Tuesday 23 April 2013

Lollipop and Grandpa are BACK!

I'm not sure what day it is, or indeed who the president of the United States is* at the moment, but I will make time to update my blog because I think it's fun.

This month I have been asked to do millions of other fun things too. Not only do I get to do loads of drawings and cover myself in ink, I will also appear on a panel of illustrators at a publishers' discussion group (I assume it will be exactly like Question Time), be offered as a prize in a competition with Scottish Book Trust (a dinosaur based event type prize, I should add) and go to London to see exciting people. 
It's important, as an Illustrator, to get out into the world of publishing and the related realm of books. I love doing all the chat stuff and talking about what I do because it is a pretty awesome job.

Quite excitingly...Lollipop and Grandpa are back for one more adventure and this one is great. It is set at Christmas which means I get to give them scarves again which I like a lot. Here is one of my 395727 scans. 





I always start my work with actual ink and paper like the old fashioned artist that I am. Then I spend a stupid amount of time scanning, during which time I drink gallons of tea and eat crisps. Then Photoshop makes it all look seamless and great. I like drawing Lollipop and Grandpa quite a lot which is just as well really.

Today it was warm and I was dressed for winter so I had my first iced coffee of the year, and a sosij sandwich and it was good. And if I didn't say that I enjoyed this delicious meal with Fraser then there would be something not right about my blog and he would cry.




*I do really.

Wednesday 10 April 2013

I was adjacent to a weasel

Hello everyone! Here is a collection of photographs of things that have happened in my life recently and have made me laugh and stuff.

First of all we have a lovely fat Tyrannosaurus Rex. He was the only good thing about the review of my new book in The Guardian. The silly Guardian forgot to mention me (sadface) so instead of being all proud upon my return from swimming I was furious for about 4 seconds, and then ate my breakfast and enjoyed Mr Fat Dinosaur being the star of the page. Here he is. Fat.




Hooray, this was fun. On Saturday I went for a stroll in the town with pointy eared Fraser. I do enjoy a look in the window of The Treasure Trove on Castle Street. It's a shop that sells things that old ladies have made at home and then brought in. Kind of a terrible Bagpuss shop but without the Mice, or Professor Yaffle or indeed Bagpuss. Imagine my joy when I spied THIS character. He is called £4.50 Hen and I like his one knotted leg and his poor stitching. I did not buy him because I want other people to enjoy looking at him in his lonely zoo.




Oh I am all out of order now. Before all of this happened I sat adjacent to a weasel. This place has a wardrobe full of cakes and I had a cheese scone with Marmite and Fraser had the biggest piece of cake in the universe with peanut butter in it.




And finally we have this lovely drawing of Noah's fantasy hospital. I was working at the Sick Kids yesterday and we did a good workshop about what makes a good hospital. Noah always does work for us and his imagination is amazing. I told him yesterday that he is going to be an illustrator but apparently he is going to be a footballer. Whatever. For disagreeing he didn't get a Vimto sweet. I ate them all.




So that's my week in photographs. What a lovely time I had. I hope your weeks are all going well too. Bye!