Just a Big Kid

Since deciding to write a children’s story last Autumn I’ve been reading as many children’s books as I can, with regular trips to the library for a new stack. Naturally picture books have always been close to my heart anyway, but I can't think that i’ve ever crammed so many into my head in such a short period of time.
 I’ve read around 60 since October and can’t remember all of the titles, but those I can recall I would like to share. Here are a list of the 25 or so I can remember with my top five at the end (you’ll notice many Oliver Jeffer’s books in the list)



Ferdie and the Falling Leaves – Julia Rawlinson & Tiphanie Beeke
The Ant and the Big Bad Bully Goat -  Andrew Fusek Peters & Anna Wadham
The Tiger Skin Rug – Gerald Rose
Shine Moon Shine -  David Conway and Dubravka Kolanovic
The Great Paper Caper - Oliver Jeffers
Up and Down – Oliver Jeffers
The Way Back Home – Oliver Jeffers
The Heart and the Bottle – Oliver Jeffers

The Hueys in The New Jumper – Oliver Jeffers
Milo Armadillo – Jan Fearnley
The Baby Dragon Tamer - Jan Fearnley
Her Mother’s Face – Roddy Doyle and Freya Blackwood
The Monster Who Ate Darkness -  Joyce Dunbar and Jimmy Liao
The Scariest Thing of All – Debbie Gliori
Colin and the Wrong Shadow – Leigh Hodgkinson

The Tea Party of Miss Moon – Princess Mary Thurn-Taxis
I Want My Hat Back - Jon Klassen
Scruffy Bear and the Six White Mice -  Chris Wormell

Tell Me a Story Mummy – Carl Norac & Mei Matsuoka
Bug and Bear – Ann Bonwill & Layn Marlow
UnPOPpable -  Tom Hopgood
In The Attic – Hiawyn Oram & Satoshi Kitamura
Lunch Time - Rebecca Cobb
Melrose and Croc A Hero’s Birthday – Emma Chichester Clark
Alfie Gets in First – Shirley Hughes
The Paper Dolls -  Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb

Top five from the list starting with my favourite:

1. I Want My Hat Back, Jon Klassen – A short and simple, well-constructed story with a brilliantly dark sense of humour. The end is guaranteed to make you laugh and want to read it over again. So good I had to own it, heres the copy I got for Christmas:


2. The Tiger Skin Rug, Gerald Rose - A really original and captivating tale, with lots of fun colourful illustrations. This satisfying read made me smile from ear to ear.

3. Her Mother’s Face, Roddy Doyle and Freya Blackwood - This is a very moving story about a child coming to terms with her mother’s death. Sad but touching and if you’re like me be warned you will cry.

4. The Great Paper Caper - Oliver Jeffers – Well of course I love all of Oliver Jeffers Books but this is one of my favourites. Its clever, charming and funny.

5. Ferdie and the Falling Leaves – Julia Rawlinson & Tiphanie Beeke – A very sweet, heart-warming read with a lovely twist at the end and charming illustrations.

I’ve now got another 12 waiting on my desk to get through and at least another 50 which I need to get my mitts on.

Would love to hear from you if you have any picture book reading suggestions.

Animal Mug Shots no.2

Last Tuesday I mentioned that there would be a new weekly post, featuring an original illustration  which is off the back of me brushing up my inking skills.

Since my first attempt I've purchased some gouache. I used to use this medium a lot but not having done so in such a long time I forgot how great it is to work with. This is now definitely my medium of choice when it comes to painting my drawings.
I'm really pleased with the results of this week's mug shot and I hope you like it too, because from now on every week i'll be giving away a signed, one off print of the original illustration, along with the original pencil drawing.
To find out how you can win read on, but first onto the drawing. I thought it would be fitting to make this week's mugshot Valentine's themed, so here are Godfrey and Mildred the happy Capybaras with their bio below:

Names: Godfrey and Mildred
Ages (respectively): 4 and 5 
Favourite colours: Orange and mauve 
Favourite foods: Melon and Sweet Potato (not together) 
Favourite quote: 'Love is a serious mental disease' - Plato.

I was thinking about giving away the finished original, but I just can't part with it. However if you do want to win a signed one off print and the original pencil drawing....

 

all you need to do is:
- go onto my Facebook page and share the image & giveaway i've posted on my wall, with your friends and leave a comment so i can get in touch with you for your address if you win. You have from now until Friday morning when i'll put all the names in a hat & pick a winner.
Will be back next Tuesday with another mugshot.

Testing...testing

Yippee the Beta testing site is finally ready for the visual dictionary project i've been working on!
Remember I blogged about it a couple of weeks back- here.
Its all been very hush, hush so I wasn't entirely sure until now what it was all about. The site is now up and its actually a game to help people learn a new language. As mentioned it is only the testing site so the full thing has not been released yet. Eventually it will become an app.

The company developing the game have asked me to try out the game & give feedback.  I said i would also share it on here, so if anyone wants to have a play and offer some input then leave a comment (constructive please) and i'll pass it on. This link rebootlanguages.com will take you to the beta site. You'll need a PC to download the various versions of the games - sorry Mac users. Being a Mac bod myself I had to borrow Dave's laptop.

Before I sign off, here are few food related illustrations for the project which i've been working on:

Byeeee

Animal mug shots

When it comes to the colouring in bit for my illustrations I often use predominantly digital techniques. For ages I've wanted to revert to using more traditional media such as paint, ink etc, or at least have this play a bigger part in the image, but I'm sort of out of practice, so i'm setting myself a weekly task which will hopefully help me brush up (no pun intended) my inking abilities.
This little project will also be a regular blog feature.

Once a week i'll create a 5 x 5ins 'bust style' original illustration, of a different animal character and post the result here. My even start taking requests if I can keep this up for long enough.
Right here is the first of many (I hope) complete with his own bio:

Name: Gerald
Age: 14
Favourite colour: Red
Favourite food: Red Mangrove leaves
Favourite quote: The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have. Woody Allen

Once I get into the swing of things a bit more I'll start a weekly giveaway of the mug shot original or print.

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/being_happy.html#x4d4HpGRdTiGYBst.9Once i get into the swing of things a bit more I'll also start a weekly giveaway of the mug shot original or print.

This week I've....

....been sketching.
Around Sept last year I decided to write a story for a children's picture book.
Initially the plan was to write something very rough and unfinished that i could produce a few illustrations for, mainly to bump up my portfolio. I wasn't really planning on spending a lot of time on the story, but it was just to be there for the benefit of the illustrations.
However i got quite into it and ended up producing a finished story which i quite liked.
I'm now working on a book dummy - rough mock up of the book and will follow this with a couple of finished illustrations which I plan to send along with the manuscript to a publisher. Who knows if it will get anywhere, but I figured its worth a go.

So this week i've been sketching for the dummy and here, in no particular order are a few examples -

Hope you like them. I'm looking forward to doing lots more, there will be 28 in total.

Before I say toddle pip must mention that from Tuesday there will be a new feature on the blog which will involve a weekly giveaway. If that didn't grab your attention enough then heres a sneaky peak at a work in progress which will be part of the 1st installment. Stay tuned!

Birthday Folksy Friday

Whoot! Its my birthday and I'll blog if I want to.
Here is a special birthday blog post of a curated selection of lovely things I would like from Folksy. A wish list if you will. Who knows perhaps if I get some birthday money I may even be able to fulfill some of the wishes on the list hehe.
You'll notice a couple of the things on the list are really meant for kids, but hey I'm a big kid at heart.

 

 

Well that's all from me. Looking forward to a birthday night out at Lane 7 - a boutique bowling alley no less. Have great weekend all & see you next week.

Words and pictures

For the last six months or more I have been working on a project for a Canadian company called 'GlobaNova', producing illustrations for an online visual dictionary.

I've been doing around 5 images a week and now in total produced over 270 images. The illustrations they require are all very simplistic and created entirely (from scratch) in Photoshop. This is something before the project I had never done and without the Wacom table & pen it I think the work would have been virtually impossible.
It's been quite a random job in that one week to the next I don't know what i'll be illustrating.
The website for this project is still being developed, but in the not too distant future there will be a Beta testing site up and running, which hopefully I'll be able to share the link to.
In the meantime here are some of the images i've created.

'Peanuts' =

'Wine Glasses'=

'Coconuts' =

 'Helmet' =

 'Lemonade' =

'Sandal' =

'Fish (for food)' =

'Hens' =

'Traffic Light' =

'Park' =

This week I've mostly been illustrating concepts for the word 'under', 'in' and 'closed'. Hmm..I wonder what next week will bring.

p.s. forgot to say Happy new year...yeah ok so its a little late :)