Edinburgh International Book Festival

Last week I was luckily enough to attend my first ever Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is a bit silly since it's only a year younger than me and I didn't live that far away, but I can now proudly say I've been.

And the sun was out.

I ran two events.  One was a short storytelling session in the Story Box, and the other was in the Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab and required Houdini and a magic suitcase.  Many a magnificent Houdini was drawn by our young audience (and a few adults too) and no-one has yet been turned into a rabbit...well, not permanently.

Only a garish pink strap can keep the magic contained.

Huge thanks to all the lovely children and adults who came to see us, and to the Edinburgh Book Festival staff who were so welcoming.

I'm probably supposed to be doing something...

Many pennies were spent in the Children's bookshop.

Life Is Magic Paperback!

Life is Magic is out now in paperback for those who like a book with a little more bend.  Hooray!

Can you spot the cover differences from the hardback?

Here's a peek at the insides...

Tadaa!

This is Gary.  

Some magic in action.

There's now a jaunty 'This book belongs to...' page where you can write your name or whatever takes your fancy.  And the clever clogs' at Andersen Press have managed to squeeze all the additional cover artwork in too.

Available in all good bookshops and the usual places online.

I've also recently been sent a few co-editions so if you're in the U.S.A look out for Rabbit Magic.

In French we have 'Tout est Magie' (which I had a lot of fun hand lettering)

and in Danish look for 'Livet er Magisk'

Happy Hallowe'en!

Houdini would like it noted that he's actually a hufflepuff.

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...

Book trailer magic

Here is the book trailer for Life Is Magic made by people far smarter than me.  Thanks to Jonathon Moore and any magical assistants he may have had.

Tadaaaaaa!

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.

Not long now...

Life Is Magic - Cover

If anyone is counting (which I'm obviously not) then you'll be aware that my first picture book is published in March 2016 - which is still so far away!!!

The lovely Booksniffer did a cover reveal a few weeks back and I thought it was about time I put the cover up here.  So here it is in all its glory.

As you can see, it's published by the lovely people at Andersen Press who were very kind and let me draw on every available surface.  I can't show much more for now but I will say that the back cover is pretty sweet, and the super secret cover beneath this cover for the hardback is my absolute favourite.

Below are some of the cover sketches.  

This is a page of early sketches sent to my editor and art director.  We really brightened it up and added a few more mischievous rabbits but the overall idea isn't that far removed from the final image.    

There is a lot of hand lettering in the book.  Once the first page was finished I think I realised how important the lettering was, it really informed the look of the book for me so we wanted to carry that over onto the cover.  

Evidence that I'm left handed and have not yet learned how not to smudge an image

Favourite cover bunny

These bunnies do incredible work...or so we tell them

I haven't chronicled my epic star drawing yet but believe me I drew a lot of them.  Last count was something in the region of...65392...that's a lie, but there were a bunch.

You can pre-order Life Is Magic here or you can be very, very patient and buy it in a lovely bookshop.

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.