J. B. Bartram

Hi there, #portfolioday ! I’m an illustrator, graphic designer, and potter who specializes in book illustration (currently illustrating my 5th kids book & working away slowly at a graphic novel) & design/illustration for NGOs & other similar organizations! 📖 www.jessicabartram.ca

WIP: these funky caterpillar mugs. I am absolutely obsessed with them already even though they’re taking approx 1 zillion years to underglaze 🥲

I saw a thing on one of the other curséd apps where everyone was drawing their cats as humans so obviously I had to jump off the bridge too.

Just watched Coppola’s Dracula for the first time in 30yrs (saw it in my friend’s basement at 12, great choice, no notes) and man, what a delightfully unhinged & gorgeous movie?!

We were in Cancún for the last week (partner’s family trip) & I was mercifully able to escape the resort to see some ruins/the town/the Mayan Museum in the hotel zone, which was depressingly underfunded, but had some lovely pieces & also ruins behind it down a jungle path!

We just got a little airplane treat — on our way home from a family trip we were offered $1200 (each) to delay the final leg of our flight (from YYZ to YOW) for 6ish hours. Did we get home around 2:30am instead of the expected 8ish? Yes, BUT the future travel potential!!! Where shall we go?!

Horse, probably (& its board in a barn for many years). Also a new kiln & a good space to run it in that isn’t my garage.

Lovely limestone plaque carved with the face of an owl! 🦉❤️ The solemn gaze from across the centuries gives an air of ancient wisdom! From Egypt, Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 400–30 BC. Met Museum 📷 by me #OwlishMonday #Archaeology

QRP with your moon art! I still love these Moon Bébés I made in the spring (even though they didn’t seem to resonate with people much at markets, etc 🤷‍♀️).

Ok, shifting to GlazeMode (because I suddenly realized at lunch that I’d made more than enough for a full bisque kiln & am nearly out of shelf space)!

I’ve been mulling over flatfish plates for a while & they finally made it to my pottery desk today! I’m so excited to see how these turn out (I have some fun ideas for the glazing 👀).

MORE GUYS MORE GUYS MORE GUYS!!!!!!!! (I really enjoy making these little freaks!)

Had the urge to make some teeny tiny guys today!!! And I love them!!!!!!

Introducing Gurpo

Calling all #Ottawa / #Gatineau based folks! I will be hosting an English-language collage and ecopoetry writing workshop next Weds Oct 7, 6:30-8:30pm @ A Love Letter Paper Boutique. We currently have 2 registrants. Need 3 more or the workshop will be cancelled. Come get creative + cozy with me!

Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise.

The best thing about this planet is that every few days I'll learn about an animal I've literally never seen or heard of before, like the Nilgai which is just a stupidly massive antelope

ME: *writing in my journal with the sole aim of pissing off future historians and archaeologists* I returned to my home - which is built in the usual style - by the normal way, and prepared and ate dinner in the way I often but not always do

My neighbour when I was a kid knitted and he loved Kaffe Fasset designs (and made both of the ones in this photo!!) 💖

Minou (my mom’s cat, but my special little boy)

CANADIANS, this petition to regulate data centers in Canada is open until September 24, please sign! www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

“The population of the world’s heaviest parrot, the kākāpō, has surpassed 300 birds for the first time in 75 years, after a record breeding season triggered by the mass fruiting of a native New Zealand tree” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...

I think option B would make him…too powerful?! (I support this plan)

I then went to a used bookstore and bought The Way the Crow Flies & the writing was equally beautiful, but man…I don’t know if I’ve ever read so brutal and stomach-clenching a book. Apparently Fall on Your Knees is even more sad so I’m waiting a few books before I tackle that 😅

I just got a new one this summer — Fayne by Ann-Marie MacDonald absolutely enchanted me and I was so sad to have finished it because I didn’t want to leave its world.

One last Dolly thing. Dolly, ever perceptive to national differences - made a special Canadian booklist of her Imagination Library project with books that would appeal to Canadian kids. That’s caring on a whole other level. imaginationlibrary.com/ca/book-list/

Here's the official announcement of Parton's passing from her reps, along with the request that in lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be made to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library at www.imaginationlibrary.com

Make a novel smaller (Canadian 🍁 culture edition) Countryside Tips

We have Eastern Fox Snakes at our cottage (on an outer island in Georgian Bay) and this one stuck around on this branch long enough for me to go grab my real camera & take some glamour shots 😍

The Sameer Project is so, so incredibly vital. Please help.

People who don’t know the difference between ‘entomology’ and ‘etymology’ bug us in ways we cannot put into words.

100% gotta be Tanith Lee’s Black Unicorn. That book is both a keystone in my personality and would make for a rad ttrpg setting!

Sweetest boy (two modes)

We all love The Committee!!!!!!

EVERY STORY ABOUT BEAVERS FOR THE LAST DECADE READS LIKE: WE RELEASED A DOZEN PADDLE TAILED LITTLE FREAKS AND THEY IMMEDIATELY BEGAN A TERRAFORMING PROJECT THAT REVERSED A CENTURY OF ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE IN THREE WEEKS.

Next Market!

So embarrassing when people think the point of reading a novel is to know the plot, so a summary is just as good. The plot isn’t important, you rube. You absolute simpleton. The point of reading a novel is to find out what the characters are eating and start thinking about what you want for dinner.

hope the tardigrades on the moon are having a good time

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

you’re a Parisian waitress in 1947, you show up to work and immediately get a 16-top of vampires in your section…………i’d quit on the spot

Out now on Overinvested: Claire and I share our many, many thoughts on episodes 4-7 of The Vampire Lestat!

This is one of my favourite mug designs & is inspired by a few illuminated manuscripts’ marine weirdos!