Between books

I finished drawing a book last night (though I am sure there will be corrections later) and went straight to bed. I was too tired to tidy anything. Instead I listened to "Titus Groan" until I fell asleep.
This morning I woke up early and went downstairs to read comics. and now it's time to drink tea and start laying out the next book.
I love my life.

Character Design

This lady might get her own book soon, if everything goes to plan.
(My housemate laughed and said "it's a small Viv!")

Battles ahead. Also Wolves.

I'm still drawing rats. At the moment, mostly unconscious ones.

I also drew instructions for making a reversible wolf hat for The Howling, a game I'll be running with Firehazard early next month. Participants will need to bring one along. The game will involve a lot of running, howling, and nerf guns. It should actually be quite scary, if all goes as planned.

I'm rather excited about it all...

Diary: I LOVE TATE MODERN

INTERNATIONAL BOOK GIVING DAY

Yeah. Valentine's Day is coming up and shop windows are becoming opaque with heart-shaped decorations.

How about getting some children's books to a better place this year? Because it's also

So grab some children's books and donate them to your local dentist's waiting room. Or give them to a school. Or a friend with children, even. Or a Charity... I like the waiting room idea best, myself, because there are always sick and scared and bored children there and somehow never enough books to make them feel better.

Or if you are an artist - why not whip up a book plate for the website? Or a little poster?
Spread the word! Go on!
And if you're not an artist and want a picture to use: have one from me. Here.

You can use this image in any way you like as long as it's somehow beneficial to International Book Giving Day.

Go and see what you can do! And let the nice people over at that site know about it!
Hepp, off you go!
(Here they are on Facebook, and They are @bookgivingday on Twitter.)

UPDATE: Here's a lovely bookplate you can print out and use by Clara Vulliamy. That's the spirit!

UPDATE: and here's my bookplate. Print it stick it fill it in!

Last Australia Diary Entry

Here's a page of Australian night life (and morning animals).

Early Morning Crochet

I woke up early today and decided to start making a plastic pouch for my kindle to keep it in until I'll get around to making a truly fabulous one.



I used up four old shopping bags, then I got bored, and now I shall start working on my books instead.
I don't know when it happened, but I've been less and less keen on making anything other than books recently. I think it's because I seriously want to get some novels published. It feels like it's time for me now to make books with more pages, and exciting ebooks.
I've been reading a lot, mostly thanks to the Kindle which accompanied me in Australia, and thinking: this is what I want to make, books full of words.
So today I will set down a plan on how to achieve this, and schedule 2012.
Life is too exciting to spend crocheting tiny wonky pouches! Except six o' clock in the morning, maybe.

Back in the Snowy Regions!

I'm back in London!

Apologies for the bad image quality of my Australia posts, the ipad blogging software I was using insisted on compressing everything, but you can click on the pictures to get a better view.

So I went from 34C to -5C in one day, and when I woke up after my first jet-lagged sleep, the world looked like this:

which was a bit baffling after two weeks of sun-block and emergency ice-cream.

I made the best of it though, joining a brisk game of Circle Rules Football, or rather Circle Rules Snowball.

By the way, I am working on an all-new game for Fire Hazard - a werewolf-themed one, because I have had enough of Zombie games. There will be nerf guns and howling, and special hats. If you are London-based and like making up games, why not come along to the planning session? Or, more generally, why not join Fire Hazard for fun and games and accidental exercise (as opposed to exercise on purpose).

Australia Diary Week 2

They could not stop me, I bought a hat

It's cool.

Australia Diary Week One

Animals I Met Today

I'm toroughly enjoying myself here in Australia.

Today I hand-fed a whole load of kangaroos - it's a hot day, so they were mostly lazing around in their dust baths. It was too hot to handle the koalas, they easily overheat, apparently. They seemed quite disappointed about this and followed people around. I figured, considering the natural leg-speed of the average koala, being carried by a person must be a bit like riding a motorbike. Or at least a segway.

I also fed some emus. They were less scary close-up than I expected, expect when they started belching. It's a very alaming noise.
Here are some heat-flattened beasties drawn from life.

Game Of Thrones

Yesterday I drew a knight riding a wolf with a sidecar with another knight with a flaming sword.

Everyone needs a day off sometimes.

"Why do you make books for children?"

Some years ago I gave a talk at the annual Illustration Forum in Falmouth. I have no memory of what I said because i was so nervous that I instantly abandoned all my notes and plans and just started talking, and all I remember is that my mouth was moving, there were slides, people laughed a lot and in the end I got applause (and a job as associate lecturer).

Now Steve Braund, the course leader of the Authorial Illustration MA in Falmouth and the organiser of the forum, sent me part of a transcript.
It's a complete surprise, and I really don't remember saying any of these things, but they are all true, so here you go.

‘The reason I do children's books - write and illustrate them - is that I really needed books when I was a child.
That was the time in my life when I really, really, REALLY needed books because I grew up in this little German town. There wasn't a whole lot to do there. There were trees, and aluminium and stuff so I really needed to read books then...reading them and tearing out the pages I didn't like and colouring in the pages I did like. I especially liked books that were telling me how the world is actually a very exciting place, because I thought it should be, and books about how to make things and do things. I worked out that people actually make books at some point, and I was like, ''Oh wow, I want to make books.'' I thought, ''But I'm too small, I don't know how to.'' But I started imagining what kind of books I wanted to make and I made this list which I still have. I'll read you out the list of books I though should exist which I've since been working on:

A book that is a pet to play with, and more exciting than gerbils.
A book that is guide to the adventurer's world, which is much in the same place as the non-adventurer's world but you need maps and explanations
to make it work.
A book to keep me safe.
A book that's actually tasty.
A book that explains how there's a city of pigeons above a human city.
A book that is an adventure.

‘And then all these books would be my friends. They would give me stuff and play with me, and if a burglar comes I would hit him over the head with
a book, and if I got lost I would have a book which folded out to be a house. Basically, brilliant books. I've been working my way through that list ever since I started working. Whenever I start work on a book, I think, which one is it? I hope it's on the list.’