Letters From Schwarzville

Australia Diary Week 2

2012-01-30T10:32:00.001Z

They could not stop me, I bought a hat

2012-01-27T08:45:00.001Z

It's cool.

Australia Diary Week One

2012-01-27T05:57:00.001Z

Animals I Met Today

2012-01-24T04:39:00.001Z

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

2012-01-19T10:02:00.001Z

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?"

2012-01-15T19:27:00.001Z

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.’

Circle Rules Football and Citydash

2012-01-14T19:50:00.001Z

Firehazard is back for 2012! We shall be playing fun games in London - totally the best way you can get exercise without hating it. I find.

We have a snazzy new website where you can join - for free, at the moment. We're building up a network of people who like to play games that involve a lot of running around and not too many rules.

Our first event was a small game of Circle Rules Football at London Fields, it looked like this:

Check out my fancy moves...

There will definitely be a lot more of this kind of thing.

Then today we had a run of Citydash - a fast game of tag and treasure-hunt using mobile phones, played in the City of London. We've been running it before, but now we updated it to allow team-building. Also there is no more crew needed - players get to place targets and be guards themselves.
It was great fun.

No Rats Today.

2012-01-13T15:34:00.001Z

I'm having a day off the rat book.

I woke up today feeling completely dreadful. I'd exercised, so I felt sore all over, and the upstairs neighbor had done his usual werid stomping routine at night, so I was tired, and I had had strange nightmares for the remaining night, so I was VERY tired actually.

I refused to get up until lunch time, because every time I sat up I felt woozy. Then I decided it was time to have a day off drawing, and that I might as well work my nightmares into my new graphic novel script.

If you are interested, one dream was about catching a demon in the kitchen sink and then being sent out by my mother to a fetisch supermarket to buy it a miniature sofa to furnish the bottle we were keeping it in. It didn't go well.

I would really love to know what the upstairs stomping is all about. It's at very regular times, moves all through the flat and ends with the sound of something being dropped on the floor. Weighted boots? I have no idea. It's maddening.

So, having worked my dreams into the script as planned, and having taken a walk to the nearest bookshop, I shall now curl up on the sofa and read this book:

Emmeline Pidgen drawin' shapes

2012-01-12T15:36:00.002Z

Hey!

Remember my character design workshop?

Look what Emmeline Pidgen did with it!

Totally brilliant.

A character in the making... look what became of it!

And do check out the rest of her work...

Pugilism

2012-01-11T22:53:00.001Z

I'm still drawing fighting rats.

Unexpectedly, as I was listening today to what is officially the Third Best Game Of Thrones Podcast, I heard myself mentioned. That was nice. I don't think I was ever mentioned in a book club before. Yay!
(Don't listen to this podcast if you're a child or I'll get told off.)

Otherwise, I ordered a pack of orange dye to save my favourite moomin pillow that I stained with henna by accident. Life is exciting. Yeah.

Back to drawing.

Fork

2012-01-10T21:50:00.002Z

Alexis visited today and helped me out with some more battling rats. He drew a sheet of poses, I'll nab some of them for the big fight scene in our next book.
Here is a picture of a rat being mean to a smaller rat with a fork.

(Alexis had nothing to do with this one, he's more classy than that. You'll recognize it in the final artwork, he roughed out all the proper wrestling poses and such.)

Henna Head

2012-01-10T15:58:00.001Z

Henna Time Again!I don't know what it says about my character - the main reason hennaing my hair cheers me isn't knowing that my head will be red, but the fond memory of my first boyfriend retching and complaining that it smells like evil rabbits. Whenever I come across something he'd hate, it makes me smile.Otherwise: the studio is being painted, so I am working at home. Drawing rats. There are still rats to be drawn.

From my diary: Being Funny

2012-01-06T00:39:00.001Z

I'm quite funny. I know because people say so even though I'm not trying, most of the time anyway. In fact, they tend to say it more the more normal I think I'm being at the time.
Sometimes someone I am communicating with (successfully, I think) shakes their head, apropos (I think) of nothing in particular, and asks me if I have any idea how God Damn Hilarious I am being. I don't mind that particularly much. It's much better than calling me "mad" or "eccentric" (is everyone else "cenric"? What are they even talking about?) - also better than just nodding and walking off briskly without any sort of excuse, although I kind of like that as well because people who do that are not pleasant conversationalists anyway. They are mostly guys who say they are connaisseurs of women and ask weird questions like "why do you wear lipstick when you are intelligent enough to know I don't like it".
But I digress.
There are a lot of funny people in the world. I think everyone is funny, but then I think that it might just be the kind of person who hangs around near me tends to amuse me. I mean, I can't tell, there is no scientifically valid way for me to work out if everyone else is funny even though I think they are.
People also often think that I am pretending to be more stupid than I am, maybe in an attempt at being funny. I don't do that, I think people just have a narrow idea of what intelligence means and what it makes you do. It sure doesn't stop people from being ridiculous.
Anyway, the strange thing is that somehow I am now being funny for money. I didn't mean to do that, I didn't try to avoid it neither. But it's strange, isn't it? It's meant to be very hard work to be funny for a living, especially if you are female, and even more so if you are German. I'm a female German, what's up with that? Maybe it helps that I do work for Children. Not that people would reason: our children need some cheer, let's get an unintentionally hilarious German lady in here, quick... they don't do that, do they. Also I'd not turn up because a) children are scary and b) statistically I only turn up to every forth social invite, so that would be not a good strategy, inviting me when your children need anything.
The point is: I am often surprised about my job. I sometimes find myself laughing while I am drawing, and I stop and think about what made that happen, because generally I wasn't even trying to draw anything funny. Recently, I have stopped the stopping and thinking because it's just slowing me down, and it's more fun to read the whole book when it's finished and laugh my head off then.
I thought about this a fair bit today, and in the end I realised that I was not coming to any conclusion at all, not even a small one. I guess I just don't get my own sense of humour, maybe because I'm German. That's ok.
I also do cute drawings.

Ipad! Totally!

2012-01-03T21:55:00.003Z

Noteshelf Doodle

I have an Ipad! And I spent the last couple of days setting it up and working out a new workflow or six.

I've been tapping and scribbling and downloading and synching and uploading and shuffling and clipping and pasting. It's amazing. It really, really is a great productivity tool.

Apps I love already:

Celtx, my good old favourite script editor has a brilliant ipad app. I started writing my next graphic novel script straight away - it's just beautiful, the formatted script just flows onto the page and cloud-synchs easily with my desktop computer.
Daedalus: a peculiar no-frills text editor that manifests my writings as virtual sheets of paper in virtual stacks. It happily synchs them into Dropbox as simple text files. There are no distractions, and it has much of the joy of working in a paper notebook. Physically shuffling through the paper stacks is really satisfying, and if I need to find anything in a hurry there is a text search function. Yay. I already imported a half-written novel out of Scrivener to tap away on it on the pad. That means something, Scrivener being my absolute favourite novel editor... I might even abandon it!
The Kindle app is so much friendlier than I expected - it imports PDFs and other documents, which means I have copies of my own picture books sitting on it now.
Noteshelf is a great app for scribbling - in my case, scribbling whole picture book roughs. The pages produced can be shuffled around at will, which means I can produce a full set of rough thumbnails in no time. - It also lets you make scrapbooks of pictures you find elsewhere and handwritten notebooks on a range of virtual papers. (You can even keep handwriting your own diary, although I much prefer the Muji Calendar App for that - it synchs with gcal, wheee!)
Quickoffice, meh, Quickoffice is ugly. What can you do. But it lets me deal with all sorts of documents on the go, connects to google docs and generally does all that less beautiful office type stuff that needs to happen sometimes.
Evernote! EVERNOTE IS AWESOME!!! I have it installed on all my devices and it's an almighty bucket of ideas, swallowing photos, notes, recordings and anything else I want to remember. I have a notebook for each of my projects, and they are filling up with characters, sketches and insomniac ramblings.
Flipboard is a fine way of not getting totally lost on the web reading a load of crud. It makes whatever my social network shares into an ever changing shiny very interesting magazine. The best thing ever to read in the morning with a cup of tea.
Dropbox. Dropbox is great as ever. Everyone needs Dropbox.

And otherwise, two things you need if you want to input a lot of stuff: a decent bluetooth keyboard case (I got the Adonit Writer, which is excellent if you have tiny hands and not otherwise) and a stylus (I thought the Cosmonaut looked best - it hasn't arrived yet, so I can't tell).

What I haven't got on it: games, and drawing apps. I really don't feel like drawing on the thing. Might change my mind when that stylus arrives.

All in all: WOO HOOO! It's fun to work with. I prefer to draw on real paper with pencils, but I love to scribble and plan and collect and write and connect everything up with the ipad... it's like an amazing electronic notebook rather than a computer. And I LOVE NOTEBOOKS.

Dream diary

2012-01-02T22:47:00.001Z

Last night's dream: God is Listening

For some reason God is listening to my ideas. It's not quite the same as listening to my prayers. It's more like he's somehow inclined to realise my more involved inspirations.I am rather excited about this, and sketch out in my mind a planet covered in sweet bouncy foam, just viscous enough to swim in it but not so one would sink. I am just about to design the athmosphere, which of course would need to be breathable, when I get distracted by goings-on in the harbour. A large ship is closing in, with a kind of cannon at the top. A war ship, most definitely. Behind it, some sort of aircraft carrier, also armed. The carrier fires. An almighty wave comes up from the sea. The ship turns its nozzle on us, and foam billows forth, covering everything. I think: aw no, God, not like that...The valleys are flooded, the forests disappear as the foam and water react, sweet radioactive foam bloats up, forming an inviting blanket over all, leaving merely the hill we stand on... People are crying, I am glad they don't know this was my idea.We walk to the edge of the foamy waste. What am I supposed to say - well done, God?I fold my hands and say: "Lord, I am sorry. Please, do not follow my ideas any further. I do not demand for my prayers to be heard, but I pray for better prayers."The foam retreats. I am not sure how to feel about all this.

More rats... rats and rats

2011-12-30T21:53:00.006Z

I'm drawing and drawing and drawing rats.
Around lunch time, my new scanner arrived - a huge thing. Now I can scan my artwork without folding it, which will please the nice lady who sells it to collectors when the books are finished...

A detail from today's spread

I realised today that I have no idea what I'm doing, but at the same time I always know what to do next. I think that's a good way to work - every new page surprises me.

Also I'm finally absolutely able to just smile about all the people who used to tell me that my pencilwork wasn't much good. I mostly avoided it since college because assorted people told me that inking is the only way to go, and that my pencil drawings looked laboured and clumsy. And that my characters are scary and look mad and like they never sleep. Yeah, maybe they do! Maybe I'm a bit short myself and sleep badly and some days I eat ALL THE POTATOES and then I'm kind of tubby around the middle. Maybe the people who told me to stop drawing in pencil are neurotic whingebiscuits.

Maybe perfection isn't everything!

Also I like my drawings better than theirs. (Just ran through the list of critics in my head, and, yeah, I like mine best. By a distance.)
(Do I hold grudges? You bet. I started collecting them when I was about four.)

And I am seeing a whole lot of pencil shavings in 2012!

BRING IT ON!

Big Desk.

2011-12-29T17:04:00.001Z

I'm back from Germany!
Look at the beautiful necklace I got as a present:
Best Christmas Ever.

That's on my hand, not on my neck.

I started straight away to upgrade my winter studio, AKA my bedroom. I set up a huge drawing desk...

View from my bed. It's a big desk.

...and I ordered an A3 scanner, and an anglepoise lamp. In powder blue, because no one wants that and so it's about half price.

Now I shall be working hard to make that money back.

Almost Christmas...

2011-12-21T14:52:00.002Z

I'm drawing rats every day. They are getting hairier and hairier. Half the book is drawn by now. Alexis came to visit and drop off some presents yesterday, and he said that the drawings were mad, but some of my best work yet.
I wasn't really aiming for a mad book, but I'm enjoying it immensely so that's ok.

I'm working late into the nights... it's great to be a freelancer. You can get up late and look like this and just start working in pyjamas.
I pretend it's for reference.

Working at home

2011-12-15T13:37:00.002Z

I'm drawing rats. The dinner table is covered in rat drawings. It's the most fun I've had drawing a book. My process is a bit shocking, I just draw the whole page freehand without a rough, then scan it and chop and change it until it fits on the page nicely, then in the end I'll redraw all the bits that don't fit.
As usual, this means scrappy, crinkled and scribbly originals that will give the fear to galleries. But the books looks spontaneous and fun for it, and I care more about that than about neat original artwork.
I love my job.

Yesterday we had a Ghibli day, some friends visited and we projected four Studio Ghibli features in a row. The house feels friendlier for it.

Back to drawing! Tonight I'll be missing another exciting gathering of illustrators in the city because I really want to stay home and bake triple chocolate cookies.

Tree! Tree!

2011-12-12T13:15:00.004Z

Wooohooo!

When I came home today, best housemate ever had got us a tree and decorated it.

I shall go and buy batteries for the lights...

YAY!

Sunday

2011-12-11T11:47:00.001Z

Drilling and hammering and sawing is going on next door. We worked out that the landlord is having the building converted to rent it out for more, and are grumbling that it would have been polite to put a note through the door if there is to be drilling walls on a Sunday morning.

Everything is cosy and domestic. I got the box of Christmas decorations out of the garage, and borrowed a huge projection screen so we can watch festive movies. A Studio Ghibli day is planned.

I'm working late into the nights, drawing rats, photoshopping cheese, enjoying the silence.
Last night I accidentally drew an artwork that isn't even needed in the book, ah well. I'll replace it today.

I found another song I really like, By the Mountain Goats. Some of their music is so beautiful...

I Win at t-shirts (again)

2011-12-10T14:15:00.001Z

From Jennisparks.com

Improvements...

2011-12-09T21:40:00.001Z

Thought you might enjoy seeing these covers change as my agent is sending feedback. Change colours! Add scrolls!

She's very right.
I'm starting to realise that I kind of need InDesign and Illustrator now, lettering in Photoshop is RIDICULOUS WORK.
Oh dang it's still all over the place isn't it... no grids :(

That's just cheating

2011-12-09T19:46:00.001Z

These books don't even exist, but I felt like making some more covers...

The Rescuers

2011-12-09T19:13:00.001Z

Here's another portfolio piece: a cover for one of my favourite books.

Digitally painted, and fast as well - I'm making these cover in the breaks between comissioned work.

UPDATE: working on it...

You better like this lady...

2011-12-08T22:27:00.001Z

'Cause she's starring in my latest book.

Pinocchio

2011-12-08T17:04:00.001Z

I'm working on a set of book covers for my portfolio... three classic books. The first one is Pinocchio, because he's fun to draw.

or maybe less garishly coloured...

Here is the drawing-in-progress.

Black and White

2011-12-07T13:21:00.001Z

OK guys! I am working on a black and white style for my portfolio. I am working on a portfolio! Oh yes.
So, what do you think of this?

Not the best drawing evar, I know, a bit stiff and all that.

But - a good style for a novel? Ish?

Also: greyscale? Am I allowed greyscale? Must look up rules.

Aldwych Station Inhabitants

2011-12-05T20:48:00.001Z

I'm going through my photographs from Aldwych station... here are two. More soon.

Grargh

2011-12-05T17:20:00.001Z

Wow gee I am BORED. I still have a cold, I've read several webcomics halfway through, listened to five hours of "Game Of Thrones" discussion podcasts... and I actually spent about twenty minutes trying to work out what Bill Murray whispers to Scarlett Johansson at the end of "Lost in Translation" (As far as I can tell: "When I see you at the next business trip, don't forget the tarantula, ok?")

Quite basically if I don't get out of bed and to my drawing desk tomorrow, my head will implode.

Small treasure and adventures

2011-12-03T18:21:00.001Z

I finished teaching for this year, and events, and everything else that could distract me from drawing. OH YESSS.

I also finally bought a jewellery box, because the cookie tin Iw as using got too small.
Here's part of it. I'm particularly fond of the clockwork jellyfish earrings, and the shiny steampunk ones that Gwyn gave me. Earrings are fun, I discovered, having had my ears pierced at last.

Today I visited the disused Aldwych tube station and took pictures for a mini project... more on that soon, in the meantime here's a poster that's been stuck there since the early seventies.

And now I'll go to bed and read because I have a cold.

RATSRATSRATS

2011-11-30T15:09:00.001Z

Crayons are SO MUCH FUN!

pub scrawling

Crayons

2011-11-29T17:07:00.001Z

Watching the other illustrators at the South Ken festival draw, I noticed how enjoyable crayons are... Kitty Crowther and Marc Boutavant both used them. It was especially charming to see Marc's normally flawlessly rendered creatures drawn in scribbly crayon.

So today I tried drawing my rats in crayon, tos ee if that's the look I'd like for my new book.

I'm quite pleased actually, that's the first drawings I really enjoyed for this project!
The mouth placement is still weird. I'll work it out.

Astonished Platypus.

2011-11-28T22:11:00.001Z

I survived the South Ken Children's Book Festival!
Four days of visiting schools, drawing on stage with famous illustrators, giving talks and workshops and signing books and drawing things on demand.
I did a bit of "tell me an animal and a mood" improvised drawings on whiteboards and flipcharts as well, it's a nice way to show ways of expressing emotions in drawing.
Anyway, somehow the first request is always HAPPY CAT, and then after several other ones (more often than not including SLEEPY GIRAFFE) the one that always happens is:

ASTONISHED PLATYPUS

This is because, as you know if you've ever improvised anything on stage, the audience will always assume the idea is to trip you up. They think that's funny, when actually it's much more enjoyable to see perfectly obvious things work out well.

Due to this, however, I have become reasonably adept at drawing astonished platipodes. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

I also did some improvised drawing-on-demand together with Marc Boutavant, and with Stephanie Blake. As one would expect one of the resulting works depicted a princess on neptune who was brought 8 toilets by assorted superheroes and cute animals because she needed a wee. Another was titled (after the mayhem of drawing it had passed) "Harry Potter and The Dolphin In Striped Pyjamas". You can't blame us, the children made us do it. I did enjoy drawing Voldemort with a machine gun though.

Drawing Cats with the Bilingual

2011-11-24T18:20:00.001Z

I spent the day in a couple of impressive French Schools in the fancier parts of London, along with Axel Scheffler - we got a class each for an hour at a time and entertained them with drawing and chats. He had a bit of a headstart, I noticed that when he walked into his classrooms the children all went "AIIIIEEE AXEL SCHEFFLEEEER", in my rooms they all just went "Bonjour".

Anyway, we had fun scribbling wool and drawing cats and gluing one to the other, and the children asked very good questions. I decided that they were probably future prime minister material because when I was drawing on the whiteboard they liked to get up and correct it. In the last session I got a little bit self-conscious about all that and they ended up shouting : "IT'S NOT A CAT! IT'S A HAMSTER! IT'S NOT A HAMSTER, IT'S A RABBIT!" and so on whatever I did. These were also the first children of any age who complained that my workshop was too easy. I told them they could draw all the hairs on the cats if they wanted a challenge. One girl said she wasn't drawing hairs because she was drawing aubergines, not cats. I agreed that it would be weird.

Of course I also had to draw a cat about to throw up, and a horse. I kid you not. If you ever tried drawing a horse on a whiteboard in front of a class of extremely bright children who laugh at you in French, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. They did applaud me for that one because I had told them it was difficult.

Tomorrow I have four more workshops for classes of different ages, and some sort of a big talk on stage which I shall attempt to prepare right now.
The main thing I have concluded so far is that French schools have superior canteen food (eight different starters and a cheese course).

All considered, best workshops I did all year. I hope they'll send me some photos, not of me, but of the cat art that resulted. The children really could draw, they were all like: "Un Chat, phwah, trop facile, voila!" - One boy asked: "Do we have to draw like you?" I said: "Well evidently it would be a bad idea, everyone would be shouting at you "IT'S A HAMSTER!" - He nodded seriously and got on with drawing some excellent cats.

It's also the first school visit ever where a child asked me what percentage royalties I make. He was, what, seven years old? What do they feed them? Pure Awesome.

NO BROW!

2011-11-22T11:30:00.001Z

Getting a new NOBROW issue is brilliant...

Getting a reversible one that's half full of beautiful comics is even better...

Seeing one of my own illustrations in it is the best.

Here it is again, flat:

This is the first time I supplied an artwork with separate colour layers, and I'm happy it worked. I want to make more pictures like that, and hopefully have some printed up for sale.

YAY!

Tippytoe

2011-11-21T12:09:00.001Z

I coloured in some of yesterday's rats. Here's the one I showed you earlier.

I don't often do the cartoony-eyes and bendy-limbs style, but this books seems to want it.

I'm not sure about the shading/highlighting yet, might want to be more subtle, I want the rats to looka bit grubby though. Maybe I'll texture them all over.

I'm drawing with my medium sized Namiki Falcon pen, it's rather a joy...

AHA! Yes, this is better.

Rats in the Fog

2011-11-20T17:44:00.001Z

It's foggy in London.

Soupy

I just walked back from the studio, having drawn some rats.

Here's one

A good day.

2011-11-19T15:14:00.001Z

It's a peaceful Saturday. I did some novel writing on the train, and the end is in sight, it really is... I'll do some more in a minute.
Most of the day I spent playing with a borrowed ipad. I haven't really liked them so far, but it seems like it's the platform of choice at the moment for interactive literature and art, so I ought to get one to keep track of things. Personally, I'd much prefer an android tablet, but all the big cutting edge apps are still for the ipad.

So far...

I worked out how to synch my Scrivener data over to it, so I could actually work on my novel without lugging my work computer around. That's excellent.
It's easy to locally save reference pictures off the web. Yay! That'll be incredibly useful, since my laptop takes too much space on my drawing desk, and is unwieldy.
I'm not very excited by any of the art apps I've seen so far, but then I haven't seen many because I don't want to buy them on this borrowed pad.
I really don't fancy drawing or painting on the thing.
Surprisingly the first really exciting thing I stumbled across was a typewriter app. It was wonderful to use, reminded me of my first novel writing attempts... I'll be enjoying sending people typewritten email jpgs. Heh.
The keyboard is awful. But then a bluetooth keyboard will work with it. Fair enough.

I'm almost convinced of the usefulness. I'll be completely convinced once I start making my own apps.

Apparently one of Tove Jansson's classic picture books is being turned into a tablet app. I'm generally against turning existing novelty books into apps (what's the point exactly) but I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll do.

I've got things in a rather fancy exhibition!

2011-11-17T21:00:00.001Z

Some of my images are in a beautiful children's book illustration exhibition in Sarmede, Italy! And in very good company. See here.
I wish I could have been at the opening.
There is a very shiny catalogue, look:

Otherwise:
I'm in Plymouth, teaching, and on the train I drew some rats... I'm doing a picture book about rats, and I am still working on the best simple funny way to draw a rat.

Now I'm at the B&B, writing bits of novel. It should be finished soon...

Noisy and prestigious Roald Dahl Event

2011-11-15T16:09:00.001Z

I don't know if I mentioned that "A Place to Call Home" was up for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. here's a video of a lot of yelling at the venue. It was a lovely event.

2011-11-14T13:12:00.001Z

Aw, I'm tired.

I'm still not allowed coffee, and so sometimes I go out to one of my favourite cafes and ask for a small decaf latte, so weak that it smells of coffee but really isn't. They kindly make them for me, and I pretend that it wakes me up. It doesn't though.

Nevertheless, I'm getting things done... today I'll write some more novel, and tomorrow I'll draw an artwork for the new picture book I'm doing with Alexis.

Oh, and today the best patch ever arrived in the post for me, from Liz Lunney. Look!

Not sure where to fix it yet. Prominently, in any case.

App recommendation: TAROT OF THE MUNDANE

2011-11-12T14:41:00.001Z

The Tarot of the Mundane! It will not change your life. It may just make you feel slightly better about it.
If you have an iphone, go get this (free) app. It's a complete set of Tarot card for you to consult, and every reading is as wonderful as it is dull and drab, predicting vague mishaps and slight events of mild insignificance (a bit more or less so if inverted).
The beautiful and witty cards are designed and written by my friend Sarah, and the app is made by the excellent people at Knifedge.

Do you worry about minor inconveniences? Do laundry concerns keep you awake at night? Would you like to know if The Nutter will sit next to you on the bus?

Worry no longer: here for your mildly occult pleasure & edification is.. Tarot of the Mundane!

The Countess can answer all your trivial queries about what your very dull future holds. She knows all about your embarrassing illnesses, crap parties and domestic appliance tribulations. Her tried-and-tested fortune telling techniques will ASTOUND and AMAZE, sort of. Simply download Tarot of the Mundane onto your Electronic Device, then shake it about to get Your Daily Prediction. Guaranteed some percent success!

Nothing in particular...

2011-11-11T18:55:00.001Z

It's Martinmas today, the holiday I miss most since I moved away from Germany. It's about looking after one another as the winter begins. I'll light a lantern and drink sweet hot tea.
My latest book is getting to artworking stage, and I'll be spending a lot more time in the studio. My teaching spell is almost over, and I'll happily concentrate on bookmaking.
I also asked for an ipad for Christmas so I can get on with designing some narrative apps. There is much excitement ahead...
I decided that the old novel draft that I've been editing needs another part, several chapters long, to wrap it up. That's what I'll be working on tonight.

Roboboboobbobot

2011-11-09T17:43:00.002Z

Paper Tiger

2011-11-09T16:58:00.002Z

I finished my accounts! After finding a box full of receipts just when I thought I'd finished them the first time around. And then ordering some more statements from the bank. It's all triple checked and in the envelope and I drew a cat on the envelope and tomorrow morning I'll send it to my accountant.

HOORAY!

From My Dream Diary

2011-11-09T11:31:00.003Z

I'm very tired in the mornings. Here's why. It's like that pretty much every night.

2011-10-28T21:03:00.002+01:00

Another burst of paperwork today.
I need to buy some new folders to keep it all in... At the moment there is a shelf with boxes full of mixed papers towering over my bed, and that's not a good arrangement. I bought a shredder today, which already helped a great deal. It has a see through bin, so I can watch the confetti gently snow down. That's more cheery than you'd expect.
I also printed out some nice covers for my accounts. The dreadful things might as well look pleasant.
I know I will end up with some neat and precise books (with drawings of startled animals in the margins), but preparing them is really stressing out my poor non-linear brain.

I'm really looking forward to getting back into the studio when this is done... it's such a wonderful place.
We are painting a mural in the corridor at the moment.
Lack of studio time is making me miserable. I'm going to cut back on everything else for a while, not run around and organise or play city games especially. It's fun, but now it's winter, I want to sit somewhere homely and draw.

Nothing more to say. I've moved the goose-shaped lamp into the living room. That's about it. It's been raining. More interesting news as they come in, watch this space.

Oskar Schlemmer, Triadisches Ballet

2011-10-26T13:01:00.001+01:00

I just rediscovered an important childhood memory. I saw these costumes in a museum once and was mesmerised...

2011-10-24T17:24:00.001+01:00

I'm totally still here!
I've started teaching, which is great fun. I always try to help the students to break their project into workable chunks, and when I get back to the B&B in the evening I think: Gee, I know what I need to do next MYSELF! - Then I do some writing until midnight. It's a lovely way to spend a day.

I'm writing another chapter or two for the ending of my old novel, I realised what part of the story is still missing... I really hope it'll all tie together when this is done.

Also it's getting colder, I find myself wearing my fox suit over my clothes in the evenings.

I'm planning a number of new things as well... a picture book app, a new ambient game.
I think I'll never stick to one thing to do, even when I'm doing well...

Apple Crumble and a nasty word that has "ookkee" and "ping" in it.

2011-10-17T18:48:00.002+01:00

Today I made an apple crumble, even though apples are on the list of things I'm not supposed to eat. I'm sure someone will want it, and it smells good, and I had lots of breadcrumbs saved up.
I'm not allowed any of the things I love to eat for a while, as it turned out that pickles are not a major food group for a REASON, no matter how much I like them. I have turned so acidy that I could spit in your eye and blind you, and the doctor says this needs addressing.
So I am having adventures re-discovering alternative tasty foods, today it was buttered corn on the cob.

I'm also still doing my annual bookkeeping, if you haven't heard from me in a while, that's why.

And I am editing the novel. I'm working on a couple of things that I remembered no one ever understood when reading the first draft, mostly why some of the characters feel and act the way they do. It turns out that just as not everyone thinks extra sour pickles make a lovely main dish not everyone has the same set of emotions and experiences as I do. So to make the tale a proper story I need to make the emotions and thoughts of the characters more clear. It's interesting work. Much preferable to bookkeeping.

I also have new layouts to work on for a new picture book - I'm supposed to get the artwork ready this year, so that's another thing keeping me busy.

All is well, and I do love autumn.

South Ken Kids Festival! I'll be there! Will you?

2011-10-17T15:39:00.000+01:00

This year's South Kensington Children's Festival, organised by the Institute Francaise, features MOI! Well, also these people: Quentin Blake, Stephanie Blake, Marc Boutavant, Lauren Child, Kitty Crowther, Polly Dunbar, Sara Fanelli, Chris Haughton, John Hegley, Joëlle Jolivet, David McKee, Julien Neel, Axel Scheffler, Hannah Shaw, and Olivier Tallec...

So book yourselves in and see what happens!

I'm particularly excited about the drawing duels with those excellent artists.

Saturday 26th of November:

Workshop: Draw Cats Galore!

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

book now

Book signing

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Game of Consequences

5:00 pm - 5:45 pm

book now

Sunday 27th of November

Drawing Duel with Marc Boutavant

11:15 pm - 11:55 pm

book now

Drawing Duel with Stephanie Blake

12:00 pm - 12:40 pm

book now

Book signing

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Official site here

Cat In Darkness

2011-10-12T19:45:00.000+01:00

I drew this illustration today, it might become the cover of my novel or just an interior picture.

I will have finished editing the second draft soon, then I shall make it into an online document and give my friends access so they can edit and annotate it. I think that's a good way of doing it, because the changes and comments will be anonymous and no one needs to feel shy for criticising anything, and it's only a copy so it doesn't matter if someone decides that a whole paragraph should just vanish.

I will keep you updated on the project... I'm very excited about it actually, and enjoying it a lot!

Happy Autumn!

2011-10-09T15:44:00.005+01:00

Aah, it feels like my favourite season has begun. Soups! Stews! Harvest celebrations! As you can see, I started celebrating this weekend. It's very important to expel all those bad spirits before starting on your tax return.

Editing

2011-10-06T12:45:00.003+01:00

I'm editing, editing, editing my novel. All the parts are written now, but some of them were written ten years ago, some in a state of utter panic, some yesterday and some copied from a notebook I filled on a train journey to Cornwall.
The continuity is dreadful. I had to consult many maps to fix some of that, and hunt objects and characters back and forth through the story, and follow others to find that their moods and opinions were swinging around from scene to scene in a dreadfully confusing way.
But it is slowly starting to feel like a real novel.
I've found a lovely cafe, and shall sit here and eat brownies and drink tea until I've ironed out the joints, or until it's definitely time to go home.

Cardboard Monkey!

2011-10-05T14:46:00.001+01:00

I'm working on a pattern for a die-cut monkey toy. This is the first cardboard prototype...

Checking out the paints

Checking out the decals

Trying the paint sample clogs

Throwing shapes in the paint spinner

in repose

Just Hanging (we sell lovely coloured cables here)

Tree Ghost

2011-10-05T14:36:00.000+01:00

Adventures in Ebooks

2011-10-04T14:31:00.001+01:00

There has been much talk about authors and ebooks and how should it work and what are we doing and must we and do we want to and is the world ending.
I have come to the conclusion that obviously YES we must, and to find out how it works there is no better way than doing it, and yes I most certainly want to, and no the world probably isn't ending, but if so people might enjoy reading some books in the meantime.

So anyway, I have this novel that I wrote years ago, sent to some publishers and then put in a drawer even though they all said: My goodness, this is mad, but we would like to work on it with you. At the time I didn't feel like working on it at all, or even reading it again, because I wrote it during a time of considerable turmoil that I didn't want to be reminded of.
I always assumed it was a load of rubbish, but recently I decided to have a stab at editing it, and I discovered that actually it is rather wonderful. It's has a strange, vivid buzz to it like nothing else I've ever written. I enjoyed re-reading it very much.

So now I shall make it into an ebook. I'll edit the heck out of it until it's smooth and shiny (back then my grammar was even more eccentric than it is now, and I am sure there are some scenes in there that need not be, and two chapters are missing entirely). I will have it designed and formatted and then I'll get it out into the world. Let's see what happens!
I'm rather excited...

More soon!

BTW here is a chapter: http://vivianeschwarz.blogspot.com/2011/08/some-more-old-writing.html

Desk Incident

2011-10-03T15:33:00.001+01:00

If you should ever feel like buying one of these swivelling monitor arms, check whether your desk is in fact hollow before you clamp it on, or this will happen:

My desk this morning.

So today I went to the timber shop and bought a new desk top, carried it home and nailed it on with big nails. I'm tired now, and happy to have chicken soup with rice to fortify me. I took a quarter roast chicken home from a pub last night, in shreds, in a bottle, which seemed the easiest way. It looked terrible in the fridge, but now I have soup. And frozen yoghurt with strawberries. Thank you, past Viv, for your wisdom, for all I want to do now is lie on the sofa and eat and recover.

Happiness and Patchwork

2011-09-28T18:22:00.001+01:00

I've decided to do something about all the worn-out but lovely clothes and assorted scraps that I don't want to throw into the fabric recycling. I've also long wanted a nicer dressing gown than the hair-dye-stained old thing I call my own. So I'm making a patchwork dressing gown now, in time for winter.

It's a beautiful autumn week, and I've been as happy as I've ever been in my life... I don' know why, maybe it's the warm golden light, or the books I'm working on, or the lovely studio which is full of colourful beautiful things and happy people, or being in love, or living in a friendly house with a housemate who bakes cakes. I haven't had a nightmare in a while, instead I'm waking up happy. I think I've learned some things about happiness and life and such.

I've also ripped a hole into my flimsy desk with my heavy graphics tablet, which is not so good, I need a solid wood table to replace this one. Which means I get to go to IKEA on the weekend and buy Swedish chocolates. YAY!

Come and play in the Maritime Museum!

2011-09-28T10:30:00.002+01:00

I'm making my very own public game!

On Thursday the 13th of October I will be spending the whole day in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, building a huge shark-filled maze out of 225 meters of cardboard, and painting it (so in a way it's an exhibition as well).
In the evening, I hope you'll all come and dive for sunken treasure in it.

This is part of Hide and Seek's "Sandpit", so there will be MANY AWESOME GAMES besides mine. Entry is £5, and we will have the whole museum to play in!
Here are the details.

Going Back Home Tonight

2011-09-22T15:24:00.002+01:00

Vivsy strikes again

2011-09-21T11:03:00.002+01:00

UPDATE: My mother re-used my stencil, now there are two.

Yay!

Hmmm, hers is much neater than mine, too.

bum bum bum

2011-09-20T18:00:00.000+01:00

More jolly things I had to copy out in 1984.

Marginal Cats

2011-09-20T17:40:00.003+01:00

Long cat says YAWN

I'm sorting through my old stuff at my parents' house.

I threw away most of my school stuff, but kept a few pages that I decorated, like this exercise book.

I used to think the margins were provided thoughtfully for me to draw into when I was finished with the other nonsense.

Happy cat is thinking of a lovely present.

Sad cat is sad.

Vivsy

2011-09-20T15:30:00.001+01:00

The Future As I Know It, Yes

2011-09-19T17:47:00.002+01:00

Lovely children's book author and illustrator Katie Cleminson interviewed me on the topic of digital books and such.
Go look at her blog also because it's excellent.

Neuer Hut

2011-09-16T21:04:00.000+01:00

Sitzt gut! Mit Beleuchtung!

Making Of LULLABY

2011-09-16T15:18:00.000+01:00

You might or might not have seen this lovely show that my friends Matthew and Tim did with Duckie at the Barbican - have a look. Have you ever seen a sleepover show? I wish I could sleep in a theatre every night.

Visiting Parents

2011-09-16T09:58:00.001+01:00

I really like these prints above the sofa.

Not sure what we'll be doing this week, I took some work along and I know I'll paint a small cat on the house and see my nephew play his bass in concert, and I will eat a lot of bread, the rest is flexible.

Character Design Workshop

2011-09-13T21:25:00.002+01:00

Here is a quick character design workshop. Try this out, it's fun!
First, cut out a lot of shapes from paper to do an exercise I call "Embryos". It'll help you get a starting point for new characters.
Then make some characters. Once you found one, photograph it and reshuffle the pieces, swap some pieces. Make more characters. Photograph. Shuffle. Make ten or so. Don't worry about them, just have fun. Let other people make some if they wonder what you're doing
Now look at the pictures you've made and select your three favourites or so.

Now make some drawings from those pictures. Don't just copy them, develop them - these are embryos, right? Give them some texture, and limbs, clothes, whatever they need.
Now pick your favourite again.

OK. Here he is. Now we want to get to know him.

(This next exercise is developed with Alexis Deacon who is brilliant at this sort of thing.)

Take a big sheet of paper and draw a load of shapes. Simple, closed shapes. Use a coloured pencil. Draw a circle, and a triangle, and some beans and squiggles, and some sharp shapes and rounded shapes. If you like, make angry shapes, scared shapes and happy shapes...

Turn the sheet around a few times.

Then start putting your character into these shapes. See how he fits. Don't hurt him. He doesn't have to fit inside exactly. Do the first thing that comes to mind. be obvious, don't try to be clever. Just let him do his thing. Think of the shapes as an aura he should inhabit. And give him a simple reason for these poses while you're drawing - is he bending down to look at a small thing? Is he running away or towards something? Is he asleep? Happily?

Add speech bubbles or thoughts if you like.

Right. Now you know a bit more about your character. (In this case, I can see that he is sometimes plucky, but encounters things that worry him a great deal... maybe he's a very small adventurer?)

Now that you know him a bit, let's see how he feels about the world.

Draw a line on a new big piece of paper. Make it squiggle and zig zag a bit.

Now draw your character, simply and small, on the line. Make him navigate it.

Is he climbing or just looking up? Is he tumbling or parachuting? Is he happy or overwhelmed? methodical? Confused? You'll find out.

Now give him a name.

Mystery Dog

2011-09-13T20:43:00.000+01:00

Someone came into the shop while I wasn't there and commissioned a portrait of their dog, to be turned into a vinyl wall sticker.
I did not see the dog, and so I drew it from descriptions by Simon who did see it.
Then I learned how to make a vector graphic from the drawing, using inkscape.
I always thought I'd eventually learn to do that, but I would not have thought it would be for this reason.
Here doggie:

I wonder what breed that is.

Shortlisted Hamsters!

2011-09-12T12:38:00.000+01:00

A Place to Call Home just got shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
Ha.

Urban Fox

2011-09-11T21:32:00.003+01:00

Tired fox on the Docklands Light Railway.

I just got back from an excellent double birthday party - we had a bouncy castle, and a 75m roll of cardboard that we turned into a maze. Also cake.

I figured that what with all the people dressed up as animals collecting for charity, everyone would ignore me if I travelled there in my costume.

I was right.

MAZE!

I put secret cave paintings into the cardboard maze. I loved that maze. We played monster-in-the-maze, and whack-a-mole with inflatable baseball bats, which made me laugh like nothing else in months.

Drawing in the maze

Cave Painting

Baba Yaga - The Game

2011-09-10T19:56:00.002+01:00

I spent the last week helping Casey Middaugh set up a scratch performance at the Barbican, four floors down in the bowels.
We had an excellent crew of actors and dancers, a musician, and some people from Firehazard, all collaborating to turn the pit theatre into a scary maze using four kilometers of industrial strength cling film, some clever lighting and sound design.

The Maze and I

We had an excellent monster and a beautiful dancer. (I made her costume, sewing in the dark at top speed - in fact I only noticed minutes before she had to go on stage that I had sewn on two ends of the same halter instead of two halters, and she could not get in...)

Georgie, the firebird, having a rest

We sent people through it with a fairytale mission, and it was a grand success. Hooray for immersive games!

Check out the Tumblr for it, there should be videos, sounds and pictures of the actual performance turning up.I still dream of clingfilm. It was worth it.

Note: anyone involved, send me web links to link you up here, you were all awesome.

Doodle

2011-09-02T17:56:00.002+01:00

Also, I'm on an impro course for the weekend. Expect whatever.

Editing

2011-08-31T21:58:00.001+01:00

I made a decision yesterday: I found three things that I really want to do, and am never getting around to, and I will make sure that I will get around to them now.
The first is to finish a publishable novel... and the easiest way to do that, I just realised, is to finally re-open the one I wrote almost ten years ago and take an axe to it. And a chainsaw. And... some thought. Yes.
I roughly hacked my way through part one (of three) tonight. I crunched two drafts together, deleted most of the older one, grabbed all the scenes that seemed useful and stuck them into a scrivener document in an order that kind of made sense. I'll do the same with the remaining two thirds soon, and then I shall read it and delete leftover half-characters, stitch fragmented chapters together and hopefully bring it all to an ending that makes more sense than the terrible one I arrived at years ago in a state of total creative exhaustion.

The other two things are also good, more of that later, now I wish to go to bed, drink sleepy time tea and read Game Of Thrones. Good night!

Golem on a Potato

2011-08-30T22:37:00.003+01:00

A very quick artwork for AMGallery.

Pointy Beast

2011-08-30T13:37:00.000+01:00

Scan from my sketchbook, A drawing I did in a pub with a Muji lead and a Koh-I-Noor colour lead in lead holders. I am gradually getting read of all things not clicky or fountain in my pencil case.

I had a great time at the Edinburgh festival last week, just got back... I had two events myself, talking about my latest book, and the rest of the time I was either eating, sleeping, or watching a Fringe show with Gwyn. We saw excellent short theatre, stand up comedy and cabaret - and I decided to SERIOUSLY get my act together. On the weekend I'll be on a two day Impro workshop, and after that I'll practise live drawing on my visualiser, and how I can turn this into an improvised lecture/drawing lesson/comedy act.
Be Very Afraid!

Author Pictures...

2011-08-23T19:34:00.002+01:00

...it's time again. I need to supply a picture of myself, and looking into the folder where I keep this kind of thing I find everything is out of date.
Here's my very first author's picture:

When I still had curls.

But it was a bit fuzzy, so instead I used this:

I refused to reconsider that one for ten years because it's black and white and looks like me and what else do you WANT you strange people! Then I had to admit I don't look like that any more, and changed to this:

But everyone agrees that looks NOTHING LIKE ME. To the extent that I've been at signings sitting next to it, listening to people complaining that I hadn't turned up yet.

Ah well.

Now I'm going through my photo albums, looking for something that definitely looks like me...

I think I'll go with this one which Sarah McIntyre took:

That should do, shouldn't it?
Or this?

KLIMB illustration auction

2011-08-20T21:24:00.000+01:00

Maybe you'd like to win a piece of illustration, and help a couple of children's charities?
If so, look here. There's a small painting by me in the mix, and all sorts of wonderful things by all sorts of wonderful illustrators besides.

Three Books Ahoi. Not to worry.

2011-08-20T19:44:00.000+01:00

Weekend! I spend a lovely afternoon working at the dinner table, with boyfriend and his laptop also there, working as well. It made me remember how nice it can be to have someone else working in the same room.
I plotted most of the new Cat book. I'm pleased with it - it's funny, with some novelty elements that I'm really proud of... but the one thing missing is the great big amazing bit of fun towards the end that makes you want to READ IT ALL AGAIN NOW. I'll think of it soon.

from my notebook

My housemate went to Edinburgh and left me some chocolate brownies on my favourite plate.

So now the house is quiet, and I am working on this and that. Three books are in the works right now, not counting the big comic which is wrapping up nicely at last. I can't say that I'm completely organised, but I have tidied the studio, and I start my working days just picking a project on a whim, working on it and trusting that this way everything gets done.

Pen Guardians at the studio.

Some More Old Writing

2011-08-18T22:56:00.000+01:00

I'm sorting through old files again... There are a number of novels, some never finished, some finished but no good. It's strange reading them again, with almost no memory of writing these things.

Here is a chapter of "What the Cat Brought In", with the two main characters coming face to face for the first time.

Midnight Slippers

So many new noises.

A bit like the old noises, back home, but different.

They make your ears twitch. Clucking and cooing, humming and clattering, clicking and wailing and scraping all at once, and sounds passing by fast and sounds breathing in the distance, steadily behind these curtains, and it’s a good thing that there’s locks on all the windows because who knows what on earth might be out there.

Lydia double-locked the door.

“This, Cat, is your home,” she said.

Cat walked along the walls, looking into every corner of every room and making sure she touched every piece of furniture with her nose.

“You may sit on the chairs,” said Lydia, “but not on the sofa. Or anywhere else for that matter. I won’t have cat hair on my cushions.”

“Thank you’” said Cat, sitting down on a chair.

“Don’t sit around’’ said Lydia. “Unpack my luggage. You know how to sort laundry.”

“Yes.”

“I shall have a bath now,” said Lydia, “That should give you time to get it all out of the way. Just leave my wash bag beside the bathroom door. You will find my laundry basket and wardrobe in the bedroom. And when I return, I want you to be out of there again. Here, take this.” She opened the broom cupboard and got out a small red vacuum cleaner. “If you can’t stop shedding your fur everywhere you go, at least clean up after yourself. This can be your very own pet hoover.”

“Thanks,” said Cat, cradling it.

“Pathetic creature’” Lydia muttered under her breath as she put down her green house slippers by the bathroom door and got into her lavender frottee bathroom slippers.

Lydia had a lot of slippers, Cat noticed as she opened the wardrobe. There was a hanging canvas shelf with three different pairs in it, in different shapes and colours and degrees of fluffiness, and she remembered having seen at least two more pairs in the livingroom, one waiting beside the big green armchair, another just by the door.

She must be scared of floors, thought Cat. That must be very difficult at times.

Lydia turned on the tap. Cat, in the bedroom, listened for a moment. It sounded different from the one at George’s house. Less of a roar, more of a trickle. But still the same thing. She was glad that this house had taps, and walls, and tables with cloths on that could be straightened, and sofas that were not to be sat on, and floors and bedrooms and a place to keep old magazines. She had been a bit worried, deep down, that there would be altogether different things, all over the place, mistakes to be made, questions to be asked about the workings of this and the dangers of that, but things were things were things as always. Cat felt very lucky. She knew that in some parts of the world there were people living in houses made of paper, with no furniture at all, and furry people living in caves, and smiling people living in tall, tall houses that scraped the clouds, and beaked birds living in nests made of grass and spittle under the blue sky. She’d seen all that in “The Wonder Book of Why and What” which George had given her to play with. It was a book about everything there was, but as half the pages had been torn out, Cat knew only half the world. Of some things, like the Electric Eel, she knew only the what, but not the why, and of others she knew the why, but the what was missing, and some things she only knew because though torn out, they were still listed in the index, like pages 67 to 72 - volcanoes of the world. For a while, she had been collecting scrap paper in the book and at night filled in the missing parts with her own pages, using borrowed pencils from George’s desk. A volcanoe, she wrote, is a very long boat, like a normal canoe but longer, so an entire family of savages may confortably live on it for the rainy season. Electric Eels are useful in the house and garden during times of great emergency. Then George’s wife had found the book and cried, and George had taken it away. George’s wife cried rather a lot.

The bath stopped running. Cat shook off the thoughts of her old home and ran to fetch the two suitcases. She pulled them to the bed. Lydia had left the key, and carefully Cat unlocked the first suitcase. It contained worn clothes, which Cat sorted into white, coloured, wool and delicates. It also contained her litter tray, which she put into the hallway, and some papers that she put on Lydia’s bedside table. I wonder if she knows I can read, thought Cat. The papers were mostly letters, written in a difficult scrawl, and some thick wads of stapled sheets full of graphs and other boring-looking things. The only sheet that looked interesting at all was one that had a photograph of Cat herself on it. She came across it with gentle surprise. Why would Lydia keep pictures of her? If she wanted to know what Cat looked like, she could just look at her. It wasn’t like she’d ever go away anywhere. - There was also a list of numbers and words on the sheet which didn’t seem to make much sense at all. Cat decided it was a Non-Cat-thing. Like phone bills and newspapers.

She neatened up the stack and went to open the second suitcase.

“Oh, bother,” said Elliot after he’d taken a deep breath and his eyes had adjusted to the light and he’d seen Cat looking down at him. He jumped out of the suitcase, tangled up in a nylon sock, and took cover, half running, half rolling, hugging his accordion bag.

Cat peered under the bed. She could see him there, right back with the dust balls. She stretched out a paw and tried to bat him. It seemed the thing to do.

She couldn’t reach.

They looked at each other some more.

Then Cat said: “Mouse.”

Elliot humbly put a paw on his chest. “Rat,” he corrected. He held out his paw to her: “Lioness?’

Cat put her chin on her paws and flattened herself against the floor. Elliot could make out the way her fur curled around her jaws and the tips of her hidden teeth in the moonlight, very clearly, like a dream. Her face was huge, a sand-coloured mask with eyes of green glass.

“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” said Cat.

Elliot recognised her kite-string voice. The fear in his stomach turned, like a flag whipped around, to a feeling of excitement that made his toes curl. “I’m not a stranger,” he said. “I’ve met your voice before.”

Cat disliked the idea of her voice going anywhere without her, even as she realised that it must be doing it all the time - seeping out of whatever box she was in, like a smell. Tins don’t smell even if they are full of food. Maybe if she was in a tin her voice would stay put. Maybe everyone could be in tins and the world would be silent.

“What flavour are you?” she asked.

“What?”

“You know,” said Cat. “Like chunky rabbit, chunky beef, beef in jelly, chunky tuna, chunky chicken, chicken and liver...”

“Chunky rat, I suppose,” Elliot said carefully.

“What’s that like?”

Elliot frowned. He chewed on one of his claws, and tasted the inside of his mouth, and licked his arm. “Furry. Bit musky.”

There, Cat showed an expression. Just a slight wrinkling of the nose.

“I don’t think it’s a popular flavour,” Elliot said.

Cat’s ears twitched - the sound of splashing from the bathroom. Lydia was moving.

“Listen,” said Elliot. “You must remember me. I was outside your cabin. We were singing...”

Cat didn’t seem to understand. Her big face remained unmoved. But there was a low sound now, a purring like a thought.

“For you and I,” Elliot whispered more than he sang. His voice was shaking a bit. “...have a guardian angel...”

“...rrrrdian angel,” went the purring, joining him. Then it stopped. The room was very quiet.

Cat’s ears flicked.

Elliot didn’t know what else to do. He felt he had run out of all the right things to say. So he tried to smile, but he could feel all over his face that he was grinning instead.

Suddenly, Cat’s face disappeared from view. There was a flurry of movement - things thrown on the bed, suitcases snapping shut, wardrobe doors creaking - she was sorting something out in a great hurry. He peeked out from underneath the bed and just saw her leaving the room, taking a big bundle of white laundry out with her.

Almost the same second Lydia came in, wrapped in a bathrobe, a towel piled on her head.

A short glimpse was enough for Elliot - he recognised the old lady who had kicked him all over the ship, doing her very best to kill him.

He retreated, and did not move an inch from his hiding place for the rest of the day, even when Lydia went to bed above him, and not a hair did he move until deep into the night, listening to her breathing and snoring, like a formidable predator, like a dragon.

Then he was thoroughly fed up with being scared, and hungry.

Getting out of the bedroom was easier than he had feared. The door did not creak. The old lady slept soundly. There was a slight catch in her snoring when he carefully, carefully pushed the door shut behind him. But four seconds later, she snored again.

The front door was locked.

Never mind, he could always open a window.

Elliot tip-toed back along the corridor.

Something was swishing, sliding. Swish, swish. Just around the corner.

Elliot walked on slowly, holding his breath.

There was the kitchen. This is what he saw: Moonlight on the white shirts and pants and pillowcases drying on a rack above the cooker. Moonlight on the clean blue and white mugs hanging from hooks. Moonlight on the pale potted sweet pea by the window, the almost withered leaves perked up ever so slightly now it has been watered again. Moonlight on the checkered linoleum - milky white, and black like so many square holes in the floor. And the Cat, in her little dress, is staring at something lying before her: a fluffy slipper. Her ears are flat on her head. Then, suddenly, she is up in the air, and she comes down with all fours on the slipper, and slides right across the floor with it. Swish - she rolls off, catches it in her paws, bats it rapidly back and forth, springs on it suddenly - silence - she backs off and then it begins again. Jump, slide, bat, pause - jump, slide, bat bat bat - jump, slide, pause - jump, slide, bat - bat bat bat -

Cat doing Cat-things. Elliot backed away, his heart trying to race out of his throat and out of this house. Slowly, slowly out of earshot he crawled, then he ran and tried all the windows in the living room, in the bathroom - all of them locked.

No good.

He found a bowl of slightly dusty biscuits by the armchair. He took one, two, three, four - no, now it looked like there were some missing. He put one back, and took the rest into what seemed like a good hiding place, behind a covered radiator. There were some things already hiding there - two dry biros, a paperclip bent into a spiral, a number of dead houseflies, sixteen pence and a shilling in small change, and a faded scout badge for campfire lighting and safety.

Elliot ate his biscuits.

Outside, a blackbird started to sing. Elliot tried to make out words, but he couldn’t.

Herbs and Secrets

2011-08-17T18:20:00.000+01:00

I worked on two projects today and had great fun, but I can't show anything ebcause it's all secret. Has to do with paper flaps, comics, the sea, cats, music, fountain pens and glue.
Instead here is a picture of the herbs I bought and took home on my bike. I should have a herb garden on my bike all the time, it smells so nice...

String Dance

2011-08-16T19:55:00.000+01:00

Watercolour rats

2011-08-16T19:23:00.004+01:00

I've started drawing with a fountain pen, and I LOVE IT. For some reason I[m not in the mood at all for dipping pens, probably because I drew a whole graphic with a clutch pen, and I'm not used to all the dripping and blotching and rinsing and fuss.

So, these are drawn on Watercolour paper with a Lamy pen in Noodler's Black Eel Bulletproof ink, and coloured with W&N watercolour. (Except for the blotchy black one that's drawn with a rotring. Rotring ink isn't waterproof.) - The only thing I'd want to change is the pen itself. I really, really want to get my dynamic line back, the fountain pen keeps it the same whatever the pressure. The only pen I can find that would be suitable is a Pilot Namiki Falcon. But they are luxury writing pens imported from Japan, and thus very expensive.

I'm trying to find a cheaper source, but if I don't, I will invest. One needs good tools. Maybe I should do a kick starter project selling art to afford a pen to make more art. Hm.

Does anyone feel like commissioning a £200 piece of artwork? Pet portrait? Maybe?

UPDATE: found it cheaper on ebay. Bought it. Watch this space. Awesome Drawings Better Had Happen Now.

Rat Designs

2011-08-16T12:43:00.000+01:00

I'm designing characters for a new book... this one is particularly difficult, it needs to be a rat who is also a cute little girl. But not at all a mouse.

Otherwise, I spent the morning battling clothes. I decided it can't be good that I can never find anything in my wardrobe anymore, so I took everything out, put all the winter stuff and the things I love but don't wear at the moment into vacuum bags and put everything away again. This was far more epic than it sounds. Also now I have another huge bag to take to charity again, also including nice children's books that a child would enjoy more than I do.

I tidied the studio space as well and threw out a whole bin bag of spoiled materials, failed experiments and crumpled scraps.
Soon it will be time to sort my paperwork. But I don't want to think about that yet...

I'm really enjoying my new bike, exploring London while going from one place to another instead of just sitting on public transport is great fun. I just ordered some fancy hand-made Dutch panniers so I can transport art materials around more easily, and a big book on bicycle maintenance.

Keep calm and carry a broom

2011-08-09T21:03:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I watched from my window a helicopter filming my neighbourhood being looted, and a couple of shops burning down, and the TV was showing the same from a different angle. There was a fat black plume of smoke rising, and people were evacuated over the roof across the street.
A woman stopped under our window on the way to the supermarket, with her child and her shopping trolley. She asked if the shop was closed. We looked from our balcony at the clump of riot police around the entrance. "Yeah, it's closed," said my housemate.
"Why?"
"It's kind of being looted", I said.
"What?!?"
"Yeah..."
She shook her head. "I'll just go down the other way then", she said.
"The other way is on fire", I said.
"Would you like some eggs and bread?" said my housemate.
"Buses and houses and cars" garbled the child, much animated.
"Yeah, you got it," we said.
"Are you sure all the shops are closed?" asked the woman.

The shop the looters burned was a lingerie shop. Selling bras and such. In Clapham they burned a party shop, amongst other things. I guess they thought that would be funny. I guess they burned buses because they are big and easy to light up. I guess they were having fun.

Everyone I know got home safe, although it took some time for some, and we've got our brooms at the ready. This is our home, too, and we will not have it trashed.

Here's mine, on my way back from the studio.
Today has been quiet.
Simon shut the shop and we sat by the road, getting occasional warnings about mobs advancing, none of them turned out to be true.
There are people out, joking with the police and saying they'll tell off those kids if they get rude again. My housemate is baking scones, and I'm working on my comic.

Yes I'm on Google+

2011-08-01T16:43:00.000+01:00

So get yourself over here.
We have all the cool people over here, plus free webcomics, video hangouts with fellow illustrators, and guess what: NO STUPID FACEBOOK GAMES.

Things I found time for between books

2011-07-30T13:50:00.001+01:00

Trying to understand poi spinning

Upgrading my system to OS Lion

I hate holidays.

Paint Spinning at the shop

2011-07-26T17:02:00.000+01:00

One of my favourite things at the Colour Makes People Happy Store where I have my studio is the paint spinning machine right in the front of the shop where people make huge bright paintings for their homes by pouring paint on white card... Some of them are really wonderful, my favourite is the one above I think. I wasn't sure at first, but by now I've seen so many fun and variations that I'm sure it's one of the best ways to get some colour into your house ever.

Filigree

A test

Experiments

Loop de loop

Digital Doodling

2011-07-25T16:48:00.001+01:00

I'm doodling digitally today... Here's a cross inky cat.
I've been moody due to the horrible news dripping in (especially from Norway) and sleeping badly, this is a good distraction.
All's well otherwise. I met David Lucas for a half-pint and a chat, which was lovely (I don't get to talk to writers often enough somehow) and or a change it was sunny. It's been raining so much lately that I keep forgetting it's technically summer now.
On Sunday I helped run a game of Citydash for Fire Hazard, in aid of MIND (we raised a good bit of money).

I do think that Sleepwalkers really is pretty much finished now, it's really just very slight tinkering left to be done... so it's time to get properly immersed into the new book now.
I wonder if I will use some digital brushes in it? I was going to restrict myself to real materials for the linework, as usual, but... I just MIGHT smuggle in some digital characters.

Sleepwalkers Teaser

2011-07-20T12:19:00.000+01:00

Some panels from the graphic novel I pretty much finished now. I'm frightfully proud of it.

Cute Rat

2011-07-19T20:57:00.001+01:00

I started character designing for the new book today... I'm expecting the illustrations to go completely off the rails, so I want the first and central character you meet to be as clear and simple and agreeable as possible. As usual, I spent a lot of time working out the basic shape until decising that, as usual, the best basic shape is a bean shape.

Also Gwyn bought IKEA and we carried IKEA to his new flat and assembled IKEA, so I made us a quick achievement badge for that. Here it is. Now IKEA is at his flat, if you need anything.

Glove Beast

2011-07-18T21:09:00.002+01:00

Making A Glove Beast

Picture Book Picnic Pictures

2011-07-15T19:23:00.002+01:00

Yesterday we had a Picture Book Picnic party, with much Pimms, many chocolate brownies, and some flipcharts.

I drew this (see here)

And Alexis drew some of these

And Chris is having carpets made, the clever sod. I WANT ONE!

I was especially excited to meet David Lucas, because he made this book.

Final Edit

2011-07-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

I had a meeting with my art director yesterday, and we went through all the tweaks that are needed to finish the grapic novel. I marked out artwork changes in white and lettering changes in orange. SO I just to need to get that done, and I'm finished! YAY!

Um..

On my way back home I picked some weeds to keep by my bed for cheer. (My orchid has lost all its flowers and is now just a green stick.)

Yay.

Badge Making

2011-07-10T22:13:00.002+01:00

I spent some time today making a whole lot of new achievement badges for Firehazard.
So now everyone involved can have an online trophy case all of their own... here is mine. At the bottom you can see little pictures of things I haven't achieved yet...

Otherwise: I've been buying framing materials for an upcoming exhibition and sale of original artwork (more about that soon), I joined Google+ (very exciting) and I read "True Grit" (excellent book).

Today it Rained.

2011-07-08T20:18:00.000+01:00

So I sheltered first in an Italian bar, where I bought a risotto with most of my spare change.
It was soothing because I appreciated the concentration and effort needed to stir it until it is cooked.
Then the rain let up a bit, and I ran towards the studio but had to shelter again, this time in a charity shop. I counted the rest of my change, and it bought me a ship in a bottle.

Then I got to the studio and painted a cat.

I decided to buy some frames and cut window mounts so I can have a proper exhibition soon.

Things I did in my week off

2011-07-07T19:05:00.002+01:00

Had a sleepover at the Barbican.
Went to see my students exhibit their work in Shoreditch.
Helped run a zombie invasion in Hampstead and got bruised.
Had a dinner party eating as many artichokes as possible.
Slept a lot.

Gave away the blue pillow case with the deep sea lily printed on it that never went with the red sofa.

Got an illustration of "The Road" framed up and hung it over my bed because I like the book.

Had the tap of the bathtub fixed.
Mused over an odd smell.
Scrubbed the bins with vinegar.
Scrubbed the loo.
Scrubbed the sink.
Decided that probably something small has died deep in the foundations of the house and sprayed febreze down all the cracks.
Painted some animals with bright orange ink.
Re-read Tales from Moomin Valley.
Learned how to do colour separations for spot colour printing.
Sprayed the strawberry plants with oil and soap to kill the aphids.
Learned how to order curry instead of pizza.
Crocheted another row of my blanket.
Watched all of Firefly.
Played ICO projected huge on a shower curtain.
Got a bit bored.
Dyed my hair and painted my fingernails red.

Decided to get back to work.