Pereira, showing a scene from Dreaming Spies:

Don’t you just adore this? Wouldn’t you like to join the Art March that is the Maryorama? Wouldn’t you like to win–a complete set of the Memoirs, or some Team LRK art?

Click here for the rules, and get your creative juices flowing!

Remember the Russellscape!

September 13, 2016 by Laurie King 2 Comments

The Russellscape

is a series of images contributed by all you Friends of Russell (& Holmes), that literally comes together, creating a moving panorama of the duo’s travels. It’s the modern version of the Victorian card game called the myriorama.

(See how the path ties it together? and the sides match, with variation? This deck of 24 cards makes for 1,686,553,615,927,922,354,187,720 variations. Or so they claim, I haven’t counted them myself.)

We’re doing a new Fun Stuff section of the web site with art, crossword puzzles, and a new Russellscape—or, as we’ll call it once it’s unveiled, a

Maryorama.

(Clever word play, huh?)

And to encourage you, there are prizes!

GRAND PRIZE: a complete set of Russell & Holmes paperbacks,

including Mary Russell’s War & other stories

FIRST RUNNER-UP: Four full-sized broadsheets for framing

(“A Venomous Death,” “Birth of a Green Man,”

Pirate King movie poster, and “Dreaming Haiku.”)

FIVE RUNNERS-UP: a collection of 8½ x 11” art from

“The Illustrated Russell & Holmes” (including the four above)

Here’s how simple it is (Hey, even I managed to do one!):

Step One & Two: watch the Russellscape video and print out the instructions and frame (VERY IMPORTANT!) here.

Step Three: Be artsy. Think of a scene (the Marriage? Meeting the Emperor of Japan? Coffee in a Bedouin tent? Clarissa and Billy in a hansom?) and do your thing, be it oil, pastels, digital, needlework, collage, etc. For ideas, reminders, and various excerpts, the book page is here.

Step Four: scan and send it to me.

Oh, and Step Five: win a prize! I’ll announce the winners on October 15. My video magicians will wave their electronic wands and transform the Russellscape into the Maryorama, a thing of community beauty.

And pass the word, to any of your friends-and-relations with an interest in Russell and art. The more panels, the better!

The XX-rated Russell?

September 2, 2016 by Laurie King 2 Comments

So a funny thing happened on the way to a Russellscape…

Since changing over the web site a few months ago (if you haven’t seen it, take a look!) we’re been working on ways to bring over the impressive amount of fan art that’s accumulated in the old site. We’re also working on a renovation of the old Russellscape, a set of images that join to scroll across the screen, like the view from a train window.

I’m setting up a contest for October, trying to get some new images for the Russellscape illustrating The Murder of Mary Russell (A young Sherlock? Or Mrs Hudson!) and the stories in Mary Russell’s War (14 year-old Mary! The Wedding!! Holmes at Christmas!!!). And because people entering the contest need to see how it looks, we converted the old site’s ‘Scape and uploaded it onto YouTube. Only to find a rather…interesting series of “Recommended” videos attaching to its, er, tail end.

Oops.

No, the original of that does NOT have a black CENSORED bar across its key places. The original, and its many (many!) partners, left very little to the imagination. And although it cracked me up, I had to admit that most people happily viewing the Russellscape would be somewhat taken aback when a man’s…full frontal popped onto their screen.

So we’re trying again.

And maybe those of you with Safe For Work viewing histories on YouTube (cat videos and book trailers, anyone?) could take a look there, and encourage the YouTube algorithm to set itself into a less XX-rated set of Recommendeds. Or to be safe, you can just view it on the Russellscape web page, here.

Fingers crossed.

Russellscape, redux!

January 18, 2015 by Laurie King 2 Comments

[Coming soon: a 2016 Russellscape contest. Stay tuned…]

At the center of Dreaming Spies is a book—

A folding book of illustrated poems, some eight inches tall and three and a half wide, with a slip-case to hold it. When stretched out, it forms a panorama of the very road you travelled along to get here: the Kisokaido.

Years and years ago, in some museum gift shop or other, I came across a Victorian-era game called a myriorama, where cards with various scenes on them are laid side to side to make an endless landscape. Every so often I would take out this miniature deck and play with it, wondering how I could do something like it.

Then I came across a freebie piece of software that let you feed in images and scroll them across the page. Aha!

I put out a call for images, making a contest out of it, and was so happy (if not surprised) at the creativity of LRK readers.

However, for some reason, the software developers withdrew their program. For a while it was available with strange cartoon advertising figures across it, but then it was gone entirely. Sadly, I archived the Russellscape.

In the meantime, my very clever son was growing up and doing a degree that was, basically, making things march across a screen. Surely the kid owed me a favor or two…?

Ta Daa! The all new, improved version of the Russellscape, marching across a screen near you.

And because this new Russell memoir has at its heart a book about a road, what better contest for 2015 than a Russellscape?

To get you started—and to prove that even a person with no artistic skill at all can play this game—here’s my panel for the Russellscape:

It’s a collage of (mostly) Hokusai art. And it follows the STRICT RULES of the Russellscape, namely: its sides match the colors of the Russellscape Border. Surely you can manage that, too?

Prizes are a signed hardback of Dreaming Spies and posters of the Dreaming Haiku project (more on this later). But mostly your prize will be the wild adulation of your peers and my profound respect and affection.

You have until Feb 10 to get me your panel. You can do your panel on any of the stories, but if you want to use Dreaming Spies, there’s a lonnngg excerpt, here. For the Russellscape rules, entry information, and the border to get you started, download and print the instructions here.

And as always–have fun!

Russellscape winner

May 11, 2009 by Laurie King 5 Comments

Please excuse the suspense — all of the Russellscape entries were so great, it took me a while to consult my panel of expert judges and pick a winner. In the end, we decided on Sara McClelland for her illustration of The Language of Bees (number 18 on the Russellscape page) as well as her two other lovely entries:Sara’s winning design will be made available as a T-shirt in the LRK Cafepress store, and she will of course recieve one herself. Congratulations Sara, and thank you to everyone who sent in their wonderful artwork!