I’ve always loved frogs. Right now I am dreaming of an entirely amphibian-based project…
Frogs!
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Category Archives: Illustration
A vision for the river Wandle
I went down to the river Wandle yesterday afternoon to pick up copies of the booklet I illustrated and designed for the Wandle Trust – I mixed paper-cuts and wildlife drawings with photographs and a hand-drawn map for the centre foldout spread. It’s printed up very nicely – and thankyou to the Wandle Trust for the lovely bouquet of flowers! I hope the booklet will help secure an environmentally sound future for this lovely urban chalkstream.
How straight are your cucumbers?
Victorian and Edwardian gardeners had a gadget for just about everything – apple pickers, seed tweezers, grape ripeners…but my favourite is probably the cucumber straightener. The Garden Museum in Lambeth, south London, has a marvellous collection of such items, as well as pony shoes, paintings, a very charming miniature garden with teeny little garden rollers and benches – and yes, a few gnomes too. I’ve just finished making a family trail for the museum – a little bit of it is shown above but you’ll have to go on a visit there to see more. As an extra incentive, I can tell you that the cafe is very, very delicious.
Feeling owlish?
Here’s a sneak preview of some work I have been doing for Orion’s Early Reader series – it’s a lovely story by Steve Cole about an owl family. These three bossy owl brothers were my favourite characters to draw. The book is due out later in the year – I’ll post more details nearer the time.
Three bears…
(but no Goldilocks). Here are some bears from a new idea I have been working on.
A whole heap of hats – and a hare
Here’s another letter from the alphabet project I’ve been developing with my mum (the letter J can be seen here). Even though I rarely wear hats, I do find them fascinating and it’s hard to resist adding them to illustrations – but this time I had the perfect excuse to go to town with them.
A jungle jaunt for jerboas
I’ve been working on a personal project lately with my mother – her words, my pictures for a giant alphabet book. The text my mum has written is so funny and such a joy to illustrate – here’s the letter J (for Jasmine Jerboa). I had great fun with this image collaging in some giant insects from an ancient French dictionary, and couldn’t resist adding a 70s-style thermos flask – essential equipment on any jungle jaunt, surely? I’d never looked properly at jerboas before – they are very endearing creatures, like miniature kangaroos.
Name three crustaceans…
One of my favourite jokes as a child was the one where you had to name three crustaceans – but now I can only remember two thirds of the answer! (A: King’s Cross Station, and Charing Cross Station). Anyway, here are three friendly crabs instead…
STOP PRESS: I’ve just been reminded that the third one is St Pancras Station – thankyou Helen!
Happy New Year!
Here’s two magpies for joy, which is what I wish everyone for 2014. My friends’ son has developed a great interest in magpies (to go with his existing fascination for fountains) and his parents asked if I would design a ‘Two for Joy’ T-shirt for his Christmas present – so here’s the design. I’m looking forward to seeing him wearing it this year…
The King’s Apartments
I’ve just received a package from Kensington Palace – the printed version of the concertina-fold family trail I designed, illustrated and wrote for the King’s Apartments there. It’s full of things to spot, things to do and boxes to tick – just in time for half term. The palace is well worth a visit – masses to see and do for all ages. It’s been great working with the Historic Royal Palaces team again – previously I’ve produced a family trail for Victoria Revealed (details here) and a hand-made book for the outreach team (more here).
