Exhibition time!!

Yipee!! My Exhibition is on now!!!!!! Come and see me and fellow illustrator Cee Biscoe at Gallery 47 in Sudbury - we'll be there all week 10am-4pm until next Tuesday. The first two days have gone swimmingly with lots of browsers, lots of purchases and lots of delightful younglings drawing pictures of their own, and being read to by our good selves so come and join the party.

All of the following ORIGINAL book illustrations are on sale:





xx

Tree dwelling, pre-exhibition anxiety and the Schofield saga.

I've visited 2 schools and 1 nursery this week reading my books, showing some paintings and doing some drawings for some younglings and it's all been rather fabulous and has left me with a smug warm glow. Highlights include a 5 year old boy's answer to the question 'does anyone know what an Author is?' 'Is it someone who lives in a tree?' and when asking the kids for their favourite animals for me to draw being met with the rather bewildering suggestions of 'Oryx', 'Mammoth' and 'Sonic'.


Otherwise I've been all about my upcoming exhibition and good crikey it's a lot of work - I still need to frame 26 paintings, sort out and mount some prints, arrange painting insurance, price everything up, send out invites and psych myself up for the possibility that noone will actually attend. And ...aghhhh it's in less than 2 weeks!
A-hem, should be fun though so PLEASE come along!
And then there's the new book I've been writing called 'Jungle Mumble' - check out the cover here:


And all the while I should be working on Zoo Girl, a sleeping beauty book, plus a set of monkey books... problem is how to prioritise when everything's a priority? My natural inclination is to crawl into a bloggy hole and do nothing except panic a little bit but I fear that may not help.


Oh and my book Just Because is up for the People's Book Prize so please, pretty please, with bells and knobs on, go and vote for the little fella here.

Still no news on the whole Philip Schofield This Morning thang by the way - I think he's snubbing me. Come on Phil, sort it out, what's past is past, lets all move on.

Foxes, child-geniuses and tough words.

Ok so I've had an article printed in The Independent this week and I might be going on This Morning soon because of it (much to the jealousy of many of my peers who have all made it obscenely apparent that they fancy the 'silver fox' that is Philip Schofield), and my books have had various lovely reviews here, here and here;

but you know what? The most exciting response to my book has been the following review which was sent to me from an 11 year old girl called Megan who has a disabled brother, and quite frankly, it's excellent;

‘Just Because’
A Short Review by Megan

Hi, my name is Megan. I have a brother called Joe who is a bit like Clemmie, the little girl in the book, as he can’t speak and can’t walk very much. I love the part that says some sisters can be mean. They scream and shout pull your hair because that’s what my brother does to me. Sometimes he bites me because he can’t talk and he gets frustrated. Like Clemmie, my brother has been to the moon is a space ship made out of an old cardboard box. I especially liked the part about Simon the pet bug because my brother likes looking at bugs and touching them, err! My favourite parts of the book are the beautiful illustrations of Clemmie and her brother, and the adventures they go on.

I think the book is really magical and is essential for any big sisters with a brother like mine or a sister like Clemmie. This book will definitely be added to the collection of books I read to my brother before he goes to sleep at night.

I think the book is brilliant ‘just because…’.

See, I told you.

Oh and in worky news I've been working on Zoo Girl which is about a girl who gets abandoned in a zoo and then adopted - and although the book is only 14 words long it's the hardest text I've ever worked on, dang it.













That's it for now. See you soon. Take care now.

Aliens, fishmongering and swine wisdom

I'm back! And the Greenbelt workshoppy thang went swimmingly with over 50 people there and in 2 hours we created a fabulous picture book called 'A Small Alien at Greenbelt' - here's a few spreads from the book and pics of me in standard festival-issue wellies:





And in other news - here's the thing, all this getting out there amongst the people and promoting my own goods is all fabtaculous and all that but people are so damned nice and, as it happens, I really don't know how to cope with compliments. I wish I did - I wish I were the kind of woman who takes a compliment graciously in her stride with a charming self-deprecating yet knowing smile and nod of the head, perhaps even a gentle touch of the complimentor's arm and a heartfelt 'thank you'. No, instead I get terribly self conscious, shuffley of feet and avoidy of all eye contact and in a desperate attempt not to reveal any inadvertent arrogance I tend to shake my head wildly and insist that the complimentor is utterly and ridiculously wrong to the point of insanity and whilst it's meant as a playful tap on the arm it usually comes across as if I am then striking them in punishment for their lack of artistic judgment and sheer imbecility. If they started the meeting thinking I was worthy of a compliment they certainly leave thinking otherwise. I'll work on it. Next time I'll just say, 'yes I am rather brilliant aren't I?' And offer them my hand to kiss.

And this is all only because my chosen career is a public one - one which begs to be seen - and therefore acknowledged - if other people could be more publicly seen in their nursing/teaching/cleaning/policing/admining/construction workering/fishmongering roles they too would face uncomfortable compliments more often.


And now for my quote of the week (ok so this is new but i thought i'd just sneak it past you)which comes from one of my husband's many doppelgangers Daddy Pig when Peppa asks what he does for a living:
"I take big numbers and transmute them to calculate their load-bearing tangents"
Classic.

Cake, dolphins and festivals...

Well I'm off on my holidays on Tuesday but there's just time to tell you that Yowseroony - what a great launch! Waterstones was full of lovely people on Thursday and I signed about 85 books - and there was cake - yay!

Here's some photographic evidence of the occasion:









And then the following day I was giving it the full Alan Partridge and was the 'on the sofa' guest on BBC Radio Suffolk with the lovely Lesley Dolphin (and was very pleased to find it was an actual, rather than metaphorical sofa) - if you feel that way inclined you can find and listen to it here.

So now I'm off to plan a 2 hour workshop I'm running at The Greenbelt Festival next week and have, as yet, put worryingly little thought into - should be fun!!

To infinity (actually, Bury St Edmunds)... and beyond!

Is anyone hungry? Because it's launch time! (Can you see what I've done there?) I've never launched anything in my life but tomorrow morning I shall be setting afloat my new book Just Because (which I may have mentioned before) in Waterstones in Bury St Edmunds. Truth is I've never even attended a launch before but if my knowledge of such things serves me correctly, and I believe it does, it shall involve the Queen smashing a bottle of plonk against my head followed by NASA blasting me into orbit. Should be fun.

In other news I've just finished the sequel to Just Because called Sometimes which should be on sale next year - here's a sneak-preview of some of the artwork:

And after my Just Because you-tubey wittering antics my publisher for Cub's First Winter asked for something similar so here it is (perhaps more of a blithering than a wittering this time though):

And I've just finished the text for a new book called 'Oli and the Last Dinosaur' - here's the cover
- not sure if I should have painted it rather than using this style though - what do you think?

And finally I've been interviewed by the lovely BookBag people - check it out here if you so wish, and Lovereading4kids have very kindly featured me as their Illustrator of the Month - Gawd bless 'em!

So that's it for now - I'll let you know how the launch went after I return to Earth.

Gathering round the old wireless...

Just Because was reviewed on ruddy radio 2 this morning!! Yowser!

Was an absolutely bizarre experience sitting at home in my pyjamas, slightly hungover, and hearing Aled -'We're-Walking-in-the-Air'-Jones talking about me on the wireless with Kate Saunders. Anyhoo, have slapped a few pics of the illustrations over it and whacked it on youtube for y'all to enjoy.

Yay!