BOOK EVENTS

As well as completing the colour spreads for my new book in a few weeks just fifteen days time (oh lordy it makes me weep a little when I write that) I am jetting all round the country in the next few months promoting my books, including my newest book release with fantastic author Lucy Coats.

First up I'm visiting two schools for the Booklinks Festival on March 4th. Absolutely love being part of this festival run in partnership with Pop Up which is an excellent creative programme and always has great authors and illustrators involved. My last school visit with them was such fun, you can see the amazing results here.

Then I'm off to the Shrewsbury Festival, School's Week, on the 6th March for two days where I will be visiting a school all day, and delivering these workshops based around my book 'The Girl with the Bird's Nest Hair'.

After that it is off up to Newcastle where I will be doing a 'best friend' reading and drawing workshop at the the AMAZING Seven Stories with Lucy on March 17th. Details found here.

Then on May 28th I'll be a little more local in Herne Hill, South London, at the beautiful book shop Tales on Moon Lane at 10.30am with Lucy to read our Bear book and do a short drawing workshop. On June the 1st I'll be back in my old stomping ground in East London at the Discover Story Centre to do an event there with the lovely Lucy again.

If you live near Newcastle or London and want to pop along to one of the events get booking now as they sell out quickly. And let me know if you are coming so I can say hello! I'm afraid the other events are just for the schools I'm visiting. Fingers crossed I might be at Cheltenham later on in the year for their book festival...

And then I will be putting my feet up and having a well deserved cup of tea and seeing my poor neglected child!

FEATURED

Hello, I'm up to my eyeballs in work. Which is great, but I'm drinking a lot of tea (and of course eating too many biscuits as they go hand in hand...) and not really getting round to posting all the amazing DIY things I wanted to show you. Anyway I digress, hopefully I'll be able to do that later this week. For now I wanted to swing in and say I'm interviewed on this wonderful blog as part of National Storytelling Week. They are also hosting a giveaway on their facebook page where you can win a copy of my book 'The Girl with the Bird's Nest Hair'. So make sure you pop on over there, or to my facebook page and 'like' it so I can let you know the details later this week!

BEAR DESPAIR

Simply love this wordless book about a Bear trying to get back his stolen teddy bear. It is the 6th title in the range of 'story without words' series from Enchanted Lion Books. Wonderful illustrations from French illustrator Gaetan Doremus with just the right level of dark humour to them. We can all relate to the desperation Bear feels and the fact that he'll stop at nothing to get his beloved teddy bear back. I particularly like the accumulating animals in the bear's stomach and the interaction between them. Stunning colour palette and who'd have thought that cross hatching could look so darn good?

 

Fun to read, and plenty to discuss with the little one too.

A SNEAKY PEAK....

i can't share too much as it's not due to be published until spring 2013...which feels like such a long way away at the minute. the only nice thing is that by then Stanley will be just over two years old and hopefully appreciating my books a bit more by then rather than just wanting to throw them around! but for now here are some images from the proof copy the publishers took out with them to Bologna...

 

SKETCHBOOK

a page from my sketchbook. i'm thinking i'd like to turn these guys into a story. just trying to work out how. inspired (if you can really say that) by all this rain we are having....
hope your bank holiday weekends are all good xoxo

WINNER.

It's always nice to be sent an email to say you've won something...especially when its children that have voted! recently i received an email to say that my book had been selected for the 'Early Years Category' at a big event at Didsbury Road Primary school. two hundred children had a selection of books to vote for and Mrs Muffly's Monster won my category! they have a huge school book day event where messages from the authors and illustrators are read out in assembly so i sent them this huge picture as a thank you message....

so much fun drawing on a large scale! and it's going to be framed to hang in the school - hoorah!

talking of votes ;)

POP UP

recently i was asked to visit two schools in london to deliver a workshop event as part of Booklinks and POP UP. the schools had been given my books to read a few weeks before my event and so when i arrived many were excited to have me there which is always a nice feeling! one school had "Batty" and the other school had "Monster Day at Work".

with the first school we read the book then talked about animals at the zoo while i did a few drawings for them. they then created a huge picture with me, all drawing whatever animal from the zoo they wanted so we could hang them upside down on a branch...as is the theme of the book. the school had been really brilliant and done so may lovely things with my book and the children. when i turned up there were bat and lion masks, little bat models and amazing bat handprints. so sweet to see!
the children were reception age so mainly about 4 years old. they all did really well and i took some photos on my phone to show what they created.

the second school had also been working on my book too so i had a really warm reception! again we read the book and then spoke about the themes in the book. we 'brainstormed' ideas about what monsters looked liked which was fun. then they all created there own monster going to work.

a really fun day out for me. i find it is so rewarding to go into schools to do these workshops. connecting with the children that i write these books for is really important. sometimes working from home you can forget who your work is really for. this way i feel excited about working and go home ready to create more things! after all they can be brutally honest, if they don't like your stories then there is very little you can do about it!!

BOOK LOVE.

a lovely new book purchase i made recently is "Children's Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling" by Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles. if you are into children's books, an illustrator, author, student or trying to get into the industry i'd definitely recommend it.

 

The Book is spilt into seven chapters which cover various aspects of creating children's books. there are also case studies on illustrators as well as publishing houses. there is a really good international outlook on picture books which is very exciting to see. lots of lovely images to pour over...hugely inspiring!

 

i have another book by Martin Salisbury called "Play Pen" which is also brilliant.

Getting there....

....hope to be halfway by Christmas. So 6 double page spreads finished out of 12.

Deadline end of January to make the Bologna deadline....wish i could go again, really such an amazing experience.
Ah well, maybe in 2013!

Still sorting out the roughs...

....hope to get going on the colour pretty soon!

the pleasure of paper

I like google images, and I do use it a lot in my work and researching...but sometimes there is nothing better than looking at actual books. Above are some of my favourites for my children's book research. These are the ones I turn to first for inspiration or to start off an idea or character....

They are quite old. In fact the middle book I won when I was 13 years old at school for a form prize! I never knew how useful it would become in my career!

a (very) small part of my collection of children's books

I have so many, it's nice to finally be able to read them to Stanley... just a shame he's at the age where he just wants to eat them....

If anyone wants any recommendations, please just shout! Or please share yours....

Heavy bookshelves!

Think it might be time to have a sort out....some are bulging under the weight....i LOVE books though!

and this is what I'm working on.....

Character development for my new children's book.

Babyology

Lovely blog babyology has featured Batty my new children's book and given it a glowing review which is very nice of them. If you have a minute check it out here.

Competition

Last few days to enter this competition here http://www.artisancam.org.uk/home.php which is in association with London Zoo.

Entry closes on November 30th so be quick!

Great prizes to be won!