Olive in clay!

The wonderful illustrator Rachel Clowes sent me this photo yesterday. Her son Harry made a clay model of Olive during his half term holiday! 

Every time I look at this it gives me a lovely feeling. Thank you for sending me the photo Harry and Rachel - I absolutely love her!

The Toucan Brothers

June is a really exciting month for me, as I have two new books coming out. I will blog about both of them, but wanted to start with The Toucan Brothers, out on June 6th and published by Macmillan Children's Books.

Sammy and Paul are brothers and plumbers. They look after the taps, drains and U-bends of Tapton. But when a flashy new cowboy arrives, their customers desert them in droves. But is Flash Rover all he seems? Or is he up to no good? And when Tapton is in trouble, who can they turn to?

Back cover - a selection of pipe-based problems!

A glimpse of the brothers' HQ, Ghostbusters influence in evidence!

Flash Rover appears on the scene: the wretch with a wrench!

This joke sadly got outdated before publication - Flash Rover is a corgi dog, because in the UK you had to be CORGI qualified in order to safely service gas boilers. But I've now been informed that CORGI registration has been replaced by the Gas Safe Register - and thinking of an animal joke about that would have been beyond me! And as I had to explain this "joke" to everyone I've shown the book to so far, I guess it won't be much missed!

Trouble in Tapton - but who're they gonna call?

The Toucan Brothers is a story about doing the right thing, loyalty, honest work, and not being dazzled by flashy new guys! 

And it rhymes!

They've had a wonderful review already, by the very nice father and daughter duo at Read It Daddy!

I will post a fun-with-pipes worksheet on publication day to celebrate!

Mum and baby

Babies!

My friend has just had a baby girl! So this is a hello babies card!

And where there's a baby card, surely a baby pattern must follow...

Oh, babies, look at you!

More flower sniffing!

Bouquet

Online Shop!

I have opened an online shop to sell cards made from my illustrations!! I am very excited, it's been a long time coming... 

SO: Feeling your correspondence of late has lacked cats in zoot suits, apes in drag and birds playing brass instruments? Feel this no longer! Please head on over to my:

SHOP

Thank you for looking! 

Benji Bear's Busy Day

I received my copies of Benji Bear's Busy Day yesterday! It's a board and clock book that I illustrated for Campbell Books, and is my first novelty book that has published in the UK. 

It's a lovely big board book with two flaps on every page as well as a big yellow clock which makes very satisfying clicks when you move the handles.

Here's a short video which Campbell made to show a couple of the spreads:

And here I am interacting with some of my favourites!

It's a beautifully produced book for young children who are learning about the time; there are lots of details to spot, and hopefully it will give a lot of pleasure.

It's available in bookshops now!

Character designs...

I'm working on new characters for a book... most of them won't have big roles, but they're lovely to draw! WISH I was better about practising the guitar! Going to get better, starting... now!