Merry Christmas

Chorlton refurb

Images I did last month for Chorlton Refurbishment Group leaflets and website.

SCBWI winner

I won the scbwi (Society Childrens Book Writers & Illustrators) Undiscovered Voices Tribute Competition at the annual conference in Winchester last weekend, and I'm chuffed to bits! Tim Truong (Stripes Publishing) said it had the most competent sense of design, use of colour and understanding of the role of a cover. Wow!

John Shelley, from scbwi, has also set up an on-line gallery for the illustrator's exhibition set up at the conference. You can view this on http://www.wix.com/scbwibi/winchester

scbwi conference illustration exhibition

The scbwi (society children's writers and illustrators) annual conference is in Winchester, 13th-14th November. There will be an exhibition of children's book illustrations. I'm really pleased my hare & tortoisehas been selected to go up.

Chutney labels

For the mountains of apple chutney we made last August.

Black and white

Here are some b&w ink drawings of children for the educational market.

SCBWI Illustration Competition

Here are a couple of images I have produced for SCBWI (Society Children's Book Writers and Illustrators)
Illustration Competition: Undiscovered Voices Tribute Challenge.
The first illustration is a cover for Adele (by Anne M Leone). This is about a young teenager who spends a summer holiday in Michigan with her aunt. When a ghostly face appears in the window, the girl discovers the house hides a dark history of slavery.

The other illustration is a cover for The Truth About Celia Frost (by Paula Rawsthorne). The main character has a disorder that leaves her in constant fear of bleeding to death. Then she is the victim of a knife attack...

AOI Images 34 show

AOI Images 34 show last week in London last week.

My fox is now in the AOI Images 34 annual, so I'm 

really chuffed.

Aesops characters: The lion and the mouse

Aesops characters: The fox and the stork

Aesops characters: The hare and the tortoise

Wedding card

Decorative Map

Had a lovely commission last month to produce a decorative map for the National Trust. This was published on their leaflets to promote one of their Welsh sites during the Radio One Big Weekend. A tight schedule but fun to do. The site looks gorgeous in their photos and hope to get around to visiting one day.

London Transport Competition

Image to promote London's new cycle superhighways. With a nod to Saul Steinberg!

Andy Perez

Some gorgeous collages.http://andytheillustrator.com/blog
This one is Grow Your Own Food.

New paintings

Last month I got back into doing original paintings of local areas, but from a very different angle, and using collage too. Exhibited at green Walk arts and Crafts open weekend (1st and 2nd May) and got some good feedback. Here is one of them - the lychgate at Chorlton Green.

Chris Ofili exhibition

Impressive exhibition at Tate Britain of Manchester-born artist who won Turner prize in 1998.  Uses variety of media, including decorated balls of elephant dung. My favourites were his beautiful liquid small-scale watercolours, Afromuses (1995-2005) with areas of intense colour within the varying shades of brown.

Alan Fletcher exhibition

An impressive exhibition of Alan Fletcher's work at The Cube, Manchester.

The Fox the Crow and the Smelly Old Cheese

A new colour palette.

Enormous crocodile

Another spread where crocodile trying to disguise himself as a coconut palm.

Didn't See It Coming

This book has been on sale in Magma bookshop, Manchester, since last year. It is a collaboration between Stockport  & Kingston college illustration students, with images based on the consequences idea of interchangeable heads, bodies and legs.  My colander-head features in it.

I also did a project a couple of years ago, set by the 'Leonard Cheshire Disability', which used the idea of consequences for a set of beermats (showing 6 interchangeable characters).

Crocodile character development and sketches

Jousty Mouse character development and sketches

Nobrow competition

People I have never met and conversations I have never had.

Brighter colours for Jousty Mouse

The brighter colours give a completely different feel and appeal to a younger age group, too.

Eye Candy Illustration Agency

I've been noticing illustrator's work from Eye Candy quite a bit lately - Luciano Lozano (1st 3 images), Ned Joliffe and Sophie Joyce(last image). Some gorgeous textures. Eye Candy has been going since 2002 and has base in London and NY.