Here is a little fellow I made a while ago when I was working on an idea for a book. I got a bit busy so he is still waiting for the rest of his story! Awww…
Wheeeee!
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Best Friends by Julia Donaldson
I have been keeping this one under my hat for what feels like ages but finally its out and I can brag about it! This is my new book Best Friends written by none other than Julia Donaldson!
It’s a bit of a thrill to have illustrated a book for our children’s laureate and creator of the Gruffalo. This is a lovely story featuring a range of characters from a wonderfully smug little bird through to a grumpy cloud and a very old and wise mountain. Best Friends is one of the plays from a series called Bug Club which is the brainchild of Julia Donaldson and aims to encourage very young children to interact with stories by playing the different roles within them.
Bubblicious
Gosh, what a lovely review by Mummy Karma!
Bubble!
Yesterday I went to visit fantastic children’s wear company Grubbies at the Bubble children’s trade show in London. I was very excited to be getting my first glimpse of the new kerchiefs they asked me to design for next season. The last time I saw the designs was on my computer screen just before I hit send and now they are real! Here is a sneak peek:
Grubbies’ autumn/winter 2013 range features some rather special furry-on-the-inside dungerees as well as the two new kerchiefs Owl and Toadstools. I had a lot of fun designing these ones as they are based on woodland scenes (my favourite) with a lovely strong red and a mustard yellow as base colours.
Christmas Cards 2012
December always sneaks up on me and it’s high time I sorted out my Christmas card for this year. But I’m not sure what to do! I always like to make my cards by hand but I’m a bit busy this year so I may have to come up with an alternative – and quick! Here are some of my efforts from previous years:
Sheffield Children’s Book Award
Today is the day of reckoning for the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and I am keeping my fingers crossed for Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones – a wonderful story which I was lucky enough to be asked to illustrate. The main character Earwig is a feisty individual who always seems to get her own way in the end despite coming up against the Witch, who is most definitely a wicked one and her strange partner the Mandrake who is only just human at the best of times…
This is a very special award because the books are voted for entirely by young readers themselves. Earwig and the Witch was nominated in the Shorter Novels section, you can see the other novels nominated in this section as well as those in all the other categories by having a look at the Sheffield Children’s Book Award blog.
Witch Camp
This is the cover for the new Bella Donna book Witch Camp which will be coming out next year. I’ve been illustrating the Bella Donna series by Ruth Symes for quite a while now, in fact this will be book number 5. I really enjoy working on these books, Bella gets into all sorts of trouble on a regular basis and that’s always a lot of fun to draw!
Animal Alphabet at Heffers
On Saturday Nicola Killen and I held a workshop at Heffers children’s bookshop in Cambridge with the aim to create an animal alphabet to put on display in the shop. It was a lot of fun for us as we took turns leading the drawing and then the colouring and collage. The children did a fantastic job coming up with a stream of brilliant ideas and brand new colours and patterns for animals we all thought were sort of brownish(!) Together with our many helpers we managed to get all the way through to N – pretty good work I think!
Cambridge Festival of Illustration
Tomorrow my studio pal Nicola Killen and I are going to be taking part in Cambridge’s Festival of Illustration. We will be holding a children’s workshop in Heffers children’s bookshop where we and the children will be drawing, colouring and collaging. The plan is to create a fantastic alphabet book to put up on display and considering there are 26 letters to take care of we will need lots of help! The workshop is being held between 11am and 1pm so do come along!
Jarrolds Fimo Demo
I had a great time at my Fimo demo on Saturday! I spent the whole day showing the children how to model all manner of things from Christmas tree decorations to dragons, beads and fruit and veg! I really enjoy my Jarrolds demos, they have a lovely art department there and always make me feel very at home. Here are some snaps of me and the kids hard at work.
marion lindsay 