Return to Prospect Hill (sounds like a film title...)

This is my 3rd visit to Prospect Hill Primary School in Worksop. What lovely, lovely teachers for inviting back!! My first time was in 2006, then in 2008 and again yesterday: I suppose 2 years gives the children the chance to grow up and be replaced by fresh faces.

There were certainly plenty of keen, fresh faces to greet me again this time. And the classroom areas are such bright, colourful environments: a joy to work in.

Mrs Palmer made a special request for me to read Smudge's Grumpy Day to Y1, as the children so enjoyed learning to draw Smudge last time. She's a nice, simple character for little ones to tackle. We got some super drawings again and my Smudge puppet got another outing (I must repair her whiskers: she's down to just 3 now, all on one side!).

I'm very into reading Stinky! at the moment too - I love getting all the kids to play the part of the flies! Y2 drew me some exceptionally smelly creatures and some horribly fat and juicy flies!

Thank you so much to all the children (and Mums & Dads) who bought a signed book to take home. Also to the school, for being so supportive and dealing with the admin of the massive pre-order (so many books that I couldn't fit them all in my wheelie case and had to post them in advance, in a HUGE box!). But the lovely Prospect Hill bookworms still bought loads more on the day. I feel loved!

Rhyme & Reason at Emmaus

We have a lovely, independent children's bookshop in Sheffield, called Rhyme and Reason. It's a pretty bijou space, but is stocked to the gills like an Aladdin's cave.

When I do school or festival events on my home turf, the owner, Richard Welsh, often supports me with a bookstall.


Yesterday, since we're in the run up to World Book Day, Richard arranged for me to visit Emmaus Primary School, where I spent the day telling stories and drawing on the flipchart for all the Y1 and Y2 children. They did some great drawings too!

At the end of the day, Richard set up a bookstall and I signed books and chatted to parents.

While I was there, a teacher from one of the morning's sessions brought me a lovely 'thank you' letter, signed by all the children. There was also a surprise package of drawings: portraits of me! You can see some here.

Hedgehog Flies to India!

It turns out that Lucy's Hedgehog might be able to fly after all. Her story, as well as the rest of the Foxes work is going on a little holiday to India!

Mrs Huffadine has been telling me that Chewton Mendip Primary School is twinned with Rishikul Vidyapeeth school in New Delhi and the work the children did during my visit in January is going to be shared with the children there. Nice idea eh?

It seems they regularly share project work and two teachers are coming from Rishikul Vidyapeeth to England in May this year.

Chewton Mendip is a little village school near Bath, with just 132 pupils. I expected the school in New Delhi to be a similar size, but when I looked up their website I got quite a shock...

Children's Stories

Do you remember me travelling down to Bath to visit Chewton Mendip Primary School last month? I did writing and illustration workshops with some of the slightly older children and they came up with all sorts of fun ideas.

I received a lovely email from Mrs Huffadine recently, sending me samples of some of the children's work from the Foxes class.

This is one of my favourites, the opening spread of 'Hedgehogs Can't Fly' by Lucy King. I love his sad face and his day-dream images of himself, with wings and a beak! You just know there are problems ahead for him too...

You can see a few more of the children's wonderful work in my Picture Gallery.

Motoring At Last...

I had the usual day of pulling teeth before getting back into my animal characters last week, but by Weds I was motoring again, and got on pretty well. I have the first half of this week too, before my next big batch of school visits kicks in.

It's been a very stop-start affair: I began sketching my initial drawings way back before my last book commission and, because this is a self-generated project, with no enforced deadlines, I've found it dreadfully difficult to keep momentum and enthusiasm up.

So, before I have to stop yet again, I'd like to get the sketches to a stage where they are at least ready to show to publishers for feedback.

It's probably better that I keep the roughs under wraps for the moment, which is why all I have to show you today is another oil-pastel self portrait, from Friday evening. Sorry about that! As usual, John says I have made myself far too severe...

My Pastels Sketchbook

After a bit of playing catch-up with admin, I've been drawing again this week at last. To warm up, I had a bit of a play in a pastel-paper sketchbook:


The one good thing about having stringy hands, is that there is more to draw, though I promise they are a healthier colour in reality!

I also added some colour to one of the character sketches I was playing with during an earlier sketch session. It's an experiment, using a line, which normally gets left behind once I colour.


Although it's quite fun, I feel the line makes it look a bit too cartoony. I do want to see if I can find a way to incorporate line though...

Yahoo - Free Money!!!!!!

Yes, it's that time of year again. I so love it when the PLR statement comes out in January, and I can see which of my books have been the most popular in libraries over the year. And I love it even more in February, when money appears by magic in the bank - yippee!

For those who don't know about PLR (or Public Lending Right) it's a government scheme, paid much like royalties, to compensate authors, illustrators, photgraphers etc for library lending: a payback for all the people who have borrowed books from libraries, rather than bought their own copy.

Although of course, it is money my books have actually earned (payments are calculated from a cross-section of British libraries, at 6.29p per loan), when I get my payout each year, it still feels like Father Christmas just made an unscheduled stop!

The sketches have nothing to do with all this, as I'm sure you've gathered: things just looked a bit dry without piccies, so these are some sketches done travelling about Sheffield recently. Above is My Beloved doing a pretty good job of ignoring the irritating woman sitting next to him with her sketchbook held high!

Bakewell

I enjoyed myself enormously at the end of last week: I have been working in Bakewell, a pretty village not that far from Sheffield, as part of a mini festival called The Write Stuff, organised by the local Lady Manners High School:

At my first event, with Y3 at Bakewell Methodist School, I was delighted to say hello to some children who had been to my storytellings before. We had a lively session: I read Class 2 at the Zoo and Stinky! and the children drew some extremely smelly animals!

The rest of my storytellings were housed in Lady Manners' fabulously massive library, with groups made up of children from all the neighbouring village schools. I did 6 sessions over 2 days, so to keep myself from going mad, I read different books for each and got the children to draw different things. We had some knock-out pirate pictures based on Class Three all at Sea.

The children were all fantastic. Thank you so much to Mrs Hetherington for letting us take over her library and for looking after me so well. It was great to have so much space to spread out, and to allow the children to draw nice, big pictures.
Yummy school dinners by the way!

Thanks too, to Simona for giving me a lift, and to Louisa for her mercy-dash to Longstone, when there was a mix-up about who needed to be where.

Happy Valentine's Day!

There was a time, way way back, about 25 years ago (!!) when I used to design greetings cards for a living. It was my very first freelance illustration work, straight after graduation. I was supposed to be working as a textile designer, but it was the late 1980s, and the textile industry was in deep recession.

I picked up a commission at my degree show to design a range of greetings cards. Though I didn't realise it quite then, a die had been cast and my foray into the world of illustration had begun, leaving textiles behind forever.

The biggest problem with illustrating greetings cards was having to come up with fresh ideas for occasions that have only a limited amount of icons to bounce off. At least Christmas has quite a few (trees, Santa, stars, angels, crackers, puddings, presents, reindeer etc etc...) but Valentine's Day was the pits - how many times can you rework hearts, flowers and cuddles?! I found that going out for a walk was the best way to get my brain kick-started - there's something about movement that works...

Though it was often like pulling teeth, I learned a lot doing those cards. They taught me about the constrains of commercialism and about communicating an idea through a single image. I also learned how to manage my time and my finances (vital skills for success and survival) which all paved the way for the work that was to follow.

Neither of these illustrations are actual card designs by the way. The first is a pastel illustration from the final page of Kangaroo's Cancan Cafe. The other is a piece I did for Illustration Friday, for the theme 'Worn' (leaning heavily on Ronald Searle, a favourite of mine from the past). It's a pen and ink drawing, coloured digitally in Corel Painter.

The Snowball Drawing

No, not a drawing of a snowball, but a drawing that has snowballed...

This sketch, drawn on my way to Nottingham last week, was posted not only here, in my Picture Gallery, but also on Flickr, where it was seen by Rick Tulka. Remember Rick, the caricaturist I looked up when I was in Paris?

Rick mentioned, in passing, that he could probably do a caricature from my drawing. I said I'd love to see it, so he did:

I really like the slightly twisted, sinister edge he's lent it, and I love his free mark-making in the bottom half.

Rick posted his version on Flickr, where the idea caught the imagination of several other artists. I came home from a day in Bakewell to discover different versions of my drawing posted all over Flickr!

Jerry Waese, in Toronto, is someone whose oil-pastel-&-ink sketch work I've been drooling over for many months now, so I was deeply flattered that he was the next to have a go.

Dona Minucia then did 3 versions, in ink: one based on my original, then two more using Rick and Jerry's as starting points. Another interesting idea...

Here is one by Paula K, with a wonderfully playful and delicate line:

And more oil pastels, but very different again, by Mariah O'Neill, who has added a real sense of directional light. I love Maria's colour palette too:

Just when I thought things were drawing to a close (no pun intended!) this one came in, by Norman Mallory, working in Los Angeles. His version is in ink, applied with a brush, which makes for some very satisfying marks, and fabulous contrasts in line weight:

Then an even more recent addition arrived: this wonderfully bold, mixed-media version by Abby Wright (don't you just love that rich blue?):

Just before packing up last night, I discovered yet another, by Paul Bowden, again, a totally fresh take of it. I really like this one:

What a fun game you started Rick - I wonder if there are any more to come?

POSTSCRIPT: Since I posted this, more versions have already been created, so Paul Bowden has set up a Flickr gallery to display them. If you fancy having a go for a bit of fun, post your pic in Flickr, then put a link as a comment on my original page, so Paul can pick it up and pop it in the gallery.

Book-Making Competition

Last week I started an interesting new project: I have been travelling to Nottingham almost every day, visiting different secondary schools across the city. That's a lot of train travel, so lots of sketching time: couldn't fit them all in here, so I've put some more in the Picture Gallery.

It's all part of a illustration & book making competition for Y7 students (age 11/12), and I have been asked to kick things off with a series of inspirational sessions, to get everyone really buzzing.

Over 5 days, I'm seeing 10 groups of students, doing illustration workshops to inspire them, but also to give them hints and tips to help them later on with their competition projects. I been showing them how to make their characters come alive: how to make them move realistically and how to depict a wide range of emotions through body language and facial expressions.

It's been fun for me to work with slightly older children for a change: I don't very often get invited into secondary schools, because of their far less flexible timetables.

There's still one school to go, then the students all spend a few weeks working with teachers and school librarians, writing and illustrating their own books. The students pictured are from Bulwell School, who are also writing their story in French - double challenge!

On April 21st I am going back to choose the best few pupils from each school, who will win a day out in June, to visit an art gallery, possibly the Tate Modern, although it's not quite decided yet. Great prize though, wherever they go. I can't wait to see what the students come up with!

Itching Again!

An Itch to Scratch is back! The big, daft gorilla went out of print for a short while there, but he's back - hurrah! He's only available in paperback these days, but is a snip at £5.99, I'm sure you'll agree...


As always, if you would like a signed copy with a little, hand-drawn pic of our uncomfortable, hairy friend, just drop me an email. I found good homes for both those Danish copies of Stinky! by the way, so that's great.

In the meantime, if you haven't already heard the story, click here to read about the gorilla-nipple-debacle..!

Beware: Flipcharts! (a bit of a rant...)

OK team, I don't very often have a moan but, now we're gearing up for the busy Spring term author-visit season, this is a plea to all schools and libraries who invite in authors, and most especially illustrators, because flipcharts are the bane of our lives!


It's not the flipcharts' fault: when they have all their limbs and a new, gleamy-white pad of paper, they are tail-waggingly happy to please. But with the introduction of interactive whiteboards and plasma screens, the poor things are increasingly relegated to the back corner of the store cupboard, under that pile of slide carousels and fax machines.

But a whiteboard is no good to an illustrator, who wants to draw for you on real, live paper, and then leave you with a lovely pile of drawings to put up in classrooms or on library walls. So, flipcharts are hauled out with legs that won't lengthen, or no legs at all, or legs that seems fine, until you put pen to paper...

My best one was a library (I won't name names...) who had only the top section. 'Ok,' I said, 'crisis management: I'll sit on the floor with the kids to draw.' (It was nice, soft carpet, after all). But then we discovered that a locking mechanism was also broken, so the board swung free in the frame, rather like an ice-cream shop sign. We did the whole session with me scrabbling on the carpet and a librarian behind the board, braced against it, to keep it from swinging. I ask you!

And then there's the paper...

A flipchart pad can be bought very cheaply, so why have I sometimes been asked to draw on the back of an already used pad, with yesterday's geometry showing through? And please don't fold them up and stack boxes of stationery on them: it's impossible to draw sensibly on a surface with more peaks and troughs than the Andes!

And (I told you it was a rant) sheets of paper held on with huge blobs of blutack or bulldog clips just won't work: as soon as you try to remove the first drawing, the whole lot ends up at your feet.

So, please, please, please, people: we've often travelled a long way to be with you and, let's face it, you've sometimes had to dig deep into the coffers to get us there. Take a bit of time to find out in advance if the flipchart is in working order. And why not invest in a nice, fresh, flat pad? And, while you're at it, some new, perky felt tips, that won't cough like an old smoker and keel over half way through the first drawing.

Phew - I do feel better for that!

Stinky Goes Danish

While I was in Bath last week, the postman put one of those 'I-came-while-you-were-out-so-now-you've-got-to-trek-to-the-sorting-office' cards through my door. I couldn't think what the package might be.


It turned out to be two complimentary copies of Stinky! in Danish, from Gullane, my publisher - thanks guys!

Since I don't speak Danish, I'd be happy to send a signed copy to anyone out there who does, for the cost of the P&P. Just drop me an email and I'll pop one in the post.

The Bus to Life Drawing

I'm only able to do my Monday morning life-drawing teaching for 4 weeks because, after that, the sessions collide with my peak school-visits season. So, today was my penultimate session.


I travel there and back on the 22 bus. I know I'll get a bit frustrated at spending a whole morning watching all the students drawing away, but not being able to have a go myself. So I take a sketchbook and at least have a quick go on the journey. All the colour is of course added later at home.

This final sketch done on my way to the Uni for last week's session:


I added the text whilst standing in the corridor with my students, outside the double-booked life room, wondering what to do. At least the life model did turn up eventually (who coincidentally, looked not unlike the man on the bus) so we squatted in another room and it sort of worked out in the end. Nothing's ever easy!