My new picture book My Dog, Hen (Prestel Books) is out in autumn. There’s a lot of drawings of the dog, but mainly furniture and interiors and Hen’s family. You don’t need to like dogs to enjoy this book, but it helps. Some people are cat people, that’s for sure.
An early rough from My Dog. Hen.
Watch a short film about making My Dog, Hen.
Tom the cat usually sits there. I think he broke my typewriter.
Twelve noon. -26.7662930, 153.1367929
“Bribie Island : Primary vegetation, such as grasses and creepers found in the incipient dune, can trap sand to build up dunes and reduce the extent of beach erosion.”
ink and brush and graphite and seawatercolour. Sans spectacles. 14:00-14:20.
This bird can show off as much as he likes because he is one of my favourite birds. And all he asks is for some sunflower seeds.
I recently made a series of 12 short publicity films for the release of Lauren Child’s new Clarice Bean book “Think Like An Elf”. Each film has an extract from the book read by Flora and a part where Lauren shares her own thoughts about the book and how she wrote and illustrated it.
Lauren will publish them on her Instagram @laurenchildthatsme leading up to Christmas.
You can see the first film here.
Photo: A copy of Clarice Bean Think Like An Elf flagged by the author with notes for the 12 short films. Illustration © Lauren Child 2021.
I was pleased to see a copy of the new Pippi Longstocking illustrated by Lauren Child. This 75th Anniversary of Pippi edition has a new jacket and the text is a new setting (using the new translation by Susan Beard).
We did the first edition way back in 2007, before Twitter. This new English translation required typesetting the text anew, and although the illustrations are as are included in the 2007 edition, some have been repositioned to help suit the new typesetting. Lauren’s pictures look superb and I was happy to look at the title again from the perspective of the second book in what is now a companion title to Pippi Longstocking Goes Aboard (published in 2020).
The illustrations are integrated with the type throughout, so as usual, it’s a mission to make them fall where required through the running text. A good example is the torchlight spread. The preceding text in the book has to stop on the previous spread’s right hand page, and with a different translation, it meant the space the text occupies is different.
We used a neon spot ink on the jacket (as on Pippi Goes Aboard), and the woodfree paper makes Lauren’s artwork look very fine.
Companion titles: the original Pippi Longstocking and Pippi Goes Aboard.
In the Malvern Hills, it’s easy to admire the views. Even in the bad weather, it’s possible to find a spot to draw that is out of the wind. But the weather changes too. I was looking at the North Hill and the sun was shining down on it, quite dramatically, and I was using watercolour and ink to make a picture. When I looked up next, the hill was not there and instead was a cloud of grey mist. I decided to call it a day and started to pack up. I looked back up at the scene and the North Hill had reappeared and the mist had moved off to the east above the town. People were walking over the hill and further away I could see a dog running. The British Camp was next, and this was foggy and beautiful. I don’t mind sitting in the cold drawing, and I like to see the sheep keeping the grass so neat all the way up there.
