'Alderney Just So Postage Stamps'

by Rudyard Kipling

The Alderney ‘Just So’ postage stamps from 2007 depict Rudyard Kiplings delightful ‘Just So Stories’. Which were written for his eldest daughter, Josephine. They were originally accompanied by black & white pen illustrations by the author himself.

The six Alderney Just So postage stamps on a sheet with a watercolour illustration of an African plain.

The Brief

The brief was to pick six of the Just So Stories that I would like to illustrate. Basing my illustrations, where possible, on Kipling’s original illustrations. I was asked to work using watercolours. This I did, but over the top of the watercolour, I added a black key line. Using a brush & Indian ink, to further reference Kipling’s original illustrations.

In some cases, I re-worked Kipling’s black & white illustrations very closely. Checking with Guernsey Post, re the copyright, as normally I would not reproduce an image in this way.

The Stamps

With ‘How the Elephant got his trunk’ I have kept the main part of the illustration, just tweaking things to fit better into the stamp format.

Alderney Just So postage stamp with an illustration of How the Elephant got his trunk.

With other’s, for example, ‘How the Camel got his hump’ Kipling had produced two illustrations. I combined the two, re-working and composing them to fit into the stamps size.

Alderney Just So postage stamp with a watercolour illustration of How the Camel got his hump.

I love Kipling’s illustration for ‘The Cat that Walked by himself’. However, if it was reduced down to stamp size, the cat would be tiny. So I enlarged the cat and tried to keep the flavour of Kipling’s picture. With the cat walking through the trees.

Alderney Just So postage stamp with a watercolour illustration of the Cat that walked by himself.

However, some of the original illustrations did not lend themselves so well to being used as a stamp. So for ‘How the Leopard got his spots’, I created a more ‘representational’ illustration. That I hope sits comfortably with the others.