A Croc-and-Bull Story!

Last week I did manage a little bit of stitch work, but also spent what felt like days catching up on boring stuff after my residency - oh, those emails!! I managed to escape the computer on two days though, and had heaps more fun, doing illustration workshops and very silly storytellings in a couple of schools (hello to all at Nettleworth and Cavendish primaries!). This is me explaining about drawing emotions - the little girl in white is acting out a 'shocked and horrified' face, to feel what happens to her eyebrows. I asked them to imagine a huge bear had walked in and was eating the children nearest the door:

For this visit to Cavendish School, I was actually a prize - the school had won me by having more children complete the Summer Reading Challenge than any other school in Greater Manchester. Well done kids - great job! I'm not surprised they won, having met the children: they were all so focused. The older ones asked such perceptive questions and everyone was so obviously into books and creativity. So that's a big congratulations due to the teachers too, I reckon.

This is me with about 100 Foundation children, having just read An Itch to Scratch, we sang an itchy song and did lots of scratching, like Big Gorilla in the story, hence the silly pose! 

While I was there, the lovely folks from Manchester Library Service, who looked after me all day, gave me a little present: some of the brand new publicity leaflets for Manchester's children's library cards, starring Class One, as they appear on the first page of my latest book Class One Farmyard Fun, just before they get into all that bother with the bull...

The library card itself it attached to the inside of the leaflet, featuring my sneaky, dancing crocodile from Kangaroo's Cancan Café. Do you remember, a couple of years ago now, my characters started to appear on the new-look library cards?

It makes them look so much more enticing to kids than a boring old plain card, like the poor grown-ups get. I can't wait to show author Julia Jarman, my friend and partner in all the books featured. I know she'll love having our new book on the front!

Class One Farmyard Fun - My Final Picture Book

Class One Farmyard Fun is out in paperback at last - hurrah!

There's generally about a 6 month delay after the hardback, which always feels like forever. Plus of course it's AGES since I was creating the artwork.

This is, of course, another book I've created in partnership with the amazing Julia Jarman. I always enjoy bringing her fabulous, crazy stories to life. They absolutely explode with fun, so that wonderfully silly pictures burst into my head as soon as I read them.  

This particular title is the third in the series about school trips which stray somewhat off-piste. It's a great idea and, of course, kids love the way the teachers are never quite equal to the situation (and get eaten, tossed into the air, seduced by pirates...)

I have a bit of sad news to share with you all too: this is the very last picture book that I will be illustrating. I have been a freelance illustrator, working in pastels, since 1987. Wow, that's 30 years. How scary. I worked in editorial initially - my first children's book was published in 2000: anyone remember the Show at Rickety Barn?

It's not that I am retiring, it's just that 30 years is long enough to do a job where you spend all day every day on your own at a desk. I am having so much fun now, with my new reportage work, getting out and about with my drawing, meeting new people all the time and learning new things, illustrating the world as I find it. And of course, it is increasingly taking me to new exciting places, like Australia next year!

So, though it is quite sad to be at the end of an era, after over 30 picture books, it's also very invigorating to be at the beginning of something new, especially given that I am getting so excited about my new textile artwork too.

Wish me luck!

Look What's Arrived!

In these days of email and texting, I don't tend to get that much ordinary, through-the-letterbox mail. Still the odd bill. No letters though, which is a shame, as I used to love writing and receiving old-fashioned, pen-and-paper letters. Hey ho. What I do receive now and then though, is a parcel. Lovely! Especially when it's a ring-the-doorbell, postman-on-the-doorstep kind of parcel. 

Don't you just love opening parcels?

I had a pretty good idea what was inside this one as soon as I saw the Hachette logo on the label. Which made it even more exciting, because, inside was two copies of my brand new book with Julia Jarman:

Class One Farmyard Fun is a sequel to Class Two at the Zoo and Class Three all at Sea. All very funny, about school trips which go horribly wrong.

A short while before any book hits the shops, the author and illustrator are sent 'advance' copies. There are two because one is the hardback and one is the paperback.

The hardback comes out first. That is published on May 18th - less than 2 weeks! Then the paperback follows, on August 10th.

So folks, get your orders in!

Nearly Forgot: Endpapers and Text Overlays

Yes, I know I said Class One Farmyard Fun was done, but I forgot one last job: the text overlays.

My publisher emailed last week to remind me that I hadn't done them, so I had to stop everything and get them sorted straight away. For those who don't know, text overlays are needed for those occasions where I have writing as part of my actual illustration. For example, the sign on the farm gate, warning about You-Know-Who:

This sign appeared several times throughout the book, as well as another sign, on a different gate, which the teacher ends up flying over:

I create my pastel drawings without any text drawn on them, to allow for any translations of the book. But, because of the pastels, if the designer just drops a regular font on, it doesn't look like part of the picture, so I hand-draw text digitally, which looks more like it has been created in pastels. This 'sits' better into the picture, rather than appearing to float above the artwork. Plus, I think hand-written text works better, making it look like I did it on the artwork:

My art director also realised there was something she had forgotten. Ages ago, I had suggested using one of the earlier sketches for the endpapers. I sent her a low-res scan of this sketch, which is an early draft of the illustration at the top, to see what she thought:

She never got back to me for the high-res scan. So, another last-minute job was rooting through my plans chest, trying to locate the sketch again and rescanning it. This is a mock-up of what she has in mind to do with it:

Unfortunately, I got an email the very next day, saying that they had changed their minds and the endpapers are going to be plain red instead. Bit disappointing, but nothing to be done.

Now I think I really am done. Proofs should be back in a couple of weeks. Then publication is in March. Watch this space!

Bull's Breath and Scalping!

I often forget about the final little bit of my illustration jobs, even after all these years. It was especially easy this time, as there has been such a gap between finishing the actual pastel artwork for Class One Farmyard Fun and working on the scans, making them ready to drop into the final page layouts. Whenever I post off my huge package of pastel artwork, it feels like such an achievement, a relief to be honest, so that it always feels like my job is done.

Not so. Actually, the 'finishing' is not something everybody has to do. It's because I use pastels and many of the images need digitally cutting away from the background paper so they can be dropped onto plain colours, as a visual contrast to the full bleed illustrations. Normally this would be a straightforward part of the designer's job, but the pastel edge makes things tricky.

Sometimes there's just 2 or 3 weeks to wait before the scans of my pastel work come back from the repro house, but this time round, the publisher didn't pass them on to me until I was leaving for China. I had too many other things to do and they needed to do a mock up for the big book fair in Frankfurt, so couldn't wait for me to get back. The designer did their best and, given what a nightmare it can be in places, it looked pretty good.  Good enough for the Frankfurt sales teams anyway.

Luckily it doesn't need to go to print until next week, so I have had the chance this week to tinker with anything I think I can improve on.

There are three main issues. One is the skin colour, which is so close to the colour of my background paper that it is hard to cut out with any of the automatic Photoshop tools. Which means you often have to nibble away manually at the edge of people's faces, to try and recreate the effect of the pastel texture:

Then there is the slight pink interference you often get on the edge, especially when you cut out a darkish colour from my textured pastel work and place it on another strong colour. It's because the chalk has a soft edge as well as a texture. I have to go round darkening off the very edge, so things sit better. Very tedious. This is how it looked after the designer had finished and how I then further tweaked it. I guess I'm just a bit of a perfectionist:

The final challenge is recreating shadows. Since I don't know what colour we are going to use as the ultimate background, I can't draw shadows in the right colour. So I draw something vaguely neutral in the chalk then, when it's dropped onto turquoise say, I have to alter the colour to a darker, dustier turquoise, until it looks right. Shadows are a bit of a nightmare to cut out anyway,  because of the really soft smudgy edges, so often they have to be mocked up from scratch:

This particular book had yet another difficult issue: bull breath! The bull 'snorts out great jets of steam' on pretty much every spread once he gets angry. This is almost impossible to cut off the pink background. which is why, I assume, the designer put the main page, which features huge billowing clouds of steam, on pink, so they didn't need to do much cutting out! Sneaky.

On other pages we used all sorts of jiggery-pokery between us. I didn't like this bit that the designer had done though - the 'airbrush' look is so radically different from the pastel texture, that it looks a bit odd. So I did it again with my own version, keeping it to the original texture. You'll probably need to enlarge the picture to tell the difference:

I got really worried about one anomaly I spotted. The designer often reuses bits of the artwork for things like the title page. This time, she took the kids falling into the much heap (fun choice). Except, when I was tinkering with the cut edges of the artwork, I suddenly spotted one boy with half a head. I couldn't work out why the designer had done a Photoshop scalping job on him!

When I managed to talk to her, I discovered to my relief that the scalping was a by-product: she had been extending the muck heap slightly on that side of the piglet, because they were going to crop it. This is how it is going to look:

Class One are DONE!!

See Julia: I can rhyme too... And yes, the brilliant news is that I have FINISHED my book!!

I'm so sorry that I have been so absent this last couple of weeks. There just hasn't been a spare moment to write a post, because things are just so busy at this end right now. I have been juggling my book artwork alongside my residency in Manchester and organising the final exhibition, as well as lots of other bits and bobs like school visits and answering questions from the students of my Craftsy class, not to mention trying to organise the creation of a new website for my sketching work (more of that VERY soon...). Phew

It is good to be busy, of course it is, but it's also a tad stressful sometimes, having too many things buzzing around in my head, competing for my attention. Plus stuff does fall off the end occasionally, like you, my Gentle Reader. Sorry about that.

Anyway, One of the things I have been so busy with, is finishing my pastel artwork for Class One Farmyard Fun. All done. Even the cover. I can't quite believe it, since I've been working on this stage of the book for months: I started pastelling at the end of February! I normally take about 8 weeks to colour-up, but poor old Class One has only been getting my attention for a couple of days each week, instead of being full time.

The image at the top is the final spread, the finale of Julia Jarman's wonderfully silly story, where the children eventually lure the bull safely back into his field, using a pair of red, frilly knickers, a truck and a clothes prop. No more biffing people into the air! Once that piece was done, all that was left was the cover.

Publishers sometimes ask you to do the cover artwork right at the start, so the sales team have it for publicity, but that is a terrible idea from the illustrator's point of view. You get to know your characters as you work on the book. I usually have to go back and tinker with my first pieces, once I am into my stride. You want the cover to be the strongest piece, so it makes sense to do it last not first. So, thanks Hodder, for letting me save it until now.

It won't have a pink background, by the way: that's just the colour of my paper. We will drop in a colour digitally, once everything has been scanned. Not sure what colour yet: I'll work on that with the designer when we get there.

I only finished the cover artwork a couple of hours ago. I don't normally work weekends, but I was so close, I really wanted to finish it off. It's already nicely mounted, as you can see. John, my faithful manservant, helped me by doing all the mounting and labelling-up. Each piece is tacked to a sheet of card, with a paper overlay, to protect the chalk surface. 

On Monday morning, John will parcel everything up for me and take it to the post office down the road. It is always rather scary, entrusting such a lot of work to a bunch of invisible postal workers; it's even more so with this book, because of it taking me so long.

The Stress of Getting Behind Schedule...

I've not reported on my picture book artwork recently, but it's going really well. I'm not used to the slow pace though: normally I would be head-down every day, so things would move along at a reasonable pace. It generally me takes 6 - 8 weeks to complete the pastel stage of my artwork, but this year I am getting 2 days a week instead of 5, so it's taking more than twice as long as normal, which feels like an eternity!

There's a worse snag though. Back at the outset, when I calculated how long it would take, I worked on having 3 days a week, since my residency project is only 2 days, but the extra admin of juggling both projects, plus all the back and forth emails setting up my various educational visits, not to mention writing this blog of course - all that stuff wipes out at least one day a week. Which means that I have been slowly creeping more and more behind schedule.

So, I've been pretty stressed, working late most nights to try and keep up, worrying about how to break the news to my publisher. In the end though, when I finally plucked up courage, they were great. My editor not only extended my deadline to fit the new timescale, but added a couple of extra weeks, to give me wriggle-room. HUGE sigh of relief! In all my years as an illustrator, I've never missed a deadline, so I'm delighted and feeling much better.

As you can see, I have been working recently on some of the single pages. This is because all the double page spreads are now done (hurrah!), all EXCEPT one of the most complex of all - the final spread, which I have been putting off:

The two illustrations above are from the middle of the book, where the bull is loose and stalking various children, prior to tossing them into the air. Oh no! Oh yes... You wicked author Julia Jarman!

The one below is from quite early on, before things go pear-shaped on the farm. Julia's text says:

They saw ducks dabbling in the lake,

And cows vibrating - making milk shakes.

Tee hee.

When I finished the last of these three pieces yesterday, I suddenly realised that everything was done, all except - yes - that final spread. So I'm nearly there.

Before I can even start colouring that last piece though, I have to trace it up onto my pink paper, which will take ages because it's so detailed, and be VERY boring. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I am going to struggle to get that job done at all next week, as I have a pretty full schedule, with my usual two days residency at the Morgan Centre, plus a lecture in Sheffield, then a school visit entailing an overnight stop in London... Good grief. it's all go. 

No excuse the following week though. I'm guessing it will take me 3 - 4 days to pastel up the last piece, instead of the two I generally allow. Then, finally, the last job is to cut lots of card and paper, ready to mount everything up for sending off to the publisher. Another boring but necessary task.

Or maybe I can twist John's arm to do that bit for me...

Knitting Sheep and Throwing Muck!

Here is the latest piece of artwork from Class One Farmyard Fun!, hot off the press:

I am gradually creeping forwards, though it's taking longer than I would like. So many fiddly bits! I am rather pleased with the effect of the muck heap though. My favourite bit on this one is the knitting sheep though. And I really like how the cockerel colours contrast so well against the background:

This is spread 3, coming directly after the artwork I showed you last. You can see Julia's text on the rough which, as usual, was tacked to my drawing board directly above the artwork as I worked, to allow me to keep checking the details of what I was creating, because of course, when you use pastels, a lot of that detail from the pencil drawing gets obliterated:

It's useful, taking a photo of the artwork once it's done. I hadn't realised this before but, seeing it reduced like this really helps me to spot things I've missed. A book like this is a bit of a nightmare, making sure I have coloured every tiny shoe, not missed out any hands, left off any freckles etc. I can see, looking at this artwork, I have forgotten the eyebrows on the lad throwing the muck at his classmate, so he doesn't look quite naughty enough. I'll just go and fix that...

Serendipity: a Mistake Makes Things Better!

As you probably already know, I am working on my artwork in a rather random order. Actually, it's not random to me: it's about content on the page, rather than story progression, but it probably looks random from the outside. Having drawn the smelly muck heap spreads, I went back a bit and tackled the farmer and the prickly haystack. I wanted to get the look of the muck heap under my belt first, then I could ensure that the haystack looked sufficiently different.

This was a lovely bold spread, so much easier to tackle in pastels. It another one where the background will be dropped in later, in a nice, bold colour, which is why there is so much of my pink paper visible. I have already established the look of both the farmer and the bull in earlier spreads, which made things even easier.

When that was finished, I thought I would go back to the other spread where that same gate appears: spread 2. As you can see, the muck heap is just being delivered to the field, complete with stowaway piglet. At this stage, Class One are still oblivious to the bull, though the reader can't fail to notice him glaring through the gate bars:

Of course, this was a much fiddlier piece to do and, in the end, it took nearly 3 days to get all the detail in. The pastel 'clogs' after a while: you can only build it up so much, then you have to use fixative, which allows you to continue to layer over the top. Having fixed it when it was 2/3rds finished, I had to more or less rework everything, to bring back the brightness of the colour. A bit of a nightmare, especially when there is this much going on. Fixative has always been an unfortunately necessary evil.

Here it is on my desk, with the rough I always mount alongside, for guidance. That will allow you to read Julia Jarman's text:

Before people send me messages pointing out that I've 'missed a bit', the writing has been left off the sign on the gate deliberately - you always leave text off picture book artwork, so it will work for foreign editions. I will create the 'Beware of the Bull' text separately, so it can be taken off for any translations.

You might also notice another little anomaly in that area of the illustration. In my rough, there is more of the bull showing. Actually, on my very first drawing, it was just a tail visible, as a teaser, but my art director thought we should see a bit more of him. My re-work of that rough is the one above. However, when I was preparing to start the artwork, tracing the image onto the pink paper, using my lightbox, I forgot to trace the bull's body! I noticed my error in plenty of time, but thought it actually looked better. With just his face, it looks like he's hiding, and yet he's perilously near to the boy, which I think will amuse my young readers.

So, I coloured up the spread with just the bull's head showing and have sent the photo to my art director to see if they agree. I can easily add the body back in if they would rather. Cross fingers they like it as it is!

Head First into a Muck Heap!

I have been working on a couple of illustrations from the middle of the Class One Farmyard Fun. This is the bit where the bull is free and biffing people into the air, left right and centre. He tosses a whole bunch of children into a smelly muck heap and is then creeping up on the teacher...

As usual, I stuck other previously finished pieces onto the drawing board, to use as colour reference for the characters:

Perversely, I tackled the muck heap illustrations in reverse order. This is the one I did least week, where the children are already in the muck. Teacher is too busy wiping muck from her wellies to notice the bull behind her...

The background on this one has been left blank (the pink is just my pink paper), because I intend it to be cut away to a block colour, which we will drop in digitally. Or rather, 2 colours (which is what the diagonal line on the rough is about).

This digital background technique is firstly to create additional visual variety as the reader works through the book. I hit on the idea of the two-coloured background because, when doing the original rough, I had trouble with the scale of the children against the teacher / bull scenario. The kids should really be much bigger, if they are in front, but this didn't work, because they eclipsed too much of the page and didn't allow teacher and the bull enough impact. But I wanted a spread, for added drama. Hmmmm.... problem! By slicing the background into two colours, I am hoping to create a half-way house between two separate illustrations side-by-side, and a single spread.

I have just this morning finished the artwork for the spread before the one above: one of my favourites:

The children are flying through the air and landing in the muck heap. I created a stowaway piglet in the muck heap earlier on in the story, so it was fun to have him here, worrying about children landing on his head!

Next, I'm going to tackle a spread with the bull up close, a nice simple illustration for once, with the poor farmer flying through the air, about to land in a prickly haystack. Hee hee. Thanks for the great subject matter Julia.

Oh No! The Bull is Waking Up...

Sorry I have not been blogging much lately about my work on Class One Farmyard Fun. It's ironic that, in periods when I have loads going on to tell you about, I have almost no time left to actually tell you.

Anyway, I have been working on a batch of spreads towards the end of the book, when the children try to catch the escaped bull. The bull has been running amok, biffing children here there and everywhere, but has managed to knock himself out. This illustration follows on from a near-miss with the lad in the red trousers:

   Now the bull went after Paul

   But - phew! - he missed and bashed a wall.

Julia Jarman's text for this actual page is:

   Meanwhile Miss and a duck had landed in the farmer's truck (they were previously biffed)

   Miss hissed, 'Children hide in here! The bull is waking up I fear.'

   She was right - his eye-lids flickered, enraged by a pair of bright red knickers.

I don't generally do artwork for the spreads in order, but I tackled this sequence of illustrations one after the other, as they have a lot of the same items in: the bull, the truck, the washing etc. I needed to use each illustration as colour reference for the next, so kept them on the drawing board as I finished them. It's very handy having a nice big board: 

The text for the next page is:

Then suddenly Sam had a plan:

'Miss, quick, drive as fast as you can,

Past that washing and down the track.

With luck we'll get that bad bull back

In the field from where he came

and lock him safely up again.'

I had problems at the rough stage with this sequence of spreads and it was this that Julia and I were discussing when we met up at the Northern Children's Book Festival. In her original text, the bull sees the red knickers hanging on the washing line. But I was having trouble making that work when I got the idea to tangle the knickers onto the bull's horns. Unfortunately, that created a knock-on problem, because Sam next needs to grab the knickers to wave at the bull. Taking the knickers from the bulls horns was obviously too dangerous and scary for him. So I got the idea of him using the prop from the washing line to hook them off without getting too near. Julia agreed with my ideas and changed her text to fit. She is absolutely lovely to work with - she is always open to ideas and never 'precious' about her text. This is her altered text, which goes with the spread below:

But could they do it?

Sam got the prop... and took the pants off that bull in a strop.

Waving them, he yelled, 'Ole! Catch us if you can! Okay?'

The bull charged on, enraged by red

As Miss drove the truck, straight ahead...

I am now working on a spread from earlier on, where several of the children have been tossed into a smelly heap of manure, and the bull is creeping up on Miss... Watch this space!