Back In The Studio

3 clear days in the studio, with no visits to do and only slightly less urgent admin hovering in the background (those accounts! My receipts folder is officially bursting...).

It's easy to drift, so I have put some pressure on myself, to force me to get back down to my story (see Lila and Sausage). I've booked an appointment with my Editor at Hodder: I have to present my ideas to her on November 19th at 12.30, so the clock is ticking!

There's still a bit of an issue to solve with the story. A second child, Jack (with his dog, Killer) needs to appear towards the end: he bursts unannounced into Lila's fantasy. But this will be confusing to the reader, if they don't know who Jack is.

I showed the bare bones of the story to some writers at a SCBWI meeting recently in Manchester, and got a few suggestions. The most interesting was to run Jack and Lila's stories in parallel, from the very beginning, to actually divide the book's pages horizontally.

I have been experimenting in my sketch book during odd moments, generating Jacks' story, but unfortunately can't make this idea work. It gets far too complicated after a while, and I don't like having only a narrow strip to draw each half of the story in.

So I am going to try another idea, from my friend Cass, of introducing Jack incidentally at the beginning, in the background of Lila's story. Watch this space...

Snakes, Sparkles, Furry Bits and Pritt-Sticks...

Off The Shelf is Sheffield's Literary Festival and I love taking part each year. Last year I had to cancel (I still had that cold). I'd planned to read Class Two At The Zoo, and make snakes, so this time I did that, but added the newer book, Class Three All At Sea.

I spent the morning making the collage snake above, as an example for the kids to copy. Luckily I have a drawer full of bits of coloured paper. Great fun. I even found a split pin, so I could make his jaw move! My cousin, the very clever Sindie Smith, makes fantastic one-off teddy bears like this (isn't he gorgeous?) and she was good enough to give me a big bag of mohair and fun-fur off-cuts, hence the poor furry creature in my snake's mouth.

I always worry if anyone will come. Off The Shelf is very well organised, but I'm a bit paranoid with festivals: on a couple of occasions in the past, so few have turned up, organisers have resorted to grabbing kids off the street or hauling in their own offspring!

I arrived 30 minutes before kick-off to a fabulous sight: a tea party! A big central table covered with a plastic cloth, had place settings created from my snake colouring sheets (see My Crazy Morning), crayons and glue sticks instead of cutlery, pretty paper beakers full of sparkles instead of juice, and silver streamers all over the place. Every inch a children's party! And the icing on the cake: we had a 2nd room prepared the same, because we had so many coming!!

They sat on the floor while I read the story, with the grown-ups huddled on the periphery. Then they coloured and collaged their pictures. Off The Shelf provided every paper colour known to man, including snake-skin. As well as my fur, there were feathers, spangly stars and sparkly pipe cleaners. We all had great fun (certainly I did anyway). Most used my snake colouring sheet, but a few more adventurous kids created super-long snakes of their own, based on my collage. It was abuzz with creative chaos!

I gathered them all in at the end to finish with Class Three (otherwise I find it just fizzles out). Rhyme & Reason, the local children's bookshop, had set up a little stall in the room, and I seemed to sign quite a few books at the end.

Thank you so much to Off The Shelf's Su Walker and to all the helpers for the brilliant party idea, and for helping to create a truly memorable afternoon!

Freelance Illustration: My Crazy Morning

It started with 50 things to do, all by lunchtime. It was possible to fit them all in, if I'd been calm and methodical. Instead I rushed and panicked and everything took twice as long. On the morning's TO DO list was:

1 Booking a taxi for 12.15

2 Chasing three unpaid invoices

3 Checking and answering emails

4 Paying an electricity bill

5 Making sure there was money in the bank to pay the electricity bill

6 Posting someone a CD of my Giddy Goat illustrations (for projection at a musical performance: more later)

7 Posting an invoice for last Saturday

8 Posting Georgia's drawing back to her school (and looking up the school's address up on the internet)

9 Updating my listings on my website

10 Getting books, posters etc packed for the afternoon's event
AND

11 Drawing a snake colouring sheet for a Class Two event the following afternoon

12 Emailing said snake to the event organisers for photocopying

OK, that's only 12, but it felt like 50.


I did the emails first: I can never resist them. They took longer than was ideal. I flapped a bit and knocked the contents of a pencil pot across the floor. I cursed. I booked the taxi before I forgot, then I chose books for the event, gathered posters, blutack, bookmarks, a piece of artwork to show.

I thought I'd best draw the snake next and get it emailed, as it mustn't fall off the end. It needed to be an ink drawing. I got ink, paper, but could I find the mapping pen? I hunted. I cursed. I found the mapping pen in a cupboard, with a piece of card taped over the end to protect the nib (left from when we moved). I tried to pull it off. It wouldn't budge. I pulled more vigorously. It flew off and I stabbed my finger hard with the sharp pen nib. I cursed. I sucked my finger.

I dipped the pen and began drawing. I got blood all over the paper. I cursed. I considered hunting for a plaster. I couldn't be bothered. I sucked my finger and started again. Blood smudged on my fingers, but the paper was ok. It was looking good, but the ink was thick in places: it would take a while to dry. I finished it off then dragged my sleeve through the wet ink: a huge black splodge obliterating his nose; a black cuff. I cursed. Then I saw I'd already smudged it in the other corner earlier and not noticed. I checked my hand. Black ink. I cursed.

I let it dry then scanned it into the computer and touched it up in Photoshop. Good as new. I emailed it across. It seemed to take a long time. I realised in my rush I'd not compressed it: it was 3MB. I emailed an apology.

I prepared the things for posting and rushed out to the post office, running until the wheezing became embarrassingly loud. I got back and allowed myself a mug of tea. I chased the invoices by email, phoned the bank, paid the bill, updated my listings. I looked at my watch. 11.40 - I had to have something to eat before the taxi!

I ran downstairs, made and scoffed a sandwich while pacing. I put on lipstick. The phone rang: the snake file was too big, it hadn't gone through properly. Could I send it again? I checked my watch. 12.00. I shrieked then cursed. I went back into Photoshop and saved the drawing again, smaller. I emailed it again. I gathered everything together and was in the hall for 12.14. Perfect. The taxi arrived. On time! Wonderful.

I opened the front door... and realised I had no idea where I was going. I rushed back up 3 flights, found the folder, took out the details, ran down three flights of stairs, put on the alarm, got into the taxi and... relaxed.

I spent the afternoon working at a drop-in centre on the other side of Sheffield, entertaining a miscellany of under 11s from Tinsley, who were at a loose end during the holiday: as relaxing as a hot bath, after that morning!!

The Big Draw

Every October, there's a national celebration of drawing, called The Big Draw. I'm often invited to do something in Staffordshire: this year they set up a Saturday project in Stafford's Shire Hall Gallery, to create a super-long drawing, working with any families that came in throughout the day.

It was a shame they put me in a small, rather dreary back room, rather than the actual gallery, which was bursting with life. I drew a kangaroo on the flip chart, saying hello, to brighten things up. I fed a roll of paper up and over a long table, and waited to see who would come along.

The theme was a changing landscape, so I started things off with some skyscrapers and King Kong hanging off the Empire State. Then I drew a line to suggest rolling hills and was just adding a grazing sheep, when I got my first taker. The boy set to with gusto. He drew dramatic pointy buildings, one of which was Dracula's house. Then he 'dug' a range of black tunnels under the hills. A little girl arrived and drew a big train in the sky. Someone else drew some track underneath, then snaked it over the hills. I added some metal rigging to hold it all up. All kinds of new characters were created, and we quickly filled the space.

Unfortunately, when I tried to roll the paper on, it proved too flimsy and tore off the roll. We decided to create a new landscape. Someone suggested under the sea and drew an octopus. I blu-tacked the first picture to the wall.

Whenever someone said, 'I don't know what to draw', the flip chart came in handy: I drew something for them as inspiration. I drew a snorkeling gorilla in a bikini, a crab in Arsenal strip, a merman footballer... The kids loved suggesting things for me to add, then they were happy again, copying the new ideas onto the big drawing.

We created 3 different landscapes in all, each about 6ft long. The final one was outer space. I drew a space pirate and his space parrot in matching space suits. The kids invented aliens, planets and strange crafts. One Mum got very absorbed, drawing a colourful, long-necked alien down the far end. A tiny girl invented a secret language, consisting of little scratchy marks, which she trailed all over the picture.

It was a lovely day and nice to be doing something different, but it was a bit full-on: while facilitating the drawing, I also had to administer various bits of visitor paperwork and take a visual record with the gallery's camera. I was on my feet the whole time and got no breaks, not even lunch. I'd only had a banana on the train for breakfast at 7.30am, so at 2 o'clock I had to leave the kids to find someone in the gallery to buy me a sandwich. As luck would have it, I'd just bitten into it (still standing, still with the kids) when the local press arrived!

And guess what I did when I finally got home at 6.45? Collapsed in an armchair? No such luck! Quick change into an 80's outfit, ordered a taxi, then off to a friend's hen night, dancing (and rollerskating) until the small hours. I didn't see my bed until 2.45am. I've never been so grateful for that extra hour.

I'm the one on the far left! I'll let you see some photos of the landscape drawings when the gallery sends me the copies they've promised.

Stinky Cover

No, not a cover that smells, but the cover of my new book, Stinky!

Do you remember, the Art Director said it needed brightening up a bit? (see The Proofs Are Here!) I have digital copies of everything saved on my computer, so I took a look at it again in Photoshop, decided she was right, and made some adjustments. It's so brilliant to be able to that: once upon a time it would have meant starting again!

The main change was lightening the background, which helped immediately. I also brightened up Stinky's highlights slightly. Then I decided the 'whiff' marks were the wrong colour and a bit too solid looking. I tinted them, so they reflected the colour of the background more and thinned them out a bit, so make them look more transparent. Oh, and I added a few more flies!

There's no text on this new version yet, but do you agree it's better? It's so handy to have the Art Director or Designer as another set of eyes. It's easy to get too close to your own work, and sometimes you just don't see things. If I am unsure about a drawing, I often show it to John and, with fresh eyes, he usually spots the mistake straight away!

Stinky is going to be out in March next year. I finished the artwork exactly 1 year ago last Friday, so it seems like forever!

Bookaboo: On TV Again!

Some more exciting news just came in: Class Two At The Zoo had been chosen to feature in a new ITV children's show: Bookaboo! From what I can gather, it sounds like a more modern take on the Jackanory idea, and will feature celebrities reading the stories.

Typically, there was some mix-up: Julia Jarman and I were not asked for permission when Class Two was originally chosen for the show. Last thing Thursday afternoon, somebody realised the mistake. I got an urgent call on my mobile in the middle of the day at Lower Meadow School. It was my agent desperately trying to sort it out, so they could go ahead. I felt very important!!

The show has been set up as part of the National Year of Reading, and for every celebrity taking part, 1000 books will be donated to children. I don't know too much more about it yet. I am assured that this time I'll be told when it's to be broadcast, so I might actually get to see it for once! I'll let you know when I know.

Because Bookaboo is linked to a charity, Julia and I will get no fee (although the celebrities are getting paid...) but it will be nevertheless be fantastic publicity, and it's an excellent cause. Watch this space!

Writing Workshops

I was at Lower Meadow Primary all day Friday. I was originally booked in Spring, but had such a terrible cold, I lost my voice for 5 days! I'm amazed I am still healthy at the moment, as I almost always catch something off the children in October.

The day began in the hall, with over 100 KS2 children. The Head told me they were doing a big push to promote reading stories (including a 'bedtime story' idea, in pyjamas with hot chocolate!) so I kicked off by reading Rocky and the Lamb. I've never read to such a large number, but it worked surprisingly well. The school is also a Deaf Centre, so I had to wear a mike and a signer stood beside me throughout (I wonder how you get across the silly voices?)

I then talkied all about how picture books are created. PowerPoint is so brilliant to illustrate a talk - so much easier than the dreadful slides we used to have to use. When I was teaching at the Sheffield College, there was one faulty slide carousel that used to fire the slides high into the air, one at a time!

I had individual classes then, for two writing workshops: a nice change. There is a lot of effort going into raising writing standards in Sheffield schools at the moment. I decided to adapt an idea given to me by Cliff McNish recently (see To Wales and Beyond!). He's the author of the wonderfully scary Doomspell Trilogy, and though he's not an illustrator, he said he often starts workshops with drawing, then gets the children writing about what they have drawn.

We designed a creature on the flip chart and assigned it a personality trait by brainstorming possibilities and pulling one out of a hat. The Y6 children created an ugly creature who was sad and lonely with no friends, whereas Y4 wrote about a three-eyed chocolate obsessive. Although we all started with the same ingredients, the stories quickly diverged. We had a lot of fun and I was delighted to see how enthusiastically the children wrote.

There were different levels of ability, but every single child wrote something and they were all very keen to read out. It was especially nice to see how children helped one another: if someone was struggling to read aloud, a friend discretely prompted and encouraged them.

I always leave a school with lots of drawings and signed posters, but I like to leave a few books too, so the school can follow up and build on the visit, while the enthusiasm is still bubbling. But the Head and Literacy Co-oridinator at Lower Meadow decided to buy a copy of every book I had in stock - 15 different titles! That level of backup and committment to storytelling is fantastic. They are all working so hard at Lower Meadow to help the kids improve their reading and writing, and hopefully all those books will help to make it as fun as possible.


So a big THANK YOU to all the teachers and kids at Lower Meadow. Keep up the good work and finish off those stories!

By the way, I am running low now on 'schooly' illustrations, so hurry up and send me your photos of visits, or the 'best of' children's finished drawings, so I have something to jolly up these blogs!

Children's Competition

Have you heard of Chapter One Promotions? If you enjoy writing or illustrating, take a look at their website. There's lots of interesting information and fun things going on. I sometimes provide signed books for their competition prizes, and there is a competition running right now. Unfortunately it does cost £5 to enter, but there are cash prizes up to £150 for the winners. So, sharpen your pencils and blow the dust off your colouring sets...

Write a story or draw an illustration for any of the following titles:

The Adventures of the Ant Army
The Journal of a Super Hero
The Day the Aliens Took over My School
Leave Me Alone
If Only I Had Not...



You must be under 18 to enter, and the story must be under 1000 words.

The judge is the brilliant children's author and illustrator, Caroline Uff, probably most famous for her Lulu books.

The deadline is midnight next Friday on October 31st, so there is only 1 week left! You can read all the details on Chapter One's website, but if you want to ask a question, you can email them at kidskorner2@chapteronepromotions.com or phone 0845 456 5364.

Don't worry if you don't have the time or the money to enter the competition by Friday: you could still try writing your story or drawing your picture for one of the titles, and email it to me instead. I'll put your work in my gallery!

Or you could visit my Write Like An Author page at Chapter One, for an idea to help you do a different piece of writing, that might become a story or a poem. There are so many exciting possibilities - try one today!!

A Mock-Up Of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!

Yet another proof copy arrived this week. This time the publisher, Kingfisher, have sent me a beautiful, hard-bound mock-up of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! which looks exactly like the real thing. It's looking brilliant and Tony Mitton's poems are such fun.

I think publishers often make these, to present at the Frankfurt or Bologna Book Fair (see Dragon-Proof!) but I don't generally get to see them: they just send me the proof as individual printed sheets.

This one is even more exciting than usual, because it is a flap book, with massive flaps on every page. This means that, when I produce the artwork, it sometimes doesn't look much like the finished book. It's only when it's all put together at this proof stage, that I get to really see how it looks.

Flap books mean quite a bit more work. I have to do one drawing for when the flap is closed, like the one of Diplodocus above, and another for when it's open (on the right). In case you're confused, the flap on this one hinges upwards, so it extends out of the top of the book.

It's impossible to make it so the two illustrations will match up exactly at the flap edges, but I do my best. Later, when the artwork has been scanned and I get it back on a DVD (see Tracing up Dragon's Dinner), I can lay the two Diplodocus illustrations on top of one another in Photoshop, and touch up any bits that don't quite match.

Computers, eh? They might be a pain some of the time, but boy do they make some jobs easier!

In case you're curious about how that Deinonychus page turned out (see Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!), here it is in colour (the weird shape on the right is because it's a fold out flap again).

Tameside: Libraries and Art Gallery

I've been doing storytellings to very sweet 4 & 5 years olds in Tameside libraries. It's meant taxis at 6.50am and breakfast on the station, but I'm not selling books, so at least there's no suitcase to haul. You can tell it's getting colder though - look at the coats on the people on the Wednesday morning train!

We've had the usual fun, with school classes brought into the library for an hour at a time, and I've been looked after really well (thanks Jennifer!).

This 'Smudge' is by Georgia Lindsay, a little girl from Manor Green School, who came on Wednesday afternoon. She's only 4 years old - isn't it great? We had a no-show on Wednesday morning: the school forgot. Fortunately only the 2nd time that's ever happened to me. I filled the time doing big drawings for the library, then got onto a computer to do a bit of work. I'd brought my sketchbook, so I also did a bit of work on my story (see Lila and Sausage).

I forgot my sketchbook on Tuesday, so had to draw my train sketches in biro, on the back of the day's itinary:

Actually, Tuesday's visit had an added bit of excitement. Remember i told you about my exhibition for next year? (see Really Exciting News!). That will also be in Tameside, in the Central Art Gallery. I haven't yet seen the space, so Katie Kennedy came to meet me at Droylsden Library, sat in on my last storytelling, and then took me over to see the gallery.

It's a lovely space: quite big, with a very high ceiling, in a slightly quirky, Victorian building that also houses the Central Library. There's a welcoming area adjoining the gallery room, with a manned desk and a horseshoe shaped, glazed counter, ideal for selling my books once the show's up.

We met up with Ruth Lomas, a very creative lady, who devises and manages all sorts of interesting educational projects in Tameside, that revolve around reading. She arrived worn out from presiding over her Schools Book Challenge semifinals (a wonderfully successful idea: a sort of cross between Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, University Challenge and Give Us A Clue!). We all sat in the space and brainstormed ideas for my exhibition. We want it to be as lively, child-friendly and interactive as possible, with various kid's projects, competitions and challenges to go with it.

I would quite like to set up a blog just for the show, for children to give feedback and add ideas of their own. I'm going to do a children's illustration competition (the prize will be work hung alongside mine in the gallery). Ruth is going to help to set up a sort of treasure hunt through the illustrations, and Katie is going to get schools to come in and work with me in the space, maybe making their own books. Plus lots of storytellings!

It's all so exciting. I still keep waiting for someone to tell me it's all just a big joke! If you want an invite by the way, do let me know!

This is my Wednesday evening train man - even though he was sitting opposite, only a couple of feet away, I don't think he noticed me drawing him. He must have been miles away!

Dragon-Proof!

Sorry, that seemed too tempting a pun to by-pass. What I really mean is dragon proofs, my Dragon's Dinner proofs to be exact, which have just arrived on my doormat.

Unfortunately, though the book is still looking great fun, the colours on the proofs are not quite as true as the Stinky! ones (see The Proofs Are Here). The dragon is not quite as red as he should be - he's too pinky. Also, some pictures are just a little dingy.

How it works, is that I phone the publisher and tell them my thoughts. They then add my comments to their own, as well as the author's, then they go back and get the printer to tweak things. If the colours are really wrong, they sometimes print a second set of proofs, but that's rarely necessary.

It's no coincidence that the proofs have come in more or less together. All the publishers have been gearing up for the Frankfurt Book Fair last week. This is a Big Deal in the publishing world. There are two main fairs each year, Frankfurt and Bologna, where all children's publishers, big and small, from all over the world, get together to try and interest one another in foreign co-editions of their new titles.

Why? One major reason is that picture books are so expensive to produce. Publishers need to extend their print-runs by selling them in other countries too. America is of course the main target, as they print such big quantities.

But they need the deals signed up before the books are actually printed, so publishers try to get proofs printed in time to make mock-ups of the finished books. These are what the Foreign Sales team wiggle under the noses of their counterparts in Europe, America, Australia, even Korea (yes, Korea translates shed-loads of our picture books).

Eventually I will get feedback and find out how Dragon's Dinner and Stinky! went down. Sometimes, if there is no co-edition interest, a book might be put on ice. Cross fingers...

By the way, these performing lions were designed as a book-plate. There's a selection of bookplates and bookmarks to print out from my website.

Bubbly Burton and Giggly Grantham

Sorry for being a bit out of sequence: so much is happening all at once at the moment, but I want to tell you about last week's children's events.

On Wednesday I was in Burton Library, where they have a really good activities room. It was all set up ready, complete with two helpers for each session. I was doing Mr Strongmouse and the Baby workshops (see A Day in Derby).

I've adapted this activity lately, by getting everyone to draw the little mouse at the bottom of their drawings with me, step by step. That way they all get that basic foundation out of the way and can get on with the imaginative exercise of thinking up big things to pile on top of him. I've been noticing that I get caught up with one or two kids that don't have the confidence to follow my earlier instructions on drawing the mouse, which prevents me from helping the rest of the class. When I'm asked how to draw say, an elephant, or the Eiffel Tower, I like to be able to quickly show them on the flip chart. That stops me being asked the same things over and over!

First up was a Y6 group (about 10 yrs old), who did some truly amazing drawings. It makes a change to work with slightly older children, who add all sorts of interesting detail. In the afternoon, I had Y3 children (7) who were, to be honest, a bit of a handful. I continually had to stop and wait for them to be quiet, and the teachers rather left it to me! Fortunately, I've got fairly good now at dealing with 'lively' characters, principally by watching what teachers do. A lot of it is confidence.

On Thursday it was storytellings with Y2s in Grantham, set up through the Federation of Children's Book Groups, a brilliant, voluntary organisation that puts huge amounts of time and effort nationwide into promoting kids reading. I began in Grantham Museum, again in a separate events room. The school bought 2 classes: while one was looking round the museum, the other was with me, then we swapped - a good plan. They were lovely.

I couldn't resist reading Rocky and the Lamb again: I just love doing the wolf voice! Plus both Class Two and Class Three: the rhyming texts make them so nice to read aloud. I got the second class drawing anacondas. One boy's snake seemed to be saying, 'moo! moo! moo! moo!'. When I asked him why, he said his snake had eaten a cow!

In the afternoon we removed to Harlaxton School, as they couldn't make it to the museum. This was another rather 'lively' session. I had about 60 together, in the school hall. They weren't naughty, just a bit over-excited.

It was probably a mistake to read A Lark in the Ark, as this only made things worse. The book is full of flaps, and of course all the kids wanted to be chosen to open one. Again, I had to keep doing my teacherly bit: 'I'm only choosing children who are sitting quietly on their bottoms', but 2 minutes later they were all up again, doing that 'ooh, ooh' thing kids do, with their hands stretched as high as possible in the air!

And then every time we exposed another pair of animals inside a flap (goats in coats, owls in towels, gnus in shoes...) they all screamed with laughter shrill enough to burst your ears. Sometimes they deliberately compete to see who can screech the loudest and it's a bit like setting off the fire alarm!

The school unexpectedly bought about 20 books: great, but I had to try and sign them all, complete with little drawings, in time to get back to the station for my train home. I tried doing it while the children were drawing (animals in various silly outfits) which would have been fine, except I was constantly mobbed by groups of excited kids wanting to show me what they'd done.

I did make the train (phew), and this is one of the sketches I did on it. The dark line is where it goes over the middle of the sketchbook, by the way.

The Proofs Are Here!

Today was very exciting, as the postman delivered the proofs of one of my new books for next year: Stinky! (starring a cute, but very whiffy, baby warthog).

For those who don't know, before a book is printed, everyone involved gets a set of 'proofs'. This is a complete print of the whole book, at the final size, not yet bound into a book, but as individual flat double-pages. This is used to make sure that everything is perfect, before it goes to final print. Once thousands of copies are created, it is too late to put mistakes right, so the proofs are very important.

My main task is to check my illustrations, to make sure the colours are true, and these proofs are very good indeed. Paula, my Art Director, thinks we need to brighten up the cover a bit, so I have to play around with that on the computer, but the inside picture look perfect.

I also check that all the 'text overlays' are in place. This is where words appear within the image, over and above the main story text. See above, where Stinky and his friend Baby Littlebird are playing Jungle Monopoly? Notice that the name of the game has been left out of my original drawing. This is because no text can ever appear on my illustrations, otherwise foreign translations would be impossible without redoing the drawing. So I do any wording separately (on the computer) and put in place just before printing (see Computers are Wonderful Again). This is how the game will look in the book:

Sometimes they get left off by mistake. If you have a hardback copy of Bad Hare Day, turn to the final spread. This is how it is supposed to look! Can you spot the difference?

The coffee machine text was missed off, but I didn't spot the mistake on the proofs, so all the books were printed that way. If you have a paperback, it may be ok, as they are printed later on, so they probably corrected the error - I haven't got a copy here to check. If you have one, let me know if it's ok!


This is one of my favourite bits from Stinky!: the baby monkeys' tea party. Everything is going well, until Stinky's pong attracts lots of flies. Unfortunately, the flies tickle the monkeys and create havoc:

I decided to tip the image as well as the table, to increase the sense of chaos: the horizontal skirting board was far too calm. This also created more space for the ceiling to appear, as the words specify the jelly gets stuck to the ceiling.

Lovely Feedback!

I've just had an email from the organiser of the Saturday's event in Lichfield (see Storytelling with Julia Jarman) which is so lovely, I just had to share it:

One little girl, only nursery age, has asked her Grandma for a set of pastels for Christmas, as a result of seeing my drawings at the storytelling in Burntwood Library. Isn't that great? Who knows - I might have some competition in a few years!

Most public events give out feedback forms (it helps organisers get funding if people fill them in) but I don't normally get to see them. However, the lovely Liz Leyshon, who did all the organising for Saturday, and even provided cake (the kids scoffed it all before we got a bite!), was so delighted that she sent me them to see for myself. Out of 42 people, 37 were 'extremely satisfied' and the other 5 'very satisfied', so Julia and I are jumping for joy - a big 'thank you' to the good folk of Lichfield & Burntwood!

I'm taking the opportunity to show you a couple more of the drawings from that day. Pirate Lover Pete is by David George (love the ship David!). The lovely starry octopus at the top is by Thomas. There are some real budding artists in Burntwood, aren't there?