Friday good times

Finished the pre-Bologna rush so I'm twiddling thumbs today, listening to jolly Friday music and doodling. I recently got in touch again with a lovely friend I'd not seen since university, Rachel Bright. She invited me to have some drinks with some illustrators last night in a pub in Farringdon. It was great to meet some new people, and so brilliant to see Rachel again. Sarah McIntyre took some nice photos and wrote a bit about the evening on her blog.

I'm off to Brighton! Have a great weekend!

Do you take sugar? One lump or two?...

Ambrose on TV!

A really exciting television listing! Ambrose Goes for Gold is going to be read on CBeebies on March 23rd as their bedtime story, as part of a Sport Relief special! Dan Walker is a presenter on Football Focus, so that's exciting indeed. I expect he is chomping at the bit to read Ambrose, and it will be a nice break for him from talking about all that football. I imagine it may look like this:

And then perhaps he will interview Ambrose...

I'm really thrilled and can't wait!

Pssssst!

Da da da da! I am so excited about tomorrow, because it's the publication of...

She is published by Brubaker, Ford & Friends, just in time for my birthday. 

Thank you so much to Amelia, Amy, Daniel, and to Brett and David - it's been wonderful working with you, and I couldn't be prouder.

Olive feels very dear to my heart. Go well, short chubby friend!

More details

More details from a book I've almost finished.

Also, I've started a Tumblr blog! At the moment it's just a replica of this one, albeit, I think, slightly cooler looking. I guess I'm not sure which way to go, feeling Tumblr might be more fun, but not sure yet! But check it out!

Lots of Babies!

Here are some pictures from Babies Don't Bite, written by David Bedford and published by Hodder Children's Books, with pictures by me. I had to draw three animals I'd never really tried - horses, sheep and cows - I'd always feared the farmyard animals. But I'm glad I did, sheep especially make nice characters.

It's available in bookshops now! Go get those sweet furry babies! You won't be sorry you did!

Slight return

I'm roughing out a book set in a Paris-style town, and just went fishing under my bed to find my location drawings for reference. Most of which I've blogged already. But I like seeing them again - more than a photograph they evoke feelings, because I can remember drawing each one, sitting outside on my low folding chair, what I was thinking about that day and what the weather was like, what I was doing later etc... A lucky record. Wish I'd done more...

Photographs are a wonderful aid to memory (although often I'm just checking if it was a good hair day) but location drawings are really memories in themselves, as you sit there for an hour or so making them, and that's its own experience.

(Excuse the horrid scans, my home scanner is complete rubbish. NO, Epson 2-in-1 scanner/printer!)

Octoperve

Now if you're scared of ghosts you'd better look away!

Fearful!

I just read The Woman in Black, so my head is full of terrifying ghosts like this guy.

Rabbit poses

Doodles

Lucille

Cat skeleton drawings. I think it's so important when you do drawings as anatomically correct as my cat drawings are, to really get down to the nitty gritty (of the kitty). Next I'm going to look at their musculatureyness and inner branial workings. And their whiskerlature [edit: new joke]

Really I was listening to Little Richard, which reminded me of this super video:

Get down with your bad bony selves, cats!
(If you put on Lucille and manage to start it just at the right time, as I've spent the last minute doing, these cats are totally in time, almost! Although the one on the bottom left may have been drinking.)

Details

Coughkaesque

Here's the inaugural drawing on my new Cintiq! Pretty exciting stuff, think it's going to take some time to adjust and get the best out of, but having flirted with the idea on and off for about 3 years, it felt like the moment had arrived. 

My life doesn't feel immediately changed, but I can sense it happening...

 

Play play play

Flappers

Pancake gif

I was thinking about this guy instead of falling asleep last night, so here he is. At university we did an animation module, and we were all meant to produce a minute-long cartoon. I think only one person managed it, as it entailed something like 600 drawings... I still have a shoebox full of my pencil sketches, mine was about a granny who knitted costumes for unhappy people she saw through her window, and then she knitted herself a butterfly at the end and flew away.

Warming up

More warming up pics. I hadn't really decided whether to take the full week off, but once I started... It was great! The cat watching telly on the laptop in bed is pretty autobiographical of some of this Christmas holiday. 

Scaly

Happy New Year!

I've redone my website, added a bit of new work, and generally smartened it up a bit. Ready for 2012.

Charles Addams, via Drawn.

Merry Christmas

And a happy New Year! xxx

And time for another pattern!