Happy Christmas 2017!

Jam jar labels

The Lake of the Moon

My illustrations for The Lake of the Moon were published last month in That's Incredible! (Comprehension X, Oxford University Press, 2017). This is an ancient Indian fable rewritten by Narinder Dhami and aimed at primary school children, Years 4-6.
Here's a peek at some of the illustrations. The colours alternate between purple and reddish tones.

stories2connect

A couple of my recent images for stories2connect project, which shares stories of resilience in phygital objects. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Puppet fun at Manchester Children's Book Festival

Had lots of puppet fun with SCBWI (Society Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) at Manchester Children's Book Festival family fun day last Saturday. Over 70 characters made by children on the SCBWI stall, including pirates, mermaids, lions, robots, snakes...and a pink yeti!

Discover Author Arts Award log book

As a big lover of books, I am thrilled to see Bolton library's Arts Awards log books now in print, along with my illustrations. This is an author-related Arts Award aimed at 7-11 year olds, where children find out about books and an author or illustrator, put their findings into a log book and share with others.

The illustrations consist of the front cover (with Bolton museum's dramatic entrance) and interior borders on the theme of 'discover' and 'share'. They can be coloured-in, added to and pasted over, depending on how the child wants to personalise their log book.

What a super project to be involved with!

Lush brownies logo

New logo I designed for Lush brownies is now up and running :)

Clay relief pictures

Playing with clay slips and carving into plaster. This piece of Manchester Town Hall is fired to earthenware. I like the way the honey glaze pools and picks out the relief.

clay relief (Anna Violet)

Illustrations for 'The Singing Tortoise'

Yay, The Singing Tortoise (author Kate Scott) is out, illustrated by me in diluted inks. Published by Oxford University Press (Oxford Reading Tree, All Stars, level 11), a young reader's book aimed at 6-7 year olds. Here's a taster from over 50 b&w illustrations.

Playing with clay and plaster

Secateurs Landscape, porcelain and iron oxides

Manchester Town Hall, clay slip onto carved plaster, unfired

Ceramic Stone, terracotta with slips and oxides

clay slip cast from plaster mould of glove, unfired

Drawing into Clay

Dorian Gray, drawn into smeared clay

Dorian Gray, allowed to gradually dry out

Dorian Gray, allowed to gradually dry out some more

clay print onto carved plaster (clay casting slip), unfired

clay print onto carved plaster, oxides added and fired 

clay print onto carved plaster, oxides added and fired 

oxides onto rolled out clay and scaffitto

drawing/carving into plaster

Ceramics textures

Having a play with stretching out painted oxide patterns on rolled out clay and pressing into moulds.