Monday 26 January 2015

Happy New Year?


After a horrible end to 2014 and a bad start to 2015, I am starting to get back to normal, or as normal as I ever am, or as normal as you can be when you lose your second parent (and thank goodness I only had two).

But things are going great career-wise, so here are a few things that have been happening...

The Scotsman newspaper published a Christmas story written by my hospital partner-in-crime, Linda Cracknell for the second year running, and illustrated by me. This year she concentrated on the Ebola epidemic, and I worked with my idea that the virus itself looks a bit like a macabre Christmas decoration.




I have been colouring-in a LOT and here is a probably-not-allowed look at one of the pages I have been working on for Hachette. The series is about a Stone-Age family, written by my good pal Vivian French. This big guy is my favourite to draw.




I have also been working on the second Squirrel Boy book (Phoenix Yard). This is how I work, doing the ink line work over the pencil drawings on my light box. I can't believe I have been an illustrator for so long without a light box. What an idiot.





At the end of last year I travelled to Burntisland Primary School with Lari Don to be a prize in a reading competition! I love working with Lari (luckily we are working on another book together at the moment, yay!) and I also like when kids copy my drawings of animals really well.



Here is a big pile of books. SQUIRREL BOY VS THE BOGEYMAN is hitting the shops in a few weeks. It is a really funny book but I didn't write it (probably for the best). I will be doing an event with Dave Lowe at the Edinburgh book fest this summer and I'm looking forward to meeting him.

That's it really. I tried to update all this on my website blog, but it was being a pain in the bum and it only takes a very small amount to make me utterly furious at the moment, so I gave up and have returned here. Thank you for reading.
Oh, and happy Australia Day!