Maisie Hitchins is on the loose again

I have new Maisie Hitchins books to report!

Holly Webb has been doing lots of writing and I have been doing lots of drawing and the result can be seen in the form of The Phantom Cat, The Feathered Mask and The Secret Tunnel which are all out now. As well as scampering all over London in her adventures, Maisie’s stories are heading over to America where the first book in the series “The Case of the Stolen Sixpence” is going to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in September. The Case of the Spilled Ink will be coming out in the UK in August too, but I can’t show you any pictures yet I’m afraid! For now here are the new covers:

May 8, 2014 0

new woodland kerchiefs out now!

I have been away from my computer for a little while so there is a lot to catch up on and where better to start than with Grubbies who have just brought out their new autumn/winter kerchiefs. I loved designing these scarves, they are definitely my kind of thing – autumn trees, fallen leaves, woodland creatures and their colours are bright red and yellow, good for cheering up dark winter days. Due to popular demand Grubbies have decided to sell the scarves in big sizes as well as little ones. An excellent idea if you ask me! And I’m not in the least biased…

November 22, 2013 0

Maisie Hitchins hits the shelves!

Both the first book The Case of the Stolen Sixpence and the second The Case of the Vanishing Emerald were released in May and are proving to be popular with small would-be sleuths across the country! You can read some lovely reviews by children on Little Tiger Press’ website and below are some sneak-peeks inside the Stolen Sixpence…

Maisie Hitchins and the Case of the Stolen Sixpence

Maisie Hitchins and the Case of the Vanishing Emerald

June 4, 2013 0

Elephant Card

Here is my new elephant design for Cards from Africa. Cards from Africa are a charitable company employing young, orphaned Rwandans to produce their handmade cards. This is my third card for them so I think they are going down well! This is my little elephant all made up.

February 22, 2013 0

Maisie Hitchins

This is a new project I have been working on, it is a series about a little girl called Maisie Hitchins who lives in Victorian London. Maisie wants to be a detective when she grows up, but she is actually already pretty good at detecting! The stories are written by the marvellous Holly Webb and are lots of fun to illustrate – the Victorian settings give me excellent excuses to draw patterns all over the place…

February 21, 2013 2

Wheeeee!

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…

February 12, 2013 0

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.

February 9, 2013 3

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:

December 6, 2012 0

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.

earwig inis cover — This is the Mandrake gracing the cover of last winter’s Innis magazine. Innis is the Irish children’s books magazine who published a lovely article about Diana and an obituary by her good friend the writer Neil Gaiman.

November 27, 2012 0

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!

November 19, 2012 0