New-Look Website Launch!!!

Remember me telling you about my website updating? Well, the designer and I have been tweaking and fiddling about with it, and it's at last ready to set before you!


This is my new homepage - the animal still dance about, but now they blink too. The little red plane is Giddy Goat, who flies across the top of each page, bringing you up-to-the-minute news.


It's not radically different in appearance - I've hung on to the basic colour and feel of the original, but it has some new features (like the form above, for leaving feedback after workshops), and it's a lot easier to find your way around.

It's also much, much easier for me to keep updated, so I will be adding new work far more frequently. This is what the individual book pages look like:

Spot the little rhino, swinging behind my name? There are lots of cute creatures that appear in corners, which change randomly each time you return.

There are tons more sketchbooks to see this time, including all my train portraits gathered together and the books of the various places I have travelled to:

Those montage sketchbook pages I showed you are in action too (the drawing in the book varies according to which set of sketches you choose):

The kids Funclub section is still the same I'm afraid - that's the next thing to tackle. Plus some sections still haven't had all the images re-loaded yet, as that's my bit of donkey-work (I'm trying to keep costs down by loading some stuff myself).

Please do have a look round and come back and let me know if anything's flaky, or if you find any weird anomalies. Your feedback would be really useful!

Lots & Lots of Libraries!

My next batch of Summer Reading Challenge days has meant rather a lot of early mornings this week, starting on Saturday, when I visited 2 libraries in Stoke. Then on Monday I was in Lichfield and Tuesday was Derby - 8 libraries in all (phew!).

I have developed a new workshop idea for the Summer Reading Challenge, based on Dragon's Dinner, where we draw the dragon together, step by step:


They all did incredibly well, as the dragon is quite a complicated character, and children were obviously very pleased with themselves, which was lovely to see. A special 'well done!' to Henry in Lichfield, who was only 4!

This is me demonstrating how you draw characters running away from a dragon, by looking at how our body moves when we run:

On the flip chart, you can see the process: starting with two circles, like a snowman falling over (to get the head out in front) then adding the right face, in this case a bear, with sloping down eyebrows for added fear. I am showing them how to draw 'running' arms and legs, to create movement and speed.

By the way, this is the new dress I treated myself to in Covent Garden, during my daytrip to London last month, to see the Quentin Blake exhibition. What do you think?

Exhibition Posters

Katie, the designer at the gallery, has just sent me a couple of posters we are going to be using to publicise my exhibition in Tameside next month. What do you think?

If anybody lives close enough and would like a ticket for the Private View on August 15th, just email me - I'd love to meet you!

Bears on the Stairs Cover Ideas

I have been working on the cover, end-papers and title page for Bears on the Stairs, while I wait for my feedback on the rest of the roughs.

This was my first idea for the cover. The Editor liked the two lower bears, but wasn't keen on the big one 'batting' the title text. This is my re-draw:


For the endpapers, I though one big picture might be fun, rather than the little spot repeats of characters that I often do. I don't know yet whether we will have full colour or just single colour, but this is my idea:


If it's single colour, I think just the linear drawing would work quite well, maybe reversed out, as white line onto a strong colour.

The Dragon is Out There!

Dragon's Dinner is published today - hurrah!!

It always takes such a long while... I began work on the drawings in March 2008, and finished the artwork almost exactly one year ago which, believe it or not, makes this one slightly quicker than usual.

The story is another rhyming one, which makes it great fun to read aloud. Poor old dragon spends the whole book chasing a string of animals, trying to catch them for dinner (it's a cumulative thing, where a bear, then a fox, then a cat, then an owl get added to the line). When he finally catches up with a mouse, he thinks at least he should be easy, but not so!

Actually, the story was originally going to be called 'Squeak!' because it's by squeaking in the dragon's ear that the mouse wins the day. Later it was changed to 'Greedy Dragon' and finally to Dragon's Dinner.

If anybody wants a personalised signed copy (with a little drawing in) just email me.

Yahoo! The Roughs Are Done!

Today I emailed my finished drawings for Bears on the Stairs to the Editor at Anderson Press. Hurray!!

This was the last one left to draw (although confusingly for you guys, it's from the middle of the story):

Once the spreads were all designed, I went back through them, redrawing, tidying them up and tweaking details. For instance, here are 'before and after' versions of spread 5 (that I initially talked about a while ago):



The team at Anderson will also forward everything to Julia Jarman, the author. Feedback can take anything from a week to 3 weeks. Sometimes there are only tweakings to be done, sometimes radical changes. I'll let you know what they say. Cross fingers...

I will have a think about ideas for the front cover of the book while I wait to hear.

Changes to Big Bear

I'm nearly finished the Bears in the Stairs roughs, but I'm not happy with this page. It's the 2nd time we meet Big Bear, when the child discovers that, unlike the smaller bears, he cannot be bribed with goodies.

If you remember, I originally I sketched it like this:

But I've decided it doesn't work: though I can get away with some wacky perspective, the banisters are too weird, and the bear doesn't fill the space well. The boy seems too small for the staircase too.

I've tried bear with more sarcastic body language, and completely redrawn the banisters. I think it's much better:

Notice I've worked up the family portraits idea. I thought it might be fun to include one with the teddy bear, just as a tiny clue...

I also thought it might be funny for the boy to have brought the whole packet of biscuits we last saw in the kitchen, and for them to be spilling out onto the stairs:

Thanks Cassia!

Fellow illustrator Cassia Thomas made a suggestion after a recent post, which sounded good fun, so I have tried out a new version of the vignette where the child introduces us to the big bear. This was my original drawing with him and the cat together:

This is the new one that Cassia suggested, with the cat running off:


As the previous page's vignette shows the child and cat stood together, I think this added humour works much better. To make it credible, I felt I needed to make puss look slightly more scared in the earlier one though:


Thanks Cassia!

It'll be interesting to see what the publisher makes of the vignette system - I'm presenting them with both options.

Summer Reading Challenge

Every year, UK libraries take part in the Summer Reading Challenge. Kids of all ages win prizes if they read 6 books through the 6 week holiday. The challenge has a different theme each time, to help inspire them, and this year's is Questseekers.

It's proved to be perfect timing: Dragon's Dinner comes out later this month, and I've had tons of requests to help libraries launch the challenge with events based on the book.

My first one was last Wednesday, at my local Ecclesall Library (I'm booked to do 14 more, between now and August 6th!!). They hired a wizard costume as you can see, and the local press took lots of photos, then I did a short talk to a Y5 class from Carterknowle School.

I showed all my early drafts for Dragon's Dinner, which was interesting for me too, as I hadn't looked at them for well over a year.

Last year was a sports theme, so I just did a couple of libraries - I read Giddy Goat because of the climbing! This time it's made to measure though.

Finally Getting Past the Koala!

I've just drawn Bears On the Stairs spread 6: where the child bribes his way past the nose-picking koala with a glass of milk:

I like the simplicity of not having the doors showing through the banisters, so I'm wondering whether I can get away with just the floral wallpaper or, probably better, cutting the background altogether and having plain colour. We'll see.

It wasn't until I posted the illustration here that I realised the stairs were way too steep, so I've rotated everything a little (which has given me room to enlarge things slightly too - always good!):

A minor thing, but I'm wondering if Julia might consider changing 'get' to 'give', which would makes slightly better sense with the image...

Signed Books Can't Be Returned!

You don't get paid for events in bookshops, but it means they order a supply of your books (these days, unless you're a best-seller, they generally stock single copies at a time, if you're lucky!). You can then sign them all: in case any new authors or illustrators don't know, signed books can't be returned to the publisher, so remain on the shelves until they sell. I'm a regular embarassment to friends, and often check bookstores and then ask if I can sign their stock - every little helps!

So, I broke off drawing on Monday morning, to do a quickie in my local Waterstones. A small group of children had won book tokens, and Waterstones asked if I'd do a storytelling while they where in store spending them. I was pleased Waterstones had got lots of copies of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! and even a few hardbacks of Stinky! (which is great, as hardbacks are very hard to get onto the shelves).

I read Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! for only the 2nd time ever. It's takes me a while to warm up to a book and get familiar enough to add in bits of fun and interaction. I tried to do different voices for all the dinos. This one's quite funny if you give it a butch voice: though he's all fluffy and pink, he actually wants to be tough.

Another Tricky One With the Bears...

Going back to start work on spread 3 (where we get to meet the fat koala for the first time) I've hit a new problem...

Julia's text goes: 'In the middle there's a fat one with big, biffy paws. Mummy says there isn't.' so I was busy sketching the child and koala together on the stairs, much like this following page (only still half way up, where koala lives).

Then suddenly it struck me - how did the child get past the little bear we have just seen on the previous page, commandeering the bottom step?


And I realised it wasn't just a problem for spread 3 - how did he get past the koala to be in the following image (the one at the top) meeting Big Bear? Uh-oh. We discover how he bribes the bears later, but don't know that yet.

I had a thought: perhaps the child could be peering through the banisters, so he hasn't had to pass little bear at all:

But now it makes even less sense that he would suddenly find himself at the top of the stairs for spread 4!

I could leave the child out of spread 4 altogether, but the bear won't easily fill the space, unless perhaps I lay him down. Another possibility is to include the child as a little vignette within the spread, telling the reader about the bears without actually being there: sort of 'reportage':

If I do this for the big bear page, I think I'll have to do it for koala too, otherwise it would be too weird, but there's plenty of space under the text...

What do you think? I rather like the vignettes, but will show Anderson Press both ideas, and let them decide which works best.

Creating More Website Montages

Remember I designed a sketchbook montage for my new website? It works well, so I have been stealing time to create another one, for an introduction page to my sketchbooks.

I want to be able to add more sketches over time, so have decided to divide the sketchbooks into locations (ie Asia, UK, Europe etc) to keep things manageable. My new montage will go behind the thumbnails for these categories:


It's muted so the thumbs will show up, and of course big lumps will be eclipsed by them, which is why it's so 'busy'. This is roughly how it will work:

Each of these white square will contain a relevant drawing. When you click one, you'll see a selection of sketchbooks to choose from, which you click to see the specific drawings.

I wanted to keep things lively and varied, but can't afford the time to do any more montages, so the designer has enlarged various sketches as background images for the thumbnails within each of the categories above.

This drawing sits behind all my 'In The UK' sketchbooks for instance.

I did end up having to create one more montage - none of my train portraits worked as a background, so I combined several (in Photoshop of course) for the backdrop to the 'Train People' sketchbooks:

Joanna Saves the Day Again!

Remember how Joanna's feedback helped me to see my doors weren't working? Well, turns out that re-hanging the door in spread 1 had a major knock-on effect for spread 2...

Julia's text here says:

'On the bottom step there's a little one, but he's very fierce and growly. Mummy doesn't believe me.'

Ages ago, when I first looked through the project, I did the above sketch sheet of ideas for this page. A bit later on, I worked it up to this drawing:

I didn't want to take us out into the hall too early: I wanted a transition spread with the child still with Mum, telling her about the bear, which we now see properly.

The touble was, I could find no way to fit this drawing into the layout, without the composition being very one-sided, or the gutter running through the characters and losing any workable space for the text. But, once I rehung the door the other way, it all fell into place:

So thank you Joanna again!

As you can see, the cat fits quite neatly into the picture. Not sure of the best position for the text on the right - the publisher can decide.

Designing the Exhibition Space

The design of my exhibition space is being finalised this week. The work is all being framed, all the props are being made and the final layout decided.

We are now having mobiles of animals from Kangaroos Cancan Cafe instead of monkeys - I think the platypus and koala would be really funny. The monkeys are now part of a monkey's tea party instead, as in Stinky!, with fake food etc for children's play. This will combine nicely with the magnetic flies game.

We are going to cut one monkey's face out, making a hole in the board, for children to stick their face through and be part if the party. If they stick their face through the other way, they will appear in the belly of the anaconda in Class Two at the Zoo.

There is a new idea (inspired by something we saw at the Quentin Blake show) - a quiz board about dinosaurs, based on Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!, with round shapes you can twirl to reveal the answers.


I am a little disappointed that we are unable to include the ark now, with the little stuffed animals for the children to put into it. Some breakdown in communication meant that the publisher did not supply copies of Lark in the Ark for sale at the show, and so the curator has dropped the idea. Very frustrating!

We are still going to have the reading area, which will be a mock-up of Smudge's sitting room, with pictures of Smudge and her friends on the wall in frames, and Smudge visible through a fake window, playing in the garden. Aaaaah...

And since Giddy Goat is part of the show's title, he is going to be stencilled on the walls around the exhibition, leaping from picture to picture, or balancing on top of frames!

Drawing A Cat

Unfortunately, by the time I decided to include a family cat in Bears on the Stairs, Maddy had gone back home. Drat!

Fortunately I remembered a wonderful old book I have had since I was a teenager, called Drawing A Cat. It was printed in 1945 (!) and was a present from my Dad to my Mum, who also loved to draw, when they were young. Mum gave it to me when I showed real interest in drawing.

It is stuffed with wonderful observational sketches of cats in all manner of positions, so was the perfect reference. I sketched from the sketches to create this crib sheet to work from.

Thanks Mum, and artist Clare Turlay Newberry, wherever you are...

Taking Your Comments on Board

When I showed you the kitchen spread, Joanna left me a comment, that the doors from the kitchen and sitting room appeared to have the same view of the stairs:

I thought it was ok, with a bit of artistic licence - one looks onto the bottom step, the other onto the middle.

Living with it though, I think Joanna was right. I worried this meant a major redraw (as the little bear's foot has to be visible through the crack in the open sitting room door) until I realised I could hang the sitting room door the other way, pushing the bottom of the stairs further down the hall:

You can still see the little bear's foot, and now it's better, as Dad couldn't possible notice it this way round. It's created a perfect spot for the cat too. Thanks Joanna!

Please people, do feel free to leave critical feedback - sometimes, being so close to a project, I miss things, so you are my fresh pairs of eyes.

A Tricky Dilemma to Tackle...

Remember Julia's last line: '...but they get them on the way down!' This is a rework of that spread:

Note the cat's now in, plus pictures on the wall and a narrower staircase to before:

But though a funny punchline, we've decided it's just too scary a note to end on: we don't want kids having nightmares.

What to do? Julia suggested combining two earlier spreads to free up an extra page, allowing me space for an additional final picture, to bring things to a happier conclusion.

I toyed with the child rescuing Mum and Dad: a happy end plus a conquering of fears. But though easy to do given 2 images, it wasn't really possible to get from the image above to happiness and safety in just one picture.

So we decided to finish with the child tucked up in bed, now the bears are gone, as above, with his 3 teddies: obviously the same three bears.

It does still save the parents, since the imaginary bears disappear once they reappear as real teddies. I thought I'd show Mum and Dad looking round the door though, just to reassure the reader that everyone is fine!

I thought the cat would likely be thinking about joining in on the comfort...

More Blasts From The Past!

I thought you might be interested to see a couple more older bits I dug out recently, as part of the introduction section for my Tameside exhibition in August.

I spent 10 years working as a freelance Editorial Illustrator, before I began illustrating children's books.



I illustrated articles for a wide range of periodicals, from the high profile end, like Marketing Week and The Sunday Times, right down to trade rags for accountants, builders etc.

It was great fun, wonderfully varied and very challenging - I usually had a matter of days to come up with a concept and turn it into artwork (very unlike the months I get to work on projects nowadays).

The top illustration was a piece for Medeconomics Magazine: a feature about equal pay for women doctors. The one above was for the Times Educational Supplement, about the issue of excluding children from school.

As you can see, even then I was working in pastels!

Bears Get Parents!

At the end of Bears on the Stairs, Mum and Dad get their come-uppence for not believing their child. As you saw previously, the bears hide when Mum and Dad take the child up to bed, but the bears 'get them on the way down!'.

I had a choice of drawing this scene from various viewpoints, but the bears' perspective, looking down the stairs to Mum and Dad fleeing, seemed the most dramatic:


Because the stairs were so complicated, I decided to do the background with parents first, and put the bears on separately. I used layout paper do draw the bears on a layer on top. (I did this drawing early on, before I had changed fatty-bear to a koala):

It was too much to ask that it all fitted the layout perfectly, so I scanned both parts into Photoshop, put them together and messed around with positioning. It was important to move Dad's head out of the gutter (the centre of the spread).

I'm deliberately taking liberties with perspective to add drama and quirkiness. I'm trying to retain this feel throughout.

Like all the other laid-out drawings I've shown you so far, I've printed this spread off. When I have the whole book drawn to this level, I go back through them, redrawing each, tweaking and tidying up as I go. It's important to wait until the end, because things change and evolve (like the koala here and the pet cat idea).

Out and About

I rather enjoyed being driven across Sheffield to Chapeltown early Wednesday morning, watching the city crank into gear. I was spending the day telling stories at Lound Infants.

It was a really nice day, telling stories to quite big groups of little ones in the hall. They were all so sweet! It was HOT HOT HOT though, so muggy in school that I had to escape into the fresh air at lunchtime and did this ten minute sketch sitting on the grass:

When I got home I flopped in the garden and decided I really had to sketch these wonderful poplar trees that scrape the sky from a garden over the road. I tinted both these drawings later in Photoshop, but you can see the originals in the Picture Gallery. The velux windows are my studio, by the way:



On Thursday I was part of a lovely event in Mansfield. Lots of local primary schools took part - children had worked on all sorts of multimedia projects that celebrated reading, and small groups from each school got together for the day at Oakham Primary School, to display the results, which were really varied and interesting. As a reward for their hard work, they each got a fun illustration workshop with me.



I drew this man on the train journey there. It was only a half hour trip, so I only did the one. It was another scalding hot day, and on the way home I was melting and struggling to keep awake, so just couldn't be bothered!

Hide and Seek

Towards the end of Bears on the Stairs, the parents give up and take the child up to bed themselves. The child thinks 'Aha - now they'll see for themselves!' but, infuriatingly, when Mum and Dad appear, the bears all hide!

Which presented me with an interesting challenge - how to hide three bears, one of them massive, on a bare staircase!

I felt it important that we see them hiding, as the reader will get a kick out of the 'he's behind you' factor. I also thought that, while the parents are oblivious, the little boy should be suspicious, well on the way to spotting the bears:

I tried and tried to draw it as one double-spread image (as that's how the rest of the book's done), but in the end, I think the only way it works is as two pictures, one at the bottom of the stairs and one at the top:

Again, the first time I drew it, it was in danger of being sinister, so I made Big Bear giggly. Hopefully that has taken the sting out. What do you think?

Nobody Believes Me!

We're a good way through the story by this stage. Mum and Dad refuse to believe about the Bears on the Stairs. Julia Jarman's text for this spread is: 'Mummy says it's my imagination. Have you cleaned your teeth? It's past your bedtime. Go on. Upstairs.'

Since the first two spreads of the book take place in the living room, I thought for visual variety I would take Mum into the kitchen, to make a drink for her and Dad.

As you might have noticed, I'm also considering introducing a family cat (Maddy's influence?):


A pet provides another form of interaction with the bears. I invented a cat in Mr Strongmouse and the Baby:


He was handy for sort of representing our eyes on the action, reacting to events in our stead, and so adding another dimension, as well as something for children to spot:


In the Bears spread, in an echo of page 1, I originally had the koala through the open door making faces at the child, but because the door is between them, the child couldn't appreciate it. The cat on the other hand works fine.

The banisters are proving to be a real pain though.


They are always getting in the way. It took ages to get the koala visible enough through the gaps for his position to be readable.