Premier League Writing Stars Poetry Competition 2020…

I recently illustrated the third book of the Premier League Writing Stars series of poetry anthologies. The third book, Beautiful Ambition, takes its name from a poem by Karl Nova. The poetry competition for primary schools has the winners’ poems published together with poems from some football players and other well known names in paperback book form. This year, the theme of the competition is ‘Ambition’. You can have a glimpse of the illustrations below.

I hope the authors have a chance to celebrate having their poems published soon.

Two films about The Goody…

I made a couple of short films for Hachette about Lauren Child’s new book The Goody. Lauren was interviewed by Sally Williams and they discuss the book’s background and inspiration, illustration techniques and a bit about changing style and what that can mean to an illustrator. It’s a beautiful book, dealing with the themes of labels and reputation. I think it should be labelled with a shiny metallic sticker of some kind.

The music is by Soren Munk.

You can see the other process films I made with Lauren here.

Camera shame…

“He carried a pencil that put a camera to shame.” – E.B. White/The Letters of E.B. White.

Happy Halloween…

Not yawning, screaming. Tom the cat.

A new film about the book design process for Lauren Child and Oxford University Press…

Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking Goes Aboard, illustrated by Lauren Child, came out this week published by Oxford University Press.

I’ve made a series of short films about Lauren’s working process and why she is fascinated by Pippi and Lindgren’s books. The third film features yours truly and we discuss the approach to designing the book, particularly the planning and working with the typography. Lauren’s ideas for making her illustrations integrate with the type and decisions on what and what not to include in a long-form book are discussed.

And you get to see inside the studio where she does all this stuff.

Available at all good bookstores.

A long way…

I have a jar of white gouache (I guess it’s like gouache) which I bought in the 1990s. It’s still going and it never seems to lessen. And it’s as opaque as ever. You don’t need two coats. What great value.

View fullsize

Oil pencil on newsprint. With bleed proof white.

“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.” Albert Camus

Life drawings, but not as we know it…

Some life drawings from assorted books. Ink, graphite, oil pencil, pastel, charcoal etc. NB: Contains some poorly drawn nudity. And some drawn-out noodling. Audio recorded in Australia at 446m above sea level.

“I have got this obsessive compulsive disorder where I have to have everything in a straight line, or everything has to be in pairs.” David Beckham

Same but different…

Different model, same pose, two years apart.

Small paintings of large buildings…

“Never talk to a client about architecture. Talk to him about his children. That is simply good politics… he will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time.” (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).

Ditto these drawings. (David Mackintosh).

Ink and gouache on Imitlin.

Happy Birthday Jacqueline…

At the bird sanctuary, May 1973.