Hob-Nobbing with the Stars...

Yes, there were real-life celebs staying at our hotel in Stockton, and not just the literary types we expected. I was rather disappointed that it had to be Jeremy Clarkson (who I don't even like) and the team from Top Gear (that I don't even watch). Still, a tad surreal to be drinking at the same bar with them, all the same.

It was Gala Dinner night of the Northern Children's Book Festival, and a lovely occasion. All the authors, illustrators and organisers had a really nice meal together, and then just hung-out and chatted in the hotel bar, getting to know new people and catching up with old friends.

It was great to chin-wag with friends Julia Jarman and Lydia Monks, but I also met Steve Cole (author of the best-selling Astrosaurs series) for the first time, who was great fun.

I was thrilled to meet author / illustrator Jan Fearnley too. I love her Mr Wolf books. We were all having such a nice time, we didn't get to bed until well after midnight.

Next morning, we were up bright and early(ish) to strut our stuff for the big Gala Day. Kids came from miles around in huge numbers (many in fancy dress) and a great time was had by all.

As well as all the different author events, and the bookshop with authors signing until their hands fell off, there were actors running around dressed as Heroes and Villains (the theme of the day), so you were likely to get whisked into an adventure with Robin Hood. Plus, all the libraries in the region manned stalls (dressed as pirates, knights in armour, damsels in distress....) where children could do craft activities or get their faces painted.

I was told one little boy refused to go home at the end, because it was 'the best party ever!'.

I took my camera, but was so busy all day, that I completely forgot to get it out - sorry folks! And I was kept company on the train home by Lydia and Steve, which was lovely, but meant I didn't do a single drawing either. I did a few on the way up, but I'll share those with you next week, when I tell you about my other adventures 'up North'...

Off Up North...

I packed my bags again on Tuesday, but I've not earned another holiday quite yet: I am spending 4 days working in Durham, as part of the Northern Children's Book Festival.

I really enjoy the social element of the NCBF: instead of a lonely hotel room somewhere, a meal for one with a book, followed by sitting on the bed to watch rubbish TV (pause to wipe a tear...), all the authors and illustrators at the NCBF are put up in the same hotel. It's so lovely meeting new people, and each evening we get to have dinner together.

We're shipped out every morning to a different area in the region, to work in various libraries or schools, before being dropped back again at the end of the day.

I took the train up on Tuesday afternoon and started my visits in Hartlepool on Wednesday, then Durham today, S. Tyneside on Friday. I'll be up there until Saturday night though, because Saturday is a wee bit special: a climax to the festival called Gala Day.

There is a big Gala Dinner the night before in Stockton, with everyone involved, then we all strut our stuff the following day. I will be doing events with Julia Jarman on Gala Day. We've done this several times now, and it's always good fun and rather mad. We had a great time together in Edinburgh.

I'll report back next week, hopefully with some photos. In the meantime, these sketches were done on Monday, on my way to and from Lisburne School in Stockport. Hello to everyone there and thanks for inviting me to visit. It was lovely meeting you all!

Meeting a Flickr-Friend in the Flesh

Some of you may be familiar with Flickr, where artists keep on-line portfolios. It's a brilliant way of quickly finding other creative people out there, and keeping up with their most recent work.

It was on Flickr that I came across fellow illustrator Rick Tulka who, like me, is a tad obsessed with sketching people in public places (Rick's the one in colour in the montage above).

His character observations, drawn in pencil in a small sketchbook, are always exquisite, sometimes poignant, often hilarious. I love his eye for detail.

For a couple of hours almost every day, Rick sits sketching in the same Parisian Cafe: La Select.

So, when we decided to go to Paris for a few days, I thought it would be fun to look in on him. I was a bit nervous, but dropped him an email.

We got on really well and it was lovely chatting over a coffee (in La Select of course). We talked about the sketching, as well as all sorts of other things. Turns out, when Rick is not in the cafe, he works as an editorial illustrator, which is what I used to do too, before I got into children's books.

It would be nice to report that we sketched each other, sketching, but we both agreed that we hate drawing portraits 'on demand' and much prefer clandestine scribblings under a table.

Also, it hadn't occurred to me before but, because his work has more caricature to it than mine, Rick said he never ever shows the victims what he's drawn. Fortunately people rarely spot him at it either. Interesting.

I'm really glad I made the effort to look him up, and it'll be so nice now to be able to picture exactly where Rick's sitting, when I look at the new drawings he posts to Flickr.

Back to Work

We got back from Paris on Thursday evening (to torrential rain - welcome home). Then at 6am Friday morning, I had to get up to travel to Stockport for the day. Luckily it was a really nice school, so worth the groans and moans getting out of bed!

The children at All Saints Primary were all dressed as book characters, which always adds a slightly surreal element to proceedings. Another thing that made it a bit special for me was that, while I worked my way through the classes, the remaining children spent their time working on illustrations, as part of a competition.

The little ones all made lovely Stinky! collages. Another year group created tiny dancing sculptures based on their favourite characters from Kangaroo's Cancan Cafe. The children I worked with first thing, all coloured in their Giddy Goat illustrations, with him perched on impossible towers of assorted objects and creatures. Y6 tackled the tricky task of illustrating a proverb or well-known phrase in an interesting way. For instance, one girl drew goat astronauts, inspired by Giddy Goat, with the strap-line: "One small step for a goat, one huge leap for goat-kind". Great eh?

There was a prize-giving at the end of the day, where the best 2 children from each group got a certificate (signed by Yours Truly) and some chocolates. I'm hoping the school might be able to send me some photos of the work so I can show you.

Afterwards, I stayed behind to sign books, and was astonished to meet the niece of Paul Rissman, composer of the score for Giddy Goat the Musical! Mum had brought their copy of Giddy Goat already signed by Uncle Paul, so I was able to add my signature to it. Small world.

Sadly I've had no time to play with any colour for my train sketches. Maybe next time.

Jealous?

I have really enjoyed my break - we decided to whizz off for 3 days in Paris! It's over 15 years since John and I were last there, when we were first together.

It was a bit chilly for hanging around outside, so we pounded the halls of as many galleries and museums as we could fit in, before our feet withdrew their services in protest.

John was keen to visit the Louvre for the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.

My favourite was probably the Musee d'Orsay, where they keep the bulk of the post-impressionist work. I can never get enough of it: the colour combinations make my blood zing! Totally inspiring.

It's astonishing too, standing in a room surrounded by paintings, every one of which is so famous that it's worth millions. Weird.

And we had to visit Monet's waterlilies of course. Fabulous.

The Orangerie is such a great space too: emanating calm in the centre of the city, like a secular cathedral to colour and light...

I took my sketchbook as you can see, but with such a short time and so much to pack in, I hardly opened it in Paris itself. At the top is a breakfast stop in a cafe, waiting for the Arts et Metiers to open. I highly recommend the museum: a massive collection of technological inventions through the ages, including the first flying machines, like this one:

Plus the earliest computers, all sorts of working models, and even Foucault's Pendulum, hanging all the way down from the apex of a chapel.

All the rest of the sketches were drawn on the Paris train, on our way back to the airport, or on the flight home, like these last two. Bit boring, so sorry about that.

I rather liked this pony-tailed man on the plane though, who was sitting next to John. Trouble was, John was in the way in-between us, and got rather tetchy about me keep asking him to 'sit back'! I managed in the end, though was annoyed that I ran out of page for the ponytail.

A Well-Earned Break (though I say so myself)

Yes, at last: a little bit of time off. I finished off all the most pressing stuff on my 'to do' list on Friday, and my next event, at a school in Stockport, isn't until this Friday, which has left nearly a whole week to play. Yahoo!

It's been an unusual, and exceptionally busy period for me, juggling lots of things at once, and trying not to let too many fall from my grasp, unlike my poor Rickety Barn cows:

I realise that I haven't had any real time off since I began the first sketches for my Bears on the Stairs project way back in June.

Actually, I have a little something planned, to help me relax properly and stop me just getting on with all that back admin (I haven't done my accounts in months - eeeeek).

That's the trouble with being freelance and working from home: there's always plenty to be getting on with, and I've never been very good at turning off.

So, I'll check in next weekend and fill you in on what I've been up to...

Bears: The Proof

On Friday, a delivery van arrived, with a package that turned out to be the proofs of my new book: Bears on the Stairs.

This is the final stage for me, where I go through all the prints of my illustrations, checking for any issues, like blemishes, or incorrect colour-balancing. The colours are pretty perfect this time, which is a relief, as occasionally they aren't very true and need adjusting (and on one occasion things were so bad that the whole book had to be scanned all over again!).

There's something extra that's interesting with this project, though. Do you remember that, way back at the beginning, we were concerned about the story's end and made changes by adding the extra illustration above?

Well, Julia Jarman has thought about it some more and decided to also amend the text slightly at this stage, before everything is set in stone, to make the ending even stronger. The illustration above, chasing the parents downstairs, used to read:

"...they get them on the way down!"

But now it will read:

"...I bet my bears will get them on the way down!"

This may seem a simple change, but is rather clever of Julia because, given the remarkably familiar teddies tucked up with the boy in the final image, it underlines the idea that the bears aren't real, and are just an invention of a little boy's imagination.

The 'my bears' even hints that the whole thing may just have been a ruse for him to delay going to bed. Well done Julia!

Back from Reading

Well, it's been a very busy week for travelling - I clocked up 9 hours in the last 2 days.



I took a train down to Reading on Wednesday afternoon, but unfortunately had an awful seat for drawing purposes (very high-backed seats and only back views, mainly of people's knees!) so I read my Ian Rankin novel instead. I did these sketches on the way home the next evening.



I had a smashing day on the Thursday at St Finian's Catholic Primary. I kicked off with my PowerPoint talk to Y3 and above, which was great, as all the kids were then even more excited in advance of their individual sessions.

It was a lovely, varied day too: I followed the talk with a couple of storytellings for the littlies, an illustration workshop with Y3, then finally a writing workshop with Y5 (we wrote a story about a hedgehog, who lived in the wall of their classroom, and ended up accidentally jumping out into the Head Teacher's hair!).

It was a bit of a slog back to Sheffield. This is me distracting myself from the cold on Thatcham station, waiting for my connection. I didn't get back home until after 9pm, when John poured me a nice glass of red wine: what a star!

I have nearly a week off now - whoopeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

To Wigan and Beyond!

Last night I got back from my trip to Millbrook Primary School near Wigan. It was a lovely visit, but quite a journey! I went down the night before, and drew these sketches on the train, as per usual:


Only time for a rather speedy bit of colour to a couple of them this morning, but will revisit the others when I've more time. Look at this guy's face - not sure he approves:


I did some storytelling with the little ones at Millbrook but spent most the day with Y3. I took my sketchwork for Dragon's Dinner and a piece of final artwork to show them. Then together the class wrote an amazing story all about a tiger who lived in a coconut tree. It turned out really well and we were all delighted. Then we did an illustration workshop based on Mr Strongmouse and the Baby, which I still enjoy doing, even though the book has sadly gone out of print.


On the way home, my taxi didn't turn up so, despite a mercy dash through the heaving rain in a teacher's car, I missed my train (we watched it pull out!). The lovely, lovely teacher drove me on another 20 minutes into Wigan, so I could try ducking and diving, changing at various places to get home sooner, but sadly it was all to no avail.


Having left school at 3.30, I finally collapsed on the sofa to have my brow wiped by John, at 7.15pm.

This afternoon I am off again: this time I'm catching a train to Thatcham near Reading to visit St Finian's Primary school tomorrow. This journey will be even longer. Off now to pack my bags...

Yet More Sketching in Transit...

Today I am packing my bags again and making my way to Wigan in Lancashire, where tomorrow I will be spending the day at Millbrook Primary School. So, poor John is on his own once more tonight (and will no doubt celebrate with wall-to-wall History Channel and bacon butties for dinner!

I will let you know how I get on later but, in the meantime, I thought you might like to see some drawings I didn't get to show you last week, from my journeys to Corby and Dungworth school.

Sketching the taxi driver above took me the whole journey to Dungworth School, about half an hour, because the roads were so bumpy: every time I went to put pencil to paper, we leapt and joggled about. Sheffield's roads are in a right state!

I got to the school a bit early, so had a cup of tea in the staff room. Everyone else was off teaching, so I decided to pass the time by sketching the chaos that was the staff room table. Then I showed it to all the kids I saw during the day!

Big Draw Dinosaur Day!

On Wednesday, I spent another day at my exhibition. The theme was Big Draw Dinosaur, so I concentrated on reading Gnash Gnaw Dinosaur! and showed people how to draw their own T Rex, like this one by Bethany:

I knew I'd have to draw lots of different dinosaurs on the flipchart too, so had to swot up on my other dinos - I haven't drawn most of them since I finished the original illustrations back in February of last year!

I sat on the train with lots of scrap paper and practiced drawing diplodocuses, pteradons, kronosauruses, stegosauruses etc. etc. until they were passable. I caught the odd person peeking, obviously wondering what I was up to.

This meant that I didn't sketch at all on the way there, but luckily did quite a few on the way back as you will see.

The day was great fun: I was on the go pretty much constantly, with a grabbed sandwich for lunch, but not even time to eat my banana! As well as my workshops there were other activities going on, including decorating dino foot-prints, which were then stuck onto two enormous diplodocuses on the stairs:

When it was all over, I relaxed with a coffee and a slab of excellent walnut cake at a local cafe, with an old friend who'd come all the way from The Lake District to see the show before it finishes next week. Thanks Mary!

Then I got my train home and began sketching: the man below is the one the hands above belong to. I think he was marking exam papers.

I wasn't very happy with this next sketch and nearly didn't scan it in, but when I'd played around with colour in Photoshop, it seemed to work a lot better, even though it's not a very accurate depiction of the subject:

This next guy was sitting next to exam-man, and was getting on my nerves. He kept changing position, so in the end I abandoned him altogether. But I came back, and almost finished him off just before Sheffield, which was when I noticed he was reading Plato. I was sufficiently impressed to forgive him!

Before I go, I'd like to say a special hello to anyone from St. Stephen's Primary who's reading - it was lovely to see so many children turn up on to see me. Your books are finally on their way by the way!

Going Crazy in Corby!

At last: I'm back at home today, so have a bit of time to tell you how I've been getting on at my latest batch of visits...

As expected, Corby Big Draw was huge fun. We covered the entire floor of the hall above with card, and families came in and drew all over it. The day was really busy: the children got SO excited and it was great to see so many grown ups too, totally engrossed in drawing.


Every so often, I called kids into a corner and read a story for inspiration, then we worked as groups on huge drawings: this Class Three all at Sea picture is over 6' long.

We did Class Two at the Zoo as well, which was even bigger!

I drew the outline of the anaconda, and the children filled his belly:


As well as chalk pastels and felt tips, we had big fat oil pastels, which were perfect.


It was lovely that all ages worked happily together (the older kids were very patient with the 2yr olds, who scribbled rather too freely over everything, as you can imagine, and left little chalk footprints everywhere!).


Corby's MP, Phil Hope, came to support the event and see what we were up to...

...and the kids made him lay on the floor so they could draw round him! Then they all set to colouring him in.

He was a brilliant sport, but also a tall man, so I had to do a bit of a 'joiner' to get the drawing into the photo! The heart above his head is because he's a Minister for Health.

At the end, we hung some drawings on the walls, or propped them up around the room, and made walkways through the ones on the floor, so it formed an exhibition for people to visit the next day. The best pictures are going to be put on display in public spaces around Corby.

I ran workshops in the exhibition space on the 2nd day, and would like to give an extra special mention to the super Wilks family, who read about the event here on the blog, and came all the way from Wales to see me and take part!!! I was totally chuffed. Hello guys!

This is the Welsh dragon that they drew for the exhibition:


Thanks too to Abigail Tilley, who was incredibly prolific and produced several fabulous drawings like this:


..and to Debony and her mum, who had such a nice time, that they came back when it was all over to bring me a 'thank you' card and a box of chocolates. A really lovely thought - thank you!

And at risk of sounding like I'm at the Oscars, I'd also like to thank Ludie and Micheal for putting me up, feeding me and looking after me so well.


A fantastic couple of days that I'm sure we will all remember for a very long time. I'll post some of the other drawings in the Picture Gallery, as this post is already waaaaaaaay to long!

Charity Auction

Do you remember me mentioning the Art for Hearts auction? Well it's all happening next week: just in time for that extra special Christmas present...

Here are just some of the amazing pieces of original artwork you could own, by illustrators such as Frances Cony, Mary Hall, Emma McCann, An Vrombaut, Korky Paul, Garry Thorburn and Valerie Greeley...

All the artwork has been on display in Great Ormond Street Hospital, for the children to see, and the auction will be held on Ebay for 1 week from November 2nd.

I have donated this piece of pastel artwork, which could be yours...

Why not look in? All money is going towards research for children's organ transplants at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Off The Shelf

Just a quickie, as I only have a moment - I've just broken off from packing my bags for my 2 day stay in Corby for The Big Draw (which will be over half way through by the time you read this).

I wanted to say 'hello' to all the children I met on Friday during my Off The Shelf events at home in Sheffield. This is me with the KS1 children at Dungworth Primary School in the morning, doing my 'D'you know what it is yet?' act (it's going to be a kangaroo, by the way).

I did a talk for the KS2 children in the afternoon, then got to see their amazing book cover illustrations in oil pastels - very tricky medium I always think, so well done you guys!

Then I leaped in a taxi and crossed the city to do a workshop with the after-school club at Frechville Library. Some great dragon drawings folks!

Must get on, so bye for now...

Stinky Whizzers

You may remember me talking a while back about getting together with illustrator Phil Alderson (who I taught some 12 years ago, at the Sheffield College) to give him advice on his latest work.

Well, I got a lovely email from him recently: he has got together with some friends and launched a new business, called Stinky Whizzers. The work is so much fun, I had to show you!

Phil has produced a range of these colourful illustrations which you can buy for your child's bedroom wall. He got the idea when he was looking for a present for his niece: "When I looked for a cool piece of artwork, all I found was pink or blue or pastels, so I decided to draw something unique myself.”

“We wanted to create something that appealed to kids with bold colours and also something that you would want to look at again and again.."

I just love all the characters. Meercats with binoculars! I especially like the fishing mule below:

Good luck Phil - they look fabulous. Come on folks: liven up those bedroom walls...

Big Draw Dinosaur!

If you missed the family open day at my exhibition in August, there is a repeat performance coming up next week, on Wednesday October 28th.

It won't be the same as the summer: this time we are celebrating The Big Draw so we're calling the day Big Draw Dinosaur! and concentrating on drawing... yep, you guessed it: dinosaurs!

I will be there all day, reading my dinosaur books, doing my 'Rolf Harris' bit on the flipchart ('D'ya know what it is yet..?') and showing you how to draw your favourite dinos.

There will be plenty of other interesting things for you to get involved in too: we have an actor creating games for the children, and another artist who will help you decorate your own dinosaur footprints! If you want to, your footprint can become a scale on a massive dinosaur picture on the wall.

You can test out your tracking skills too, by finding and following the trails of dinosaur footprints around the building, to see if you can find who made them...

And if you get bored with all that wonderful stuff, there are also regular storytellings happening throughout the day in the library downstairs.

Doors open at 11am, when I will be starting my first 1hr session (with 2 further sessions starting at 12.45 and 2.00). We finish at 3pm.

The exhibition closes on November 7th, so if you wanted to see it, but haven't got round to it yet, this would be a good opportunity, especially if you have kids to bring along.

We're at the Tameside Central Art Gallery and Library, postcode OL6 7SG. Driving instructions are here, nearest train stations: Ashton-u-Lyne, Guide Bridge or Stalybridge. Any problems, ring the gallery on 0161 342 2650.

See you there?

A Spot of Spying...

This morning, I sat in on the launch of my new friend, Caryl Hart's latest picture book: Don't Dip Your Chips in Your Drink, Kate! in Sheffield's Central Library.

It was a real treat, not just because the book is great fun, or because I got to see Caryl again and meet her lovely family, but because it's rare I get the opportunity to see fellow authors or illustrators strutting their stuff.

It all went brilliantly. Caryl's book is in rhyme, so she invented a rhyming machine especially for the launch. The invited children from Watercliffe Meadow School loved it, and we made up of silly food-based rhymes:

Jake, Jake baked a cake,

Jelly, jelly in your welly,

Bread, bread, crumbs in your bed!

At the end of Caryl's story, a little girl goes to tea with the Queen (another little girl, with even worse table manners!). Orchard Books printed the tea party scene (wonderfully illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson) as a massive board. The children were given fairy-cakes to colour and stick onto the picture. Even we grown ups had great fun with it.

And then... there were REAL fairy cakes, in all colours of the rainbow, one for everyone! The kids were in heaven as you can imagine and, thank goodness, nobody was sick...

Caryl and I resisted temptation because, after the event, the publisher took us out for a lovely lunch (thanks Nicola!).

Back to work now though: my new batch of visits has started in earnest, with Sheffield's Off The Shelf festival today, then Monday starts Corby's 2 day Big Draw extravaganza I blogged about earlier, followed by a Wednesday at my exhibition (more details in tomorrow's post).

Then on Thursday I am with Looked After Children for Bag-A-Book Day at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, of all places. I can't kick a ball to save my life, so thank goodness I'm just reading stories and drawing as usual!

I'll let you know how it all goes, when I've time to draw breath.

Pipworth Primary

Great name eh? Pipworth was my destination on Tuesday, my first visit since I lost my voice. No early morning trains needed: just a short taxi ride to another part of Sheffield. Luxury!

We kicked off with a PowerPoint talk to all KS2: quite a few, as you can see. I am the tiny pink blob in the distance. My voice was still a bit deep and croaky, but I survived ok. That's not washing on the line by the way - it's a leaping tiger!

Pipworth is a really friendly school. Sweet, enthusiastic kids (lots of waving and hugs in the corridors) and happy teachers, obviously popular with the children, despite Y1 (below) insisting that I draw theirs being gobbled by a crocodile...

And I so love a staffroom that's alive with banter - I've been in one or two deadly ones in my time (and once chose to sit in the playground with the kids instead!).

We filled the rest of the morning writing stories together. This is the beginning of one about a baby snake, who lived in a magic house with a demonic bar of magic chocolate:

In the afternoon I told stories and did lots of drawing. I drew a special picture for Y3's teacher, Mrs Ferguson, whose children, Euan and Lara, both broke an arm on the same day but, incredibly, doing two different activities in two different places! Euan fell off some monkey bars and Lara was playing cricket:

It was a really positive day, so a huge thank you to Mrs Greenwood for inviting me, and to everyone else for making it all such fun.


And thank you too, to all those who stayed to buy books in the library afterwards. Sorry I ran out, but there's a package winging it's way to you for after the holiday...

Spring Cleaning

I keep my pastels in shoe-box lids:

I use lots of different brands, but sort them all into 3 colour ranges: reds, yellows and browns; blues & purples; turquoises & greens.

Two reasons: firstly, I'd never find the colour I wanted otherwise and, second, because the coloured dust causes cross-contamination and you soon get in a right grubby old mess.

It's a far from fool-proof system: months ago, a fat yellow-ochre pastel crumbled into one tray. I was too busy to do more than a cursory tidy up, and soon everything in that tray was dusted yellow and indistinguishable. I've been battling on, cursing as I go, but enough is enough.

So, last week, while I was ill and so had a pocket of time, I emptied the whole tray, and cleaned out the ochre crumble with a wet cloth (yellow mud everywhere - lovely). Then I wiped every single pastel stump individually, even the teeny bits, half the size of your little fingernail, which are great for doing really fiddly bits.

Colours came to life again and I unearthed several purples and blues in there, also masquerading as yellow!

I feel pleasantly purged and content now. Look how pretty and clean and yummy they are now. Little pleasures...

Watch CBeebies Tonight!

Great news! A Lark in the Ark will be the Bedtime story on CBeebies tonight.

I don't usually get told in advance: I only found out about previous books of mine being read on CBBC when friends emailed to tell me, after the event. Frustrating.

So a big thank you to my publisher, Egmont, for letting me know the details - this time I can watch it for myself.

It turns out that the gorgeous David Harewood will be the one reading my book for you at 6.50pm, with my illustrations up on screen.

So, round up your various kiddies and tune in if you can!

By the way, by the time you read this, I will be off on my first school visit since the voice disappeared. Will I be giving the kids at Pipworth Primary my strangled frog impression? I'll let you know tomorrow...

Photoshop Frenzy 3: Virtual Pastel Wording

Good news: at last, my voice has returned!! After 4 days of complete silence and a further 2 of sounding like an alien with a voice box, things are finally back to normal (or as normal as it gets).

To celebrate I'd like to offer you a sip of Champers, but instead, you'll have to make do with the final installment on the digital work for Bears on the Stairs...

You can never include any words on picture book artwork, because the book might need translating for foreign editions, so it's always done afterwards on a separate layer. Spot the blank red sign on the boy's bedroom door above.

On this detail from the rough, you can see what it will read when finished:

Usually this wording is dropped in by the designer, when they do the regular text, but I like to mock up the pastel effect, to give the impression that the words have been done on the actual drawing, otherwise they can appear to 'float' above the illustration.

I scanned a sample of my textured pastel paper into the computer to create an identical 'virtual' paper. I can then draw onto this, in 'virtual pastels', using Corel Painter, and get the exact same texture as the original drawing:

As a guide, I paste the wording from my rough (above) onto a section from the artwork scan, then I write over it in my virtual pastel (on a seperate layer so it can be lifted off). This is what the overlay wording looks like on its own:

This can then be printed over the artwork on the English language version only, allowing for any number of translations to be inserted with impunity. Sneaky stuff eh?

Aren't Libraries Lovely?

I get a very handy little newsletter from the National Literacy Trust, with breaking news on all sorts of stuff to do with books and reading, and I thought I'd share this tit-bit about libraries with you:

Did you know that, from now on, we can borrow books from any UK public library, regardless of where we live?

All we need to do is show our normal library card, or even just proof of address, to access any library in the country. Great for your holiday reading (unless you're sunning yourself in the Maldives or somewhere, in which case, you're already far too fortunate to deserve any more good news).

Apparently, ministers are also planning home deliveries, where you wouldn't go into the library at all. It would work like online film renting: you would order your books online, they would be delivered by post, and you'd return them in a prepaid envelope when you were finished.

But I'm not at all sure this last is a good thing. Surely the cost of all that postage could only be managed if many libraries were closed?

Wonderful though book-lending is, libraries are about so much more. They are a community space: often the only free, safe environment available to local people. They provide storytelling for young families; a place for the elderly to read the paper, maybe learn how to access a computer and chat to someone about the books they've read (or just the weather!). They are a centre for disseminating local information; a creative environment for inspiring school groups; a quiet place for studying, or doing homework; and sometimes they are just a positive, friendly place for people to hang out.

If you're in the Library Service, I'd be interested to hear your take on things...

Brrr! Grrr! Dinosaures!

Poemes prehistorics amb humor, sorpreses, informacio i ... TERROR!

The postman just bought me another of those lovely, surprise packages. When I opened it up I found... 4 translated co-edition copies of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!. I thought they were in Spanish, then I was told that, no, they were Portuguese. But today various people have told me that it is in fact Catalan. Aha!

As always, I'd rather my books be read by children than just sit on shelves, so I'm giving them away. So - anyone out there with children that read Catalan? Better still, do you have a 'good cause' I could donate a copy to, like a school, library or some such? Let me know and a signed copy could be on its way to you next week.

Today I am also wondering how Bears on the Stairs got on at the Frankfurt Book Fair... It's SO important these days that other countries sign up for co-editions of new titles, especially America. Crossing fingers that they liked it!

Photoshop Frenzy 2: Smudge Surgery!

One of the draw-backs to pastels is their infinite smudgability. Mostly the artwork survives the scanning pretty well, but there are occasional smudges. Luckily these are easily remedied in Photoshop.

When I get my DVD of artwork scans, The first job is open each illustration in Photoshop, one at a time, and carefully look them over, checking for smudging or flaws.

This detail, from the scan of the Bears on the Stairs spread, where he tries to bribe Little Bear with a chocolate biscuit, shows how the boy's face has been contaminated with the blue of the hall carpet.

Nothing a little digital plastic-surgery couldn't put right - I gave him a skin graft from another illustration using the 'clone' tool.

Another job down!

The Photoshop Frenzy: Cut-Outs

I was working so flat out last weekend, I didn't get time to explain properly what it was all about. Having blogged Bears on the Stairs through the entire project, from the very first rough sketches, it seems a shame to miss the end, so here goes:

There is a certain amount of 'finishing' work to be done in Photoshop, before the book can be proofed. Some illustrations are fine and ready to print, but not all. Like the cover I showed you previously, the title page image above needed to be cut from the pink paper I draw on.

Both the koala spreads also needed cutting out, and then popping onto bright colours. I'm thinking yellow and bright pink...

The pastels make this job quite tricky though. Here's a detail from the original scan and the first stage of putting in the new background:

Once the new bright pink is in, it shows up all sorts of problems that need touching up, like the nasty pencil lines around the white bannisters and the boy's pyjamas, the 'noise' under his arm and the furry edges around his fingers:

It takes quite a while, working my way around every edge, checking for touch-ups.

There are a couple of other jobs to do at this stage too, but I'll tell you about them next time.

Bit of a Breather (Though Breathing's Hard!)

Well, one thing about being ill is that I am enjoying a much-needed week off, having been on the go without a break for simply ages. No more crack of dawn trains for a while - I can lounge around in bed as long as I like!

Actually, there's tons to do. I have been so busy recently, first with my Bears on the Stairs deadline, then my school visits, I've done no admin for yonks. Boring but necessary. Some of it is printing off my invoices for the October visits so far - that's quite nice in fact, as it feels just a little bit like printing money!

My next event is next Tuesday, but at least that's a school in Sheffield. Then it's Sheffield's Off The Shelf festival, on the 23rd, but that kicks off another busy period of visits, with 5 in a row again.

This is a page of my sketchbook from last week. I do like noses (though you wouldn't want to see mine at the moment...)

Oh No: It's Happened Again!

I've been bravely soldiering on (what a martyr...) with my cold. I visited St Alban's Academy yesterday (which, oddly, is in Birmingham rather than St Albans). I'm not complaining - Birmingham's much nearer, but far enough for a good batch of train sketching. I started at Sheffield station:


It was a full train and the sun was right in my eyes if I faced forwards, so I bent to round to draw this guy who was sitting right next to me. He was a big bloke, much bigger than me, so I sat staring up at him while he worked on a laptop. He affected not to notice:


Anyway, my voice was a bit croaky from the outset of the visit, then I worked all day with quite a lively bunch of Y7 children, and the croaking became a weird kind of 'yodel'. By the end of the afternoon, it was really breaking up and I said my farewells in a stage whisper.

These are a couple of sketches from my trip home:

This morning I awoke as a total mute. Apparently there's nothing at all to be done about acute laryngitis. I just have to wait it out. This is the 3rd time the exact same thing has happened. Last time, in March, I actually tried a day of mimed storytelling.

So, today I have let down St Giles Primary in Killimarsh (so sorry guys) and tomorrow I've had to cancel a day in Stockport. Luckily there is a week's gap after that, so I hope to be back to my normal gobby self by then.

I hope you like the drawings: at least I've had time to scan them in for you while I rest up. Even had the opportunity for a little experimental tinting in Photoshop. I've not had time to play for simply ages - every cloud...

If you're interested, there are lots more train sketches on my website. Later on today, I'll pop some of my drawings from earlier in the week into the Picture Gallery.

Touching up the Bears (!)

I've spent the whole weekend glued to the computer, turning the scans of my Bears on the Stairs illustrations into print-ready images. They came back from Switzerland as a DVD last week.

Here's a taster, to give you an idea of the sort of thing I've been up to...

This is how the front cover is going to look:

But this is the digital scan off the DVD, of my original illustration:


My job was to knock out the pink paper background and replace it with the green (chosen by the Designer at Anderson Press) being careful to keep the soft pastel edge to the drawings. You might also have noticed, I've touched up a bit of smudging in the stairs too.

I didn't add the text by the way: that was sent to me by the Designer, to help me judge how it would look printed.

No time for further detail, as I'm off to schools again first thing in the morning (6.45am cab!) and have to pack my stuff, but will tell more later.

Tired But Happy

During the last 2 days I've been touring libraries in Lancashire for the Shout About Books festival, as the finale to a fun-packed, whirl-wind of a week.

At 7.15pm last night, a taxi from the station finally deposited me back at home, and it was like someone suddenly pulled the plug. After a glass of wine and a bit of telly, I was fit for nowt: early night. zzzzzzzzzz...

I'm having my hair cut first thing this morning (the hedgehog needs regular trimming) and then, unfortunately, I have to get my newly-cropped head down for the rest of the day, working on the scans for Bears on the Stairs. I'm hoping it won't take all of Sunday too, especially as I have to prepare for another week of travels. We'll see.


By the way, this hairdressing illustration is from Bad Hare Day and I based Herbert Hare's salon on my actual hairdressers, so this morning, I am that anteater!

Sorry there's no time for more tales of my Lancashire adventures yet - if I get all my work done, I'll give you the highlights tomorrow afternoon.

When You're Not Looking!

Another post from the ether, while I'm on my travels (right this moment I should be in the middle of a talk at Euxton Library in Morecombe):

I wanted to tell you that a brand new, mini board-book edition of When You're Not Looking! has just been published. Hurrah! This title is a little bit special to me, as it's one that I not only illustrated, but wrote too.

I got the idea for the text at Centre Parcs, when a friend's child tried to feed bread and jam to a squirrel. The squirrel became a gerbil (can't remember why) and I changed the jam to 'marmalade on toast' (it had a better ring):

I am delighted that, though first published 5 years ago, Gullane are still promoting it and producing new editions.

Gullane were my very first publisher. They gave me my initial break in children's books, back in 1999, letting me loose on The Show at Rickety Barn (thanks Paula!).


I have worked with them ever since, and I can barely believe we've now done 11 books together. I love them dearly for keeping all my back titles in print: fantastic, especially these days. Thank you Guys x

Dinosaur Egg Discovered at St Stephens!

I had a great time yesterday at St Stephen's CofE Primary School in Tameside: it's so helpful when the school prepares well. Everyone had looked at my website, and they'd got hold of about 2 dozen copies of my books in advance, so all the children were buzzing long before I got there.


Immediately I walked through the door, little voices could be heard whispering in corners:

'Is that Lynne Chapman?'

'It's her!'

'Look... it's Lynne Chapman!'

They were in having a dinosaur themed week: the children arrived at school one morning to discover a massive dinosaur egg in the hall and, two days later, it had hatched! There were dinosaur prints leading away, and a baby dinosaur was found in a classroom. Apparently, each morning since, it has been discovered in a new spot.

So, I spent the day mostly teaching children how to draw an big, angry T Rex. I had great fun acting out the way a dinosaur stomps, so they could see how his arms and legs should go. Not everyone was 100% confident to begin with, but they all came up with smashing drawings, with very scary teeth!

I showed children my sketchbook, including the drawing at the top, which I did on the way there. Above is the one I did on the way home.

Thanks to all the teachers for a wonderfully friendly day (not to mention the biscuits): a real pleasure all round.

Building a Paper World

This is another post 'in absentia', set up in advance (today I am in a school in Audenshaw):

If you live in Northants, you might like to come along to a FAB event I'm part of, celebrating The Big Draw in Corby. It's on October 26th & 27th at the Kingswood Children's Centre and it's going to be brilliant...


The Monday will be totally bonkers: we are papering an entire room, and you can help us completely cover it with drawing. Maybe we can create new worlds, with weird, alien creatures, or you could draw yourself waving from your house, in your street... There will be darker paper all around the bottom of the walls, where you can decide what mysteries might be buried under the ground: maybe treasure, or rotting bones, or secret passageways...

I will be there to help you with ideas from 10am onwards, then at 4pm, I will be running a 2 hour illustration workshop for adults:

But that's not all! The following day there will be kids workshops and storytellings, as well as a fabulous exhibition for you to explore:


And then, as if all that wasn't enough... there will be free books given away! Yahoo!

Don't miss out: call the Kingswood Centre on 01536 746 265 for your free invitation, or to reserve your place on any of the events. See you there!

Hello to St John's and Kaye's!

Just a quickie, as I have just got in, and have 5 mins to spare.

Hello to Year 4 at St John's CofE Primary in Birmingham, who I met on Monday. We did something a little different (for me at least). The theme for the day was 'anti-bullying' and I worked with just the Y4 children all day. As well as doing drawings, we wrote some great performance poetry together.

This is a headless man I drew on my way home (sorry: ran out of page at his neck).

Hello as well to the children at Kaye's First & Nursery School in West Clayton, where I've been today. All the children were great, but I'd like to say a special 'hello' to the delightful Y3 class, who drew the most spectacular dragon-chase illustrations. Well done guys!

I drew this woman on my way there:

Unfortunately, I'm coming down with a cold (tracing it back, I reckon it's those germy kids at Brayton Infants that are to blame!!), so I didn't manage a sketch on the way back.

Hopefully I can raid the bathroom cabinet tonight to keep myself going the rest of the week.

One, Two, Three... Go!

I wrote this post at the weekend because I knew that once the week was underway, I'd have no time.

It's going to be a mad one: a whole week of events every day, all over. I'm in Birmingham on Monday, Huddersfield on Tuesday, Audenshaw on Wednesday and then Lancashire on Thursday & Friday. All those early mornings... ugh.

And of course it all began on Friday, with a visit to Brayton Infant School in Selby. Lots of stories, lots of singing, lots of drawing, plus dancing the cancan like crocodiles and kangaroos! A lovely way to kick off the season (sounds like football...).

This is the 'Zaggeroomph' that we all designed together. The other photos are monsters in progress, drawn by the Y1 children.

It was a really positive day, and all the children were smashing. Thanks so much to all the parents who came after school and bought signed books: I could hardly lift my case on the way, but it was light as a feather going home!

I managed a few drawings on the trains as usual. At the top of the post is my first sketch for ages.

Because I stayed longer than expected to sign books, I missed my train home by 15 mins, only to be told that there wasn't another one for ages. Instead of getting to Sheffield at 5pm, the ticket man said it would be 8pm!!!!!! This seemed so ridiculous, and I was so distraught, that he looked again, and in the end found another route - a bit of a long way round, but getting me home at 6.30 at least.

I'll post highlights from this week's visits when I can, and hopefully more train sketches, if I can find time to scan them in.

Most of my events this month are in schools, but there are a few for the general public, which I'll let you know about as they come along, in case you fancy giving it a whirl.

Want to be a Published Writer?

Some of you budding authors out there might like to know that the BBC has just launched a massive writing competition, to find 'the greatest real-life stories never told'. And guess what the prize is? A real life publishing deal! There's not just one winner either: up to five finalists could be offered a book contract, complete with a proper advance and royalties. The real McCoy.

'My Story' was launched at the start of this month. You can read more about it on their website, but basically what they are after is true stories, on any theme, told in 300 – 1,500 words.

And that's not all! It seems that up to 15 successful entrants will get the chance to appear in a TV series on BBC1 during spring 2010. Pretty good eh?

Mark Bell, Arts Commissioner at the Beeb said: 'My Story aims to get the whole nation reading, writing and telling their most remarkable stories.'

So, get writing you guys, because you never know what might come out of your head once you start...

My Portfolio has Exploded!

I am out on my first school visit of the season today.

When I go to a school, I carry all my storytelling gear and my books in this little suitcase on wheels: it's like a tardis for cramming stuff in! It makes very heavy books easy and is perfect for nipping on and off trains too.

In case you're wondering, the snazzy fabric bag is the home of my Smudge hand puppet, made by my clever Mum (known to you bloggers as Granny Grimble - hello Mum!).

If I'm doing lectures or workshops, I also carry a big folder under my arm, full of artwork samples and roughs to talk around. Portfolios you buy are never the right dimensions for my artwork, so I made my own, out of cardboard boxes. It's not exactly posh, but it works.

Except, I got it out yesterday, ready to load up for today's visit, and found all the parcel-tape glue had died: the whole thing fell apart in my hands!

I had to spend an hour or so repairing it, this time with gummed paper tape, in the hope maybe that will last better. Luckily I found a big roll in the back of a cupboard, left over from distant paper-stretching days. I quite enjoyed myself to be honest!

Dragons in the Eaves

While I was rushing around today, getting everything together for my forthcoming school visits, the doorbell rang. It's a bit of a dash when I'm up in the studio, down two flights of stairs from the attic...

Worth it though, as it was the postman with a big package: always jolly exciting!

Inside was my artwork from Dragons Dinner, returned by Hodder. If you're not in the industry, you may not realise that a publisher only buys the rights to reproduce the illustrations, not the artwork itself, which still belongs to the illustrator.

This is great, except it soon mounts up. It has to be stored flat and so takes up a lot of room.

It used to be crammed into an overstuffed plans chest, with the overflow stacked in corners and under beds. So, when I converted our attic rooms into my present studio, I got a joiner to build me these handy little cupboards into the eaves, where I can store it all, wrapped up in plastic packages:

It also comes in handy for storing work-in-progress: the unwrapped pieces you can see on top are the illustrations for Bears on the Stairs, where I kept them up to this week, carefully laid out, away from potential coffee spills (I am the clumsiest woman in the world: it's official).

Talking of such things, if you didn't read it at the time, my artwork accident with Maddy the cat might make you smile (and wince!).

Arrived Safely

Our 3 furry friends arrived safely at Andersen Press (phew) and everyone is really pleased (double phew).

They have already been repackaged and sent off to Switzerland, to the printer. No skiing for our bears though: they are there to be scanned on a drum-scanner, which turns them into high quality digital files.

Andersen will get sent these the minute they're done, ready for the designer to do page layouts, and for me to do the digital finishing work.

It's a bit of a race to get things ready in time to create a mock-up book for the massive Frankfurt Book Fair on Oct 14th, to woo all those lovely foreign editions...

My problem is that I am booked solid with school visits until well after the Fair. My only window of opportunity is one free weekend, squeezed between my travels when, instead of a well-earned bit of feet-up, I'll have to set to on those scans.

The Bears Are On Their Way!!!!

Yes, my bears have left home and are off into the Big Wide World.

I spent yesterday mounting everything up, which takes ages.

Each piece of artwork first needs to be trimmed (I cut my pastel paper 10mm wider than I need all round, so I can trim it back to a nice, crisp edge). The ruler has to be wiped with a bit of loo-roll after every single cut, as it picks up chalk from the illustration.

Here comes a quite unnecessary, arty shot of my waste bin full of trimmings...

I lay the trimmed artwork face down on the overlay paper (cut by my dear hubby) to stick masking tape loops on the back, then flip it over and position it on the mount card.

I wipe any blotted-off chalk from the overlay with more loo-roll (so handy), then position the overlay paper on top of the illustration, to press the artwork in place, so I never touch the surface of the chalk.

The overlay is secured with magic-tape along the top edge:

I've learned to use a steel rule to weight the overlay paper down at this point, or the tape's static sucks the paper up and makes a right old mess (requiring much swearing, scrunching up, binning and re-cutting).

Once mounted, I give each illustration a last once-over, a final check for missing buttons, whiskers, teeth etc. In this case it was missing pussy-cat eyebrow hairs:

I label each mount with the project info and my details, but also with a BIG RED WARNING for printers to alert them to the perils of pastels!

Then it's all sandwiched between two huge and very stiff sheets of cardboard, before being wrapped in brown paper and lots of sellotape for good measure. It ended up over 2.5 feet long:

I struggled with it to my local post office: it weighed a ton and cost £21 to post, but you should have seen the wide grin on my face as I walked back home.

I do have mixed feelings about this bit though: huge relief that it's all done, but vague terror in case it gets damaged or lost in transit. And I still can't quite believe it's gone. You can tell I'm over-excited by the length of this post! A glass of wine (or two) tonight I think...

Nearly There

The deadline for posting my artwork is Thursday: so, what's left to do? You'll be pleased to hear that things have continued to go really well, I put in some time over the weekend, and all the artwork is now done. Hurray!! Whoo-whoo!


My final pieces were the sundry character vignettes for the title page and back cover, which I finished on Friday. I'm really pleased with the middle one in particular:


Then on Sunday I went back and sorted out odds and ends, mainly the penultimate 'running away' spread, which has been sitting three-quarters finished for simply ages:


Below is a detail which will enlarge further with a click (sorry - still can't get full-width pics to enlarge for you):

Today I've been going back through everything, comparing the artwork, checking colour continuity and touching up anything I'm not so happy about, now I'm seeing it afresh.

So... tomorrow I'll get it all mounted and posted off 2 whole days early - I can hardly believe it.

Just as well, because the saved time will be VERY handy. By Thursday night I also have to pay my VAT (gulp), buy all my train tickets for my first batch of school visits and get everything prepared for a day of storytelling at Brayton Infants in Selby, starting first thing Friday morning!

Plus, there's the vital last-minute check though recent emails and those event sheets, to make sure I have all the info I need from the schools. There's always one who emails a timetable the night before, and it's always the one that features ten 30 minute storytellings, end-to-end...