The Photoshop Frenzy: Cut-Outs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh No: It's Happened Again!

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


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


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

These are a couple of sketches from my trip home:

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

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

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

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

Illustrating a Picture Book: Touching up the Bears (!)

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

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

This is how the front cover is going to look:

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


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

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

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

Tired But Happy

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

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

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


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

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

Writing a Picture Book: Where Ideas Come From...

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

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

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

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

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


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

Dinosaur Egg Discovered at St Stephens!

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


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

'Is that Lynne Chapman?'

'It's her!'

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

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

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

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

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

Building a Paper World

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

Hello to St John's and Kaye's!

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

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

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

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

I drew this woman on my way there:

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

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

Author / Illustrator Visits to Schools: One, Two, Three... Go!

Yes: it's school visit season and I am hard at it again. I wrote this post at the weekend because I knew that once the week was underway, I'd have no time.

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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