SPOTTED!

Just a quick one...popped into my local WHSmith this weekend, and what did I see...

...some of my Christmas Card designs for sale! ho ho ho...

Monty has arrived!

Well its certainly a Happy Friday, as today I received my samples of the new book I illustrated for Egmont - 'Monty Wins the Cup'.

It's an action packed story about a boy (Danny) and his amazing home-made racing car. Danny's  inventor parents build him a racing car for his seventh birthday, but Monty is more than your average car. Not only does he run on chocolate milkshake instead of petrol, he can actually talk! It is very cleverly written by Jake Sparks, and illustrated by moi!

And its available on Amazon NOW! woohooooooo! Time to celebrate with a big chocolate milkshake!!! Just CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW to go to the Amazon page...

Sorry to have to say the 'C' word...

Ok so its only September and its aaaaaggggeeeesss till, yep, I'm going to say it...Christmas but I have to talk about it...purely because I have another book for sale in Marks & Spencer. Yippeeee!

It's another Touch and Feel book, this time called 'Merry Christmas'. I'd say they're perfect little Christmas Presents myself!

Just click the picture below to see more on the Marks and Spencer website.

Bear With Me Book

I am very excited to be part of a wonderful new project called 'Bear With Me Book'.

The Bear With Me Book is a charity collaboration with the best British illustrators around today, and even better all proceeds go to the charity Great Ormond Street Hospital. I wont say too much more about it now, you'll have to find out more by following us by the following methods:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Statigram
• Website

Do follow us, its going to be an exciting adventure...

New Stuff

So its been aaaaaages since I've written on here. Sorry. It's been a busy couple of months, and looks to be a busy next few!

I've been illustrating greetings cards and books...and more books...and more books, oh and my best friend got married so there was some Invitation and Order of Service design squeezed in there (and flower arranging & table decorating & a lot of celebrating) followed by more books...and now more books. So I am a happy illustrator!

And today I have just seen two more of my illustrated products are available to buy...woohoo!

The lovely folk over at Ginger Fox asked me to illustrate another puzzle and a book for Marks & Spencer, and they are now up on Mark's and Spencer's website.

See...

and you can see them by clicking HERE (for the puzzle) and HERE (for the book).

And here are some pics...

I'll pop some more up when I get my samples! Now back to the book pencils...

More Samples have arrived...it’s Lady Grace!

Well, this morning I received a very welcome parcel from the wonderful Random House Publishing. Inside were the advanced copies of two of the four books I illustrated the covers for. They are part of the book series called 'The Lady Grace Mysteries’, fabulously written by Grace Cavendish.

I was also very pleased to see rather well applied gold foiling to the text on the cover and spine - having worked in the greetings card industry I can’t help but pay close attention to things like this!! Anyway, I can’t wait to see the other two covers...

Website Update

As usual I am busy busy at the moment working on a mix of illustrations for a variety of books/Clients, including a couple of young reader ‘Phonics’ stories, crazy Monster Sums books and then some rather funny but factual Bees and Wasps illustrations. So a good mix up!

But I have just managed to squeeze in the time to update my website. Well, just a little for now. I’ve added to the book section new books that are available to buy and a few new B&W & colour illustrations I have created recently(-ish).

Click here to go to my website:

The Learning Gang

Recently I was approached by ‘The Learning Gang’ who asked me to create some illustrations for their new blog/website...of course I was delighted to do so! The Learning Gang (TLG) was founded by David Evans, an experienced qualifed teacher who provides tutoring services for children aged between 7 and 13 in the London boroughs of Richmond and Kingston upon Thames.


The Learning Gang blog can be found here: http://www.thelearninggang.blogspot.co.uk/
which explains more about TLG as well as featuring an Education News section for parents and a Fun Page (for children only of course!!). They can also be followed on twitter at @TheLearningGang

Have fun exploring The Learning Gang...

Two more books out to buy!

Last year I illustrated two very funny stories for the publishers Igloo Books. They are really comical tales very cleverly written by Melanie Joyce, and were such fun to illustrate.

‘The Bunged Up Trunk’ tells the tale of a very frustrated elephant who has a sticky bun stuck up his trunk, and all his friends in the jungle try to help him get it out, with quite hilarious consequences.

‘Cock-a-doodle-who?’ is a story about a rather bossy cockerel who throws his weight around the farm yard...all until the other animals have had quite enough and congregate together to take action against him.

I have been really excited to see these in print, and I have yet still to do so. However, I have noticed they are up on Igloo Books website and available to buy/order on various websites. To buy, or just find out more click the links below:

THE BUNGED UP TRUNK

COCK A DOODLE WHO?

Tilly has arrived!

On Friday I received some very exciting post from Egmont Press...my samples of ‘The Terrible Time Without Tilly’. It’s still so exciting to receive the actual printed copies of any book I have worked on rather than just seeing it on screen. 

I illustrated this very funny story (wonderfully written by Hilary McKay) last year, and its available to order on Amazon now...Click HERE. It’s a humorous story about a girl named Tilly, who never has time to tidy her bedroom because she is too busy helping other people! But she’s had enough, and decides to leave home...but how will her family cope?

My agents over at Advocate have also kindly featured it on their blog. Click HERE to see what they have written.

Moving on...

So as usual I have neglected my blog for a while. However I do actually have a valid reason...we recently moved so I had no internet for a whole 10 days!!!!! “How did I cope?” do I hear you say...well, the iPhone was my life saver! At least I could still keep in touch with clients through email on there. Otherwise I suppose it was quite refreshing not to have the internet...no twitter, no Facebook, no wasting hours looking up rubbish. However it did prove a little tricky when needing to send a client an urgent job they asked me to do...all worked out in the end though, quite nicely in fact.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling on about that. So I have my new little (teeny weeny tiny) Studio set up now and am feeling much much more relaxed now I can work properly again. I’m playing catch up on a few projects including book covers, books samples for potential new projects and yet more greetings cards (if I can fit them in).


Also, last week I was honoured to be featured on the lovely Sunshine Smiles Publications website. 'Sunshine Smile Publications is dedicated to celebrating children's books and is a fantastic platform to showcase talented creators of children's books & YA fiction.’


They Kindly featured me as one of their showcased Artists. To go to the feature click the Sunshine Smiles logo beneath...

  

Sammy’s Stripes & Lily’s Lost Spots arrive!

I received very exciting post today...my sample copies of Lily’s Lost Spots and Sammy’s Stripes, from the fabulous publishers Caterpillar Books. It feels like such a long time ago since I drew these its great to see them in print.

These samples are the prints for Brazil, hence the foreign text!!!

 The first inside of spread Sammy’s Stripes... 

And the last spread of Sammy’s Stripes...

They’re both on Caterpillar Books website too. Just click the picture below...

Greetings (cards) all round...

Recently alongside more fun book work I have been illustrating lots of greetings cards, which has been a really refreshing change as its something I tend to have less and less time for when I am busy with illustrating books. I have just recently finished off a new 12 card range for the lovely people at ‘Original Poster Company’ so fingers crossed they will be out in the shops sometime soon this year. (And hopefully I’ll be able to share some pics of these soon).

I have also just illustrated various designs for Nigel Quiney and a couple of online companies, as well as just finishing a new xmas range.

Ooh and last week I spotted one of the designs I illustrated last year for 'American Greetings’, its on their website...just click the card below if you want to go to the link. It plays music and everything!! (the card that is, not the website!)

MORE Princesses and Fairies!

A very long time ago (well, actually this time last year, but it feels like a very long time ago) I illustrated four girl’s activity books for the fabulous publishers Igloo Books. And finally they are available to buy...woohoooo! There are two Princess books and two Fairy books, each full of puzzles and activities, as well as fun make-and-do’s. They also contain over 50 stickers and press-out pages to play with. Just a bit of fun and magic for the little girls!


Click the books below to follow the links to their website...

Super Sam is out!

A while back I posted about a fab little story that I was asked to illustrate called ‘Super Sam’ which was written by a very talented 10 year old, and published by Collins Educational. Well, I have exciting news...its now available to buy, on Amazon!

I havent received my copy yet but very much looking forward to seeing it in print. 

Click the cover below to go to the Amazon page.

'Sam is an ordinary dog who likes to sit around and sleep in his basket – but Sam has a secret. When his owners leave the house, he becomes Super Sam! Find out what heroic deeds he performs in this entertaining story.'

Bouncing Books!

Last year I illustrated four little bouncing books for Small World Creations...aptly named ‘Little Bouncers’. And my dinky little set of four books just arrived through the post today...woohaaay!


The books themselves actually bounce, by pushing them down they then pop up and bounce about!


I was really pleased to hear the good news that they have been printed in 6 foreign language editions, those being Brazilian, Slovenian, Russian, French, Croatian and Latvian (shame the only one I can just about decipher is French!) as well as the English and US editions. So they’ll be bouncing all around the world!


They are available to buy on Amazon...just click the titles for each book to go the amazon page for each...

Puppy Pounces

Kitten Skips

Bunny Bounces

Froggy Flips

And here’s some pictures of them (unfortunately I couldn’t quite capture them bouncing!). 

A feature in Art Buyer Magazine

Thanks to my great agents at Advocate I have some of my artwork in the latest edition of Art Buyer Magazine...yippeeeee!


Art Buyer is a magazine for the global art licensing industry, which is published twice a year in January and May. Advocate feature 6 times in the current winter issue...and my illustrations appear on page 31 alongside the talented Marina Fedotova’s work in the article “A Character with Charisma”, written by Edward Burns.


Here’s the images...

And here’s the text...

I’m really very happy to have been featured in it!

And if you fancy looking into Art Buyer a bit more their website can be found here: http://www.artbuyermag.com/

So it’s a bit late...

So it’s a bit late, but better late than never hey...Happy New Year to all!

After a week of being fully back into work I’ve forgotten I even had a christmas break...from what I can remember it was pretty good. Oh and we saw the New Year in dressed as monkeys (a Noah’s ArK themed party!) although woke up the next day with broken ears and a missing tail. oh dear.

Anyway, work wise its been a busy week and looks like the first couple of months of 2012 will remain that way. Currently I have artwork to colour for a new book for Egmont, a calendar to design and more greetings cards to whip up...oooh plus a really great private commission I am working on. So its full steam ahead for 2012...and I hope to be able to post up many more printed books this year that I worked on in 2011. So I’ll try to keep posting on here!

Merry Christmas to all!

Well it’s been a busy week in the lead up to Christmas, trying to get lots of projects to a point where I feel I can leave them for a few days with out panicking about them.

I’ve had roughs to complete, colours to complete, amends to make, cards to paint and new book plans to start...and it feels like I am getting there..fingers crossed, one more day to cram it all in! Having been in my own busy bubble the last few weeks I can’t actually believe its Christmas in three days.

Anyway, I’d just like to say a big Merry Christmas to everyone out there who actually reads my blog, and a big thank you for doing so too! 

Now where's christmas cake...?

A few bits and bobs

So I’m still busy as ever (and thankful for it too), but looking forward to a much needed few days off over Christmas. However at the moment I have my head buried in pencil work for a new book with Egmont Publishing - another great story from them!

Also, a couple of weeks ago I completed all the artwork for two picture books I have been working on for Igloo Books and happily got the thumbs up on it all last week. So I was very happy indeed.
They’re really funny stories, one set in a jungle about a very troubled little Elephant, the other set in a farmyard about a troublesome Cockerel upsetting his neighbours!

I can’t disclose much more than that but for now here’s a little peak of the worried little elephant character (something’s stuck up his trunk!!!).

I know I’ve already mentioned that the Treasuries are now available to buy, but I’ve seen they are also available on Amazon...so if you did want the links here they are...

Princess Stories: CLICK TO BUY ON AMAZON

Ballerina Stories: CLICK TO BUY ON AMAZON

AND...I received my copies in the post - yay!

So here’s a few piccies of the insides of Princess Stories (please excuse the poor photography - I’m blaming the bad winter light!)....