Charming & Cute Illustrations By Ella Frances Sanders

Ella Frances Sanders is a writer out of necessity and an illustrator by accident. She currently lives and works in the city of Bath, UK, without a cat. Her first book, Lost in Translation – An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words is an international bestseller, and her second book The Illustrated Book of Sayings – Curious Expressions from Around the World was published in September 2016.

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Hello? Everything? Absolutely everything? Yes, of course, I understand. See you tomorrow, during the most unreasonable hours? Excellent, until then.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 25, 2019 at 8:56am PDT

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It is hard not to think. It is hard not to think about everything, everyone, everywhere, all of the time. It is hard to know where to put that thinking, to know what it should be turned into, to know how to move through days when the prevalent feeling is often one of the world being packed up around you, like a stage set being dismantled after a production, chaotically dismantled by people who seem to understand nothing of what it actually means to be human, what is means to stand in the quiet of a forest, what it means to hear the hum of a bird’s wings. We carry on because we need to do the laundry, because we need to strongly love people, because there are still countless small astonishments to be found in between the long hours for those who are looking.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 24, 2019 at 2:29am PDT

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Quieter places in the swirl.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 20, 2019 at 9:27am PDT

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You can build a lot of things around people, about people, and sometimes this is a very good thing, and other times it takes you apart, abruptly and neatly, at the seams. It is the day dreams, the night thoughts, the possibility that maybe everything makes a little bit more sense than you thought it did before.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 13, 2019 at 10:39am PDT

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Looking at Jupiter and its four largest moons through a shared pair of binoculars is a new and very beautiful pastime.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 9, 2019 at 10:33am PDT

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A man and his snail take shelter from the rain. (Newsletter no.109 goes out in something like three hours.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 6, 2019 at 4:18am PDT

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There are occasions when a person must use words in order to say things, when what is actually needed might be something entirely other.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 3, 2019 at 10:06pm PDT

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The direction of things (one can add sarcasm if and when necessary).

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jul 2, 2019 at 10:36am PDT

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From a list of things that will happen sooner, or later.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 28, 2019 at 9:27am PDT

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The season of sunflowers is breathing down my neck, the countryside is beginning to look full of itself, and I’m glad for anyone who thinks that talking about clouds is a perfectly suitable pastime.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 25, 2019 at 12:11pm PDT

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Pieces of Eating the Sun, an octopus that I might never tire of. For one reason or another, I like the idea of sea creatures knowing more and knowing better than we do, holding on to things we consider unimportant, and having some kind of say in the weather.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 21, 2019 at 10:07am PDT

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Always and every year, in June. A halfway point of well-this-is-all-very-tiring, the lushness of the trees, the looking backwards and forwards, the sea that looks more than blue, and nothing else, except wonderful.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 17, 2019 at 12:46pm PDT

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A selection from both last week, and the coming one: Small illustrations for quite charming people, an ongoing desire to escape but not lose one’s mind, mountains you’ve never dreamed of before, and a midweek transatlantic flight—they say if you smell rosemary while travelling, your body clock won’t even notice the next continent.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 8, 2019 at 4:27pm PDT

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There is beauty but also a danger in this, the idea that if left unattended for long enough, a truth ceases to be true at all. A true thing long enough only for short attention spans, and a lot of people unable to see truths because they are quiet, slow-moving, unremarkable.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 6, 2019 at 10:16am PDT

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Out of sorts.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Jun 2, 2019 at 5:38pm PDT

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It is not easy to understand how life is nearest to acceptable at 4am, and sleep can be the very furthest.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 31, 2019 at 8:09pm PDT

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Also solitary bees, and the single red carnation you picked this morning, the stranger blue light at the end of damp days, how most people will be kind if you let them. It’s very important, I think, to look for things to love when many parts of the world seem to be slipping through our fingers—find things to love, and then fight so as not to lose them.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 22, 2019 at 5:07pm PDT

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I haven’t been very sure, lately, of where to find silence. That which seemed quiet before is now shouting, relentless, and the spaces that promised calm now seem chaotic and imposing—put another way, I think we have have filled the planet too full of things.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 17, 2019 at 6:43pm PDT

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Unashamedly, certainly, one of my favourite pieces from Eating the Sun. (In the illustration within the book, this octopus resides in a deep, ink-blue sea, one arm grasping at a sailing boat, the scene playing out silently under an explicitly luminous moon.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 15, 2019 at 5:53pm PDT

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The precarious state of things, of planet and time and of trying to organise one’s feelings about mostly everything, mostly all hours of the day.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 14, 2019 at 4:33pm PDT

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Amongst other things, of course.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 13, 2019 at 7:10pm PDT

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More, or less, what I think of when somebody uses the term ‘nightlife’. (The 106th newsletter goes out tomorrow, if you would like to sign up beforehand.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 10, 2019 at 4:22pm PDT

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The day has consisted largely of thinking about how wrong we were (and continue to be) about so much, how if nothing is done the seas will likely contain more plastic than fish by 2050. Then again, last night I gently took a moth back outside in twilight, and it’s alright, I suppose, if the world is happiness in very small and tender amounts.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 8, 2019 at 3:16pm PDT

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Notifications of changing people, impossible to keep up with. Besides, if you change too much, then you might no longer be the sort of person who remembers to mention that.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 6, 2019 at 5:01pm PDT

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I try, where possible, to avoid this breed of thought (for it usually ends in large sighs and desperately wanting a mountain), but there are times when one is rendered quite immovable by such a question—where, where do I put yesterday?

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on May 2, 2019 at 3:43pm PDT

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It is a Tuesday, and I’m up in arms about everything—trees, how certain species of blossom only smell at night, the sun on the backs of black animals, the things that people say to each other in the mornings before they leave for work, and the reliability of water reaching boiling temperature.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 30, 2019 at 10:46am PDT

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Some people will never realise this, some will recognise it too late, others just in time, a significant quantity will commit it to memory, and enough might know it from the beginning.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 27, 2019 at 5:10pm PDT

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Tomorrow will mark the 105th newsletter, and this end-of-April one contains some paintings that I’ve visited repeatedly in dreams since first falling in love with them, a few thoughts on the importance of art in the midst of planet-panic, and a sentence that I was pleased at myself for writing (if you do not currently receive my newsletter and would like to, you can sign your soul up on my website).

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 26, 2019 at 3:04pm PDT

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Once you have realised just how exactly it is that trees breathe (or anything green for that matter), you cannot ever go outside again in quite the same way.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 24, 2019 at 4:04pm PDT

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It doesn’t bear thinking about, a version of tomorrow that contains a burnt planet and a handful of sorry humans. Nothing, nothing, nothing is as important as solving the mess that we have created (and it is sickly impressive, our staggering rate of destruction), if we want to be able to wake up to rain for much longer, if we want to love people the way we do now, if we want to tell stories about how we cared, not stories about how we cut our only home to pieces, then lit a match. (Illustration from a chapter in Eating the Sun.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 22, 2019 at 10:15am PDT

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Hello? Yes? What’s that? Oh, a newsletter you say. The 104th newsletter, tomorrow? Excellent. Count me in. (You can sign up for this on my website, under ‘newsletter’, surprisingly.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 19, 2019 at 5:42pm PDT

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The cockroaches are not always up to speed.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 17, 2019 at 11:17am PDT

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One of three quotes that were lined up to be included in Eating the Sun, and the only one to miss out. It isn’t in there, but it is here, on the night before the book’s release—really, that’s just as much of a contribution (sort of).

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 15, 2019 at 7:02pm PDT

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The periodic table, as seen (found, soon to be found) in Eating the Sun.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 14, 2019 at 7:48pm PDT

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Details from the book, details that have haunted me in good (for the most part) ways for well over a year, details that probably deserve to see the sun.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 13, 2019 at 6:51pm PDT

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Nobody can tell you what to feel in the days leading up to the publication of your third book, and certainly there is no knowing where your heart is going to run off and out to on the day itself—nobody can hand you a list of instructions, or a checklist, and say 'Here you are, follow these and everything will be just swell'. It isn't possible to project or to plan ahead, not really, and the beautiful ordinariness of the chaotic-smash moments that encircle our everyday do not let up. (Tomorrow is the 103rd newsletter, and the last one to go out before the publication of Eating the Sun on Tuesday.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 12, 2019 at 10:06pm PDT

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We took a short break for lunch; I chose the picnic blanket and you chose the small blue planet to our left.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 8, 2019 at 7:20am PDT

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The weekend games.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 6, 2019 at 10:04am PDT

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The month of April, Act I and Act II. (Perhaps April is an idiot, perhaps it’s someone humming quietly to themselves, perhaps it’s a very good reason to unfurl with reckless abandon.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Apr 4, 2019 at 7:09pm PDT

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Window cleaning. (Tomorrow’s newsletter talks about time, and about my new book, but mainly about time.)

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Mar 29, 2019 at 9:10pm PDT

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Long distance relationships, relationships inside rooms, looking like stars instead of looking like softness, and the way in which a morning can take you by the hand.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Mar 19, 2019 at 1:22pm PDT

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The 100th newsletter goes out tomorrow (you can sign up via my website) and apart from that, everything feels quite waiting and strange.

A post shared by Ella Frances Sanders (@ellafsanders) on Mar 1, 2019 at 6:07pm PST