Friday 31 October 2014

My blog is moving!

Hello, I know I am completely rubbish at blogging but I do like to share pictures of what I've been up to from time to time.
If you would like to continue to see things like drawings by kids or me talking nonsense at book events, please head over to my new website www.catejames-illustration.com and click on the link to my blog there. I may well work out how to import this blog onto my new website but who knows? Maybe not.

Meanwhile I will leave you with a lovely photo.

Cate xxx

Monday 9 June 2014

Radioactive hospital fun and other adventures

Hello!
Here is another collection of good things to look at. It is meant to be summer now and I can't remember how many times I've had soggy feet through wearing sandals on the wrong day, but I have been having some lovely times in the sun too (this morning, not this afternoon, for example).

Sooooooo...what on earth have I even been doing since March? I don't know. I can't remember. I went to Paris, drew some book covers for ace books that are coming out next year (interior illustrations still to be done), became a lax member of a book group, watched my friend's band Book Group, visited a million primary schools with many metres of lining paper (my felts are RUINED), bought a new jacket and other non-related things like eating amazing food and reading my friends' YA books. Speaking of which...

I will start with this picture of me and Lari Don (who wrote a brilliant book called Mind Blind which I just read) in Kirkcaldy Galleries last week. We did a Breaking the Spell event and it was loads of fun. Lari is a fantastic storyteller and I draw what she says (apart from when she says 'horse'). Here we are with our book, out now in paperback!


I have finally finished the gamma camera decorating and I have now moved on to decorating the chemotherapy treatment rooms. I think a forest theme is happening in one and a beach theme in the other. Many months of work await me for this and it is exciting. Here are a couple of photos of the vinyls on the gamma camera and walls. It looks ace, even if I do say so myself.




Also at the hospital I have been making books with Linda and the kids, and drawing animals. I think this girl was copying me a bit...



Also illustrating a whole book because the girl we were working with had partially amputated a finger (a likely excuse!) was totally exhausting!



I have been collecting views from the existing hospital to maybe be used in an exhibition, and also in the new hospital. I like this one. It won't be quite so dramatic looking out the windows of the new hospital so I think it's important to save these views.



That's all my pictures for now. Here is a link instead http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/blog/bookbug/2014/05/spotlight-on-cate-james
which is all about what I do all day and being an illustrator and books and stuff like that.

The end for now.

P.S. Sam, I miss you xxx

Tuesday 25 March 2014

5 months later...

Hello!!! 
I have not done a blog in ages because I am rubbish. Lots of thing I am working on are not going to be published for either a while or absolutely ages, so that can't be on here yet. What I can show off is all the billions of work I have been doing with lots and lots of kids. They are mostly brilliant pieces of art and deserve to be seen, so here are some now.

Firstly I have some amazing drawings from Towerbank Primary School in Portobello. I was working there with eca illustration students as part of a collaboration called Drawing Book. This is the 5th year that this has run, and I love it because I get to work with my pretend Mum, the amazing Vivian French, and Mr Jonathan Gibbs from eca. This is usually the 2nd year students' first experience of working with children and on the whole it goes pretty well.



This guy at the bottom knows a thing or two about drawing monsters. I love that he draws with a biro!

Last week I went to Maddiston Primary School in Falkirk and had the best morning ever with Heather from the Scottish Book Trust. I worked with 55 P2s, explaining the processes involved in the production of a picture book and I was so impressed with their storyboards.
In the hall was a wall covered in billions of book reviews about two Lollipop and Grandpa books. Here are some of them. It's really interesting to see which bits of my drawings they liked and copied. These kids can draw!






I am pleased to announce that my residency at the Sick Kids has been extended by a further two years, and will now run until June 2016 YAY! Here is a cheetah and a giraffe that were drawn on Ward 1 a while ago now.


 Cheetah

Giraffe

Also here is the finished, mounted, framed and hung drawing that I was working on for months and months. It is called 'How would you move a hospital?' and that pretty much describes the contents of the drawing. It was done by me and also lots of patients and staff of the hospital. On the left there is a smaller framed print which explains the drawing's individual elements. If you should ever find yourself in the hospital, they are next to the pharmacy.


And one more thing because I am super-proud of it...the gamma camera! Months in the making and almost finished. We have a very important person coming to open the room in the next few months so I will probably blog about that. I was given the task of making this massive scanner less imposing and here is the room about halfway through the installation. It's still not quite finished but it's almost there. I am now a vinyl application expert.


Ok that's more than enough of that. I will get more stuff up here so you can see what I get up to outside the world of book illustration. My time in the studio is great, but I do love being out and about and doing all this other unusual and interesting stuff. I go mad if I stay on my own for more than one day. And on that note I am going shopping. BYE!