the pixie in the chair
Well hello
Welcome! If you've found your way here, I'm guessing you'd like to know a little more about me. I'm flattered. <3
I'm a French teacher living in London. I moved here from a small town in the south of France because I wanted to be somewhere that felt creatively alive.
I made my first book when I was about eight years old. It was about a girl who couldn’t wait to open her Christmas presents, and of course I illustrated it. It seems this habit started early.
I’ve always been drawn to storytelling in all its forms : cartoons, novels, comic books, films, musicals and more recently ballet. I love a story with nice music, or visuals, or message or that can simply make me laugh. So I hope this is what I can share with you :D
Looking for me?
Instagram - @penandcandlepublishing
Artwork, updates and works in progress
TikTok - @bottomofmybag
Mostly silly animations and headcanons
Pinterest - @penandcandlepublishing
Where I collect ideas before making things
YouTube - @penandcandlepublishing
I occasionally post long animations on there, OCCASIONALLY
Letterboxd - @lisa_candel
What I watch when I eat, along with all my questionable taste in films
Why i created Pen & Candle Publishing
I never planned on making an official “brand“. But when I looked to publish my first book, I realised that legally, it was better to have a publishing imprint. Thus was born Pen & Candle Publishing. It’s a play on word with the last name of both of my parents, so that I can acknowledge both of my roots (since family names are doomed to only represent the father’s side).
I was so proud of my pun (I love puns) that I started plastering it everywhere, except I then disappeared behind it. It became too much of a brand, so I changed it. Now I’m the one selling and Pen & Candle Publishing is just the nice logo on your receipt to make it look more official.
I quite frankly dabbled in a LOT of things. I can get interested very easily because I am curious by nature.
Besides, this usually helps me figure out what I like and keep, and what was fun for a while but won’t follow me later on in life.
I have tried coloured pencils, watercolour pencils (never actual watercolour, I’m too cowardly for it, it looks really complex, props to all watercolour painters out there), pottery painting (very fun, I might go twice a year until all my kitchen utensils are personalised), comic books (so much fun, but way too time consuming), blogging (still ongoing as you know), short films, animation (still doing that a little), script writing, theater writing (both of those never really went anywhere apart from the time I co-wrote a short film with a friend), acting, digital illustration (Clip Studio Paint, in case you were wondering), photo editing… and probably a few other things I don’t remember at the top of my head.
Either way, you’ll find all the ones that stuck around here :D
What I make with my little hands
Where I find inspiration
*inhale cigarette* I stare into the depths of my soul.
That would be the short, commercial and “inspirational” answer.
If I want to give a real answer, I have to quote a fantastic but underrated animated film.
"You have… big eyes?”
“YES! Big eyes, very big, because they are full of wonder! Eyes that have always seen the wonder in everything! Eyes that see lights in the trees and magic in the air! This wonder is what I put into the world, and what I protect in children. It is what makes me a guardian. It is my center. What is yours?"
North - Rise of the Guardians
I always try to keep my eyes open and spend a lot of time looking at my surroundings.
It might be my ADHD, but I am subconsciously and pretty much constantly on the lookout for something pretty, funny or interesting. I am the type of person who will walk head up, looking at architecture and take a pole in the head
(it has genuinely happened before, I broke my glasses…)
Because of this, I can find inspiration in many things,. Sometimes it’s something obviously meant to inspire, a huge painting, a ballet performance, a film. Other times it’s something as silly as a single line in a tumblr shitpost or the people sitting around me on public transport... or a goose chasing off a kid because it got too close to its nest.
The obviously-meant-to-inspire kind is usually why I leave the house. I go to the cinema on my own, and casual viewing is not in my vocabulary: I'm either dressed for the film or dressed for the opera. I go to exhibitions mostly to stare at dresses (the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A ended up shaping a ball scene in my next book). I once ran through London in heels to catch a ballet, and spent the interval sketching one of the costumes.
I also read old stories closely, and with a healthy amount of suspicion. Grimm's fairy tales, Dracula, anything where the hero doesn't quite deserve their happy ending. That's how Carnita started: I wanted a textbook vampire, not a sexy one.
And some of it comes from the smaller, quieter things: a stop-motion film that made me feel seen, a game about waiting, an old woman on the tube with a sketchbook full of birds. Most of it ends up cut out and glued into a notebook, in case the cloud disappears.
I have found that if you keep your eyes open, you might find yourself noticing a lot more wonders in one day (granted probably some awful ones too but we shouldn’t let those be the center of our focus).
If you'd like to see what happens to all of this afterwards, the essays live in bottom of my bag, and the gallery is where some of it ends up.