Grubbies scarves at Open Studios

22 Derby Road is a hive of activity at the moment as myself and my studiomates Nicola, Ian and Neil prepare to open our studio to the world this weekend. Pictures are being framed ready to go up on the walls and books are still arriving – it’s all everso exciting and we are really hoping people will come along and have a look! We will be open from 11am – 6pm the 19th & 20th, and the 26th & 27th July, our address is: 22 Derby Road, Cambridge, CB1 7BU.

My brand new Grubbies scarves have just arrived and look gorgeous! Have a sneak peek below at the new scarves and head on over to Grubbies website to take advantage of the last couple of days of their summer sale.

July 17, 2014 0

Dragons at the Book Jam!

On the 7th June I am going to be taking part in the St Ives Book Jam for the third year running. The theme for this year’s summer reading challenge is “Mythical Maze” which has inspired me to want to make DRAGONS! This year I will be holding a collage and drawing workshop at 11am at the St Ives Library and the children who come along will be making dragons from all sorts of collage materials including glittery stuff and anything suitably dragony that we can make stick.

I will be writing a bit more about this before the event but for now here is a little dragony inspiration to be going on with from my book Ready, Steady, Ghost!

May 28, 2014 0

Cambridge Open Studios

I’ll be taking part in Cambridge Open Studios this year and today my work is being featured on the Open Studios Facebook page! My studio will be opening its doors to the world on the last two weekends in July and we are all quite excited about it, that is to say me and my studio pals Nicola Killen, Neil Warmsley and Ian Farrell.

Here is my guide image and below some of my other work featured on the Open Studios Website:

May 22, 2014 0

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

Owls and Pussycats at Cambridge Central Library

A few weeks ago I held two children’s workshops based around the tale of the Owl and the Pussycat. The first was in Cambridge Central Library and the second at Linton Library. They were both great sessions and the children came up with an amazing array of lovely pussy-cats, elegant fowls and beautiful pea green boats. I don’t think anyone went for a runcible spoon but never mind. Here are the pictures from the Cambridge workshop – Linton photos will follow very soon!

December 3, 2013 0

Love a lugworm…

My new fishy children’s kerchiefs are now on sale! You can find them in various children’s clothing outlets across the country but probably most easily in the Grubbies shop. The scarves were designed for Grubbies’ spring/summer collection and sport many little critters such as seahorses, mackerel, flat fish and lugworms. Go on, love a lugworm!

June 10, 2013 1

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

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

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!

November 12, 2012 0