Category Archives: Illustration

Owls out!

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Today is publication day for ‘Twit’, written by Steve Cole and illustrated by me. It’s an early reader from Orion, and is a very funny story about three over-confident, bossy owls and their rather gullible little brother. A lovely way for beginner readers to build up their confidence.

Stop press: Those nice people at Orion have just launched a competition to Knit Twit – craft your own little blue owl, and send in a pic for a chance of winning a prize…all the details are here. Get busy as the closing date is the end of October!

Tudor trumpeters, men of letters and a nursing pioneer: Influential Black Londoners exhibition opens

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Today is the opening day of the exhibition I’ve worked on with the National Trust at Sutton House, Hackney. Each of the historic rooms features a letter written by historian Miranda Kaufmann to one of nine Influential Black Londoners – and she has done a superb job of bringing them to life in a most engaging way. She has written about the experience on her blog here. I’ve designed and illustrated a set of commemorative stamps, and have created giant envelopes to display them. Visitors will also be able to collect small stickers of each of the stamps as they go round the house taking part in activities related to each of the characters. Many thanks to Daisy and Sean for helping make the envelopes and mount the exhibition.

It’s been a great project to be involved in – Sutton House is a very atmospheric and interesting building and it’s a privilege to work there, but most of all it has been fascinating to learn more about the nine Influential Black Londoners and their lives – and how what they achieved and experienced has affected the course of history. In particular I have been reading extracts from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography, which very vividly depicts his gruelling experiences on a slave ship as a young boy.

The next step in the project is the series of workshops with local schools. I’m really looking forward to starting these next week, and helping KS2 children produce some exciting new work, both 2D and 3D, to add to the exhibition. Do get along to see it if you can!

In the post with Influential Black Londoners

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I’m working with the National Trust this autumn at Sutton House, the oldest house in Hackney, on an exciting Black History Month project celebrating the lives and legacies of nine Influential Black Londoners. The project is in two parts: the first was for me to devise a creative response to each of the historic figures, and display it as an exhibition in the different rooms of this wonderful Tudor house. I decided to create a set of commemorative stamps, complete with a rubber stamp postmark – as you can see in the picture above, I have had great fun playing post offices to test them. I spent yesterday at the house putting up an exhibition with the help of two lovely students, Daisy and Sean – as it doesn’t open until Sunday I’ll post more about it all then.

Part two of the project is to run a series of eight creative workshops with local primary schools – the first is next week. I’ll report on this as it goes along, but it’s exciting to think of the exhibition growing week by week and showing the work of hundreds of young minds.

Spiders with spoons and a giant dinosaur tooth

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I’ve had great fun working with Ladybird Books on a brand new series called First Fabulous Facts – as the name suggests, it’s non-fiction for very young readers. The first two titles, Dinosaurs and Minibeasts are out now, with two more to follow soon and another pair next year. I’ve done the cartoons, and another illustrator, Patrizia Doneara, has done the more scientific drawings. I really like the way they’ve designed the series – an appealing way to learn about the world.

Sweet Thames Run Softly

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All my life I have lived near the river Thames, and it’s a mighty body of water that I feel a very strong emotional connection to. As a child I used to love visiting the river at high tide and letting it go over the top of my wellies, and I still feel a thrill when I see the water lapping over the towpath. In the last couple of years I have taken up skiffing and punting, so I am spending more time than ever on the water, enjoying seeing the river and its wildlife up close in all seasons. I’m also very involved in one of the tributaries, the Wandle, through local environmental organisation The Wandle Trust which organises monthly river clean-ups.

I’ve now been given a wonderful opportunity to create an exhibition for The Art Cabin, and I think the Thames is going to be my subject. I’ve started a bit of drawing and collaging, observing herons, grebes, grey wagtails and my favourites, the cormorants. I’ve also been delving into one of my most treasured books, Sweet Thames Run Softly, by Robert Gibbings. (there is a marvellous British Pathe film clip of Gibbings walking by the river here). Gibbings was a writer and woodcut artist who built his own small boat on the eve of the second world war, and paddled the whole of the river, from Lechlade back to London. The book is a beautifully illustrated account of the journey. Back in May I did the same journey over four days by skiff, and have been sketching out some ideas for linocuts inspired by my own trip.

It’s very exciting to be at this stage of a project – it could go in any direction, any media and at the moment there are no constraints. I’ll post more news on the project soon.

Beanstalks for Beanstalk!

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Today I went to a tea party to celebrate 40 years of the children’s reading charity Beanstalk (formerly Volunteer Reading Help) – and the publication of their first ever book, Jack and The Beanstalk. The charity asked various authors and illustrators to re-interpret the traditional fairy tale – my job was to illustrate Saviour Pirotta’s version, which opens the book. I used pen and ink with a wash, and tried to give it a folkloric feel. Copies are going to be given to all of the thousands of children being helped by Beanstalk’s volunteer reading helpers. It was a lovely afternoon, and a great project to be involved in.