Saturday 1 October 2011

Illustration Friday - 'Hibernate'



Yikes - I'm really too busy working on two new books for the Frankfurt Book Fair to post to my blog, but couldn't resist popping this one up for Illustration Friday this week as it's just perfect for the topic of 'hibernate'. It's an illustration from 'When Will it Snow' by Kathryn White, and just published, so very good timing I think! Back to work now...

Friday 26 August 2011

Edinburgh Book Festival 2011






Last weekend I went to Edinburgh Book Festival where I did an event in the RBS Imagination Lab with a fantastic big group of little girls ( and one boy ) accompanied by lots of mums ( and about one dad! ). We had story time, drawing and an ambitious craft session where the children all made fabulous furry mice, adding their own personal touches which never cease to amaze me! It was based on a book that I did the illustrations for - 'A Little Fairy Magic' by Julia Hubery . (USA)


Sunday 12 June 2011

I won something!



Fantastic news - Yuck! won the Younger Children category in the Red House Children's Book Awards at yesterday's award ceremony in Birmingham! The overall winner was Michael Morpurgo's Shadow so we were in great company! Had a wonderful day and we were pampered by all the wonderful people from the Federation of Children's Book Groups. Thank you to all the children who voted for us and for the opportunity to meet the author of Yuck! for the first time, the lovely Angela McAllister! All the shortlisted authors and illustrators were presented with portfolios containing letters and drawings from lots of the children who had enjoyed our books - they were so lovely and it's something I will always treasure. As category winners, we also received beautiful engraved silver bookmarks - I shall put mine in my trophy cabinet alongside my only other award for illustration (so far!!) my pewter plate from Highlights High Five magazine which I won in 2009. We were even on the BBC news - definitely a first for me!

Friday 3 June 2011

Illustration Friday - 'Shadows'



This weeks Illustration Friday topic reminded me of a lovely book by Cat Weatherill that I Illustrated for Caterpillar Press, called By Lantern Light. It had a lantern that lit up when you pressed it and which appeared throughout the book - hence the shadows! Another book in the series, My Little Night Light had a similar feature, only with a lighthouse on each page. They were great fun to illustrate. It's quite timely as I'm just starting a new book in the same series, this time with party candles as the feature, so it's nice to look back at this one after not seeing it for a while!

Thursday 5 May 2011

May Update



It's been a busy month and I've managed to squeeze in a short trip to beautiful Majorca which was wonderful! I've done some new card designs for American Greetings, some magazine illustrations for Highlights High Five magazine, a commission for a watercolour of a friend's dog ( a rare treat these days, but I promised to do it as they had paintings of their other two from years ago and wanted their new pooch to join them in the hall!)
This week I'm doing some school visits in the run up to the Red House Children's Book Award ceremony to promote Yuck! Had a wonderful day yesterday in Sandford Primary School in Somerset, and tomorrow it's off to Wolverhampton to visit two more schools. Then it'll be time to start my next new book for Little Tiger Press - very exciting as I don't know what it is yet!
This photo was taken after my monster workshop yesterday - I think they liked it!

Friday 4 March 2011

Illustration Friday - 'Warning'



This is my first blog post in ages - oops! It's been manic here since November - lots of lovely work and new books to look forward to and I'm very excited that 'Yuck' has been shortlisted for the Red House Children's Book Awards as well! Fingers crossed...
This week's Illustration Friday topic is Warning, so I thought this one would be ideal. It's from Star Friends or Ooogle-Doogle and the Boogle by Tracey Corderoy, and the story reads..

But one day, the Boogle raced out of the gate! "No!" gasped Ooogle-Doogle. He never ever went out there! WHAT IF THERE WERE SCARIES? But he couldn't let anything happen to his friend, so nervously he followed.

I'm happily working on a lovely new book by Tracey at the moment, so watch this space!