Read together

Read Together

A GIF I made of a recent illustration.

Now available as a greeting card.  Click here to go to the shop.

 

North Somerset Teacher's Book Award

In some rather exciting news, which I forgot to share,  Life Is Magic has been shortlisted for the North Somerset Teacher's Book Award.  

They even found a magician to model the book!

You can read all about the award here and the picture book category features some really excellent books, all of which you can see here.  My favourite thing about the lovely North Somerset Award is that each book gets a review.  You can read the full Life Is Magic review here which is full of tips to further explore the book in the classroom, but here's a little excerpt I particularly enjoyed because it was a real joy to fill the book with background bunny shenanigans,

'As engaging and fun as the story is (because really, it is), there is true brilliance in the illustrations. The host of little bunnies are absolutely hilarious and constantly up to mischief in the back ground. There is also much that can be inferred from the pictures: they show glimpses of the action behind the scenes and give clues about what might happen next (did you see where that dreaded banana skin came from?). There is so much on each page to look at but the illustrations remain gentle and uncluttered.'

Thank you to everyone involved for your thoughtful review.

Winners are announced on November 12th so good luck everyone!

How To Draw...Houdini

If you haven't been over to the Booksniffer's site then you absolutely should.  She sniffs out the best in children's books so be sure to take a look.  You can read her review of Life Is Magic here, but be sure to take a wander because there's loads more to see.  She kindly featured a How To Draw Houdini recently and I've recreated it here.  Thanks Sniffer!

Meet the bunnies

Life Is Magic is finally out, yay!  If you haven't seen it yet then allow me to introduce you to a few of the characters...

Sneaky peek of sketches and whatnots

Since Life Is Magic is finally almost out I thought I'd share a few sketches and pics of the book in progress.

Original back cover sketch

Final back image

Case cover planning page

Case cover drawing

Finished cover

Initial frames sketch

The frames in action

Title page sketch

For more sneak peeks check out The Booksniffer's blog

You can watch the amazing trailer HERE

Life Is Magic publishes March 3rd and can be bought in all the regular places, lovely bookshops especially.   You can read more about the book here.

Hypnotic bunnies

Creating a GIF is something I've long wanted to teach myself.  Here's my first one.    
It's oddly soothing so sit back, put your feet up and prepare for a moment of calm.

Snuggle Up With A Good Book...too

Recently I made a digital poster and I liked it so much that I made a screen printed version which looks eerily similar.

These prints are available to buy here

Here are a few photos of them in progress...

Booksniffer: bunny-sitter extraordinaire

Last week the lovely Booksniffer was kind enough to do a cover reveal of my very first picture book.  You can read the blogpost here.

What she didn't mention was that she also bunny-sat a few of the cast and crew for a few hours so I could put my feet up.  They tell me they were very well behaved.  So thank you Booksniffer for all your hard work, bunny-sitting and all.

Snuggle up with a good book

I've been making a lot of posters recently and it's quite addictive.  This is the first in a set of three that I'll hopefully screen print soon.

Life Is Magic

Apologies for the huge gap in blog posts but I've been very busy working on my first picture book.  (Hooray!)  Here's a picture of it at the Bologna Book Fair this year with the lovely people at Andersen Press who are publishing it.

It has been so much fun to work on but completely consuming as it's absolutely jam-packed from cover to cover.  I can't really say much more about for now but I can tell you it's bursting with magic, bunnies and shenanigans.

Advent

Those lovely people in twitter are at it again.  This time they're drawing daily advents and there are many to choose from.  Here's my December 2nd which I particularly like.  I may have peaked already.

B is for...?

In the tradition of my much jumbled alphabet today is sponsored by the letter B.  You'll have to excuse the garish colour on this one as my scanner is feeling flamboyant. 

Birds and blankets, bookshelves and books, bunnies, balls and bears.  What else?

Just a reminder you can see all this work and much much more in Foyles this week for our MA exhibition.  cambridgemashow.com

You can also see http://lararobinsonillustrates.blogspot.co.uk/

http://hannahhutchingsart.blogspot.co.uk/

http://tamsingilbert.wordpress.com/

                                                              and many many more.

To the library!

Quick, post this before my laptop realises it's functioning correctly!  It's not been a happy bunny.  Speaking of which, check out my librarians below desk snacks.  Healthy or what?

The bunnies are taking over.

Last day of printing for the summer, sigh.  And did I spend my day as productively as planned?  Well, the bunnies took over.  I got a little obsessed with bunny prints.

                                       The mantle things are unhappy again for being bunny ousted.

Bunnies...

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 bunnies...

and yet more bunnies.

Finally I put an end to the multiplication.  Humanely of course.  I just put the inks away.