Shamless Plugging Time

It seems like an absolute age since I've been able to properly share some finished work and not just limit myself to a sneaky-peek of a corner here and there. Well, that is about to end as the time has come for me to overload, bombard and otherwise hit you over the head with my work. In the last week, I've had four, FOUR, projects published, with another three coming out at the end of this month. It's literally the last 18 months of my life crammed in to a six week block.

The first two books both came out at the end of June and are published by Ladybird. When the initial email came through about the first one, The Red Knight, I think I just went "YES! YES! Even if you are only paying me £2.50 I will work for you!!!!", but then collected myself and answered "yes, please" in my most professional manner.



You may recall early last year when I was umming and ahhing about the colour of the outline here and here, and I'm really glad I chose the darkest of dark greens for Tom's outline, and a dark red for the Knight's. I love how experimenting at the beginning of a project can develop and inform all other projects you do in the future from then on. Now, I do all my outlines in one colour, rather than each part of them - like their hair, skin, clothes - having a different colour. And I am more in love with Manga Studio than ever. It is the best programme I've found for creating realistic ink pen lines.



The all-important title page.







My fave spread, above.







It's so strange finally seeing something in print that you worked on so long ago; this was finished in April/May 2012. There are bits in it that I can see the AD was totally right about that I rankled over a bit, but that's all part of the learning process.

The second book is Dom's Dragon, which I was working on this time last year.





I will never get bored of seeing my name in a title page; it's always so exciting.











I hope my colour ideas come through here. I wanted the beginning of the book to feel cold and icy, with Glow the dragon being the only red thing, but as she warms up Dom's house and eventually the whole town, everything becomes warmer and redder and sunnier, until the last spread is very hot and bright. I think it works, if only on a subliminal level!

The King is reminiscent of Charles II because at the time I was working on the roughs, the summer sun had brought out my Freckle Moustache, and I had somehow styled my hair with a centre parting and curls one day and ended up looking like ol' Charlie boy. He had to go in, as, of course, did bunny slippers.

Most excitingly, these are also eBooks. I'm on a Kindle!!!! Unfortunately, I didn't get sent a free download link for them, but I went and bought them myself anyway. The artwork was actually created on a square format for each page, so there is actually a lot more background on each side of each spread. I think something slightly different is happening with that - possibly eBook related - but I'm not 100% sure what it is yet .... keep you posted.

The other two books out in the last week are activity books published by Autumn Publishing; I'll go in to detail about those later this week, my typing fingers need a rest!

Happy Summer!

Yay! Sunny weather is here at last!

Hubbo and I have just come back from a week in Devon where, apart from the first two nights where I seriously believed we'd be blown away Mary Poppins-style, the weather was pretty good. Perfect for lots of long hikes, National Trust visits and plenty of scones and ice cream. Especially the ice cream.

Nail Experiment no.1

I've been having a faff about with nail stickers and matt topcoat, mainly because I have a desperate Girl Crush on The Dainty Squid and I want to be as cool as her.



Not too bad for a first go. I think my basecoat could do with another coat, and I deffo need to sort out my cuticles first, but for an experiment, it's turned out rather well. Huzzah!

Feeeeshies

New Hair Did

Dip dye ends...



To poiple ends...



Ahhh, what have I started again???!! Back in 2009, I went pink but rapidly gave it up due to sheer laziness when it came to up-keep, but now I have plans for a rainbow of colours, different layers dyed different shades, extensions...where will it end?!

(Probably down the road next week when a) boredom b) laziness and c) cost overwhelms my brain)

Orsum Stampage

Celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who. These make my inner philatelist veh happy. You can see the full range here.

Graffiti, Trafalgar Lane

Such amazing shades of blue. Even though these are all from Instagram, the second photo down - the eye - has had no filter or other faffing with the colour; it just is that bright and strong and gorgeous. Must be this sudden influx of summery weather making me think of huge skies and dabbling my toes in Mediterranean seas. If only!

Oh, Hello...

... I just popped off there to draw a few Brownies, a few Vikings and forgot to come back.

So, it's been another month of scribbling away. I'm pretty happy to have this lovely, long string of work. I just need one nice, long well-paying job to top it off now! But, thankfully, things have calmed down considerably since the book fairs in the spring, so it's nicely manageable at the moment.

In photo-related news, I finally managed to join the C21st, and get smartphone once my contract was up. I've had a Sony Experia T now for two weeks and it is AMAZING. Most amazing of all is its 13MP camera, so expect a lot more Instgramming and decent photos on here. And, dude, why did no one tell me there was a whole world of fab, free photo apps out there?! I'm slowly working my way through them all....

Here are a few snaps from the inaugural outing:

Guess What?

Yup, another WiP.

Even More WIP-age

1927 in Colour

London in 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.
Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving. Music by Jonquil and Yann Tiersen.

William Friese-Greene apparently conducted some of his early film experiments here in Brighton and lived in Hove; he even has a bus named after him. Read more about Mr. FG here.

More WIP

Bank Holiday Brightness

All taken in the lovely spring sunshine today at Monks House. If anyone would like to buy that house for me, that would be fab, thanks.

WIP

Happy St. George's Day!

One from the vaults.

Zip It

For the past week, I've been experiencing something strange and foreign to me in recent times. It's been a little unsettling; I've not really known what to do with myself. Yes, I have had some Illustration-Free Time. Blummin' 'eck, has it been nice. No rest for the wicked, though, it's back to the grindstone good and proper come Monday, but this week I've been knitting a little, sewing a tad, and trying to get out in the fresh air a bit more now it finally looks like it might be spring.

Inspired by Lovely Annie saying "Gorn, give it a go", and some fabbo transistor radio-printed linen Lovely Sam gave me last year, plus online tutorials on Craftsy, I finally plucked up enough courage to make a cushion cover WITH A ZIP. This is a big deal; I've always chickened out and just gone for envelope openings in the past. But I threw caution to the wind and Just Did It. It's a little wonky at one end, but for a first go, I'm pretty happy. And it looks fab on my Enormous Chair, too:

I can also feel smug that using up the fabric is helping my "Reduce" plan for 2013; more on that soon.

MMA 2013

Back in January, I rashly decided to join in with MMA 2013, in the fanciful belief I probably wouldn't have much on end of Feb/beginning of March and would have plenty of time to devote myself to something. Ahem.

The idea behind MMA, or Mail Me Art, is that you take an envelope, create a piece of artwork using NO DIGITAL MEANS upon it, and post it off. The addition of stamps, post marks, scribbles or dents only increases the appeal of the final art as it arrives (or not, as the case may be) at its final destination.

This is my entry, Parcel (to be pronounced in dubious French accent) the dragon:

Not having access to Ctrl+Z was perhaps the hardest thing I've had to face in my recent career; I'd almost forgotten how to use real paint with a brush! I think he's come out OK, though. I do like using brown paper to draw on, it's a little less intimidating than a big, ol' blank white space, and limiting your palette is always much more fun than using every colour under the sun. And he's up there in my banner, too.

There is going to be an exhibition in London in August and a book of all the entries to follow. Can't wait to see them all in the flesh, but there is an online gallery of those received so far up here.

The Living Wall

These are like something out of Knightmare or The Brothers Grimm. Beautiful, yet just a little bit creepy, but always astounding.

See more at The Living Wall.

Fame at Last!

So now I've had a bit of a breather, it's given me a bit of objectivity to be able look back on what I've been working on over the past couple of months without screaming "NO! NO! TAKE ME AWAY FROM ALL THIS! I CAN'T DRAW ANYTHING ELSE!!!!"

One of the most exciting projects has been some development work for Egmont, in particular, their new imprint, The Red Shed. Here is the Rights Guide brochure they had printed to take to the Bologna Book Fair last month (with lovely cover art by Ben Scruton), and there is lil' ol' me in my spot within:





If you've been popping in now and again, the Red Shed stuff has been what I term "The Goo Project" and it's the Instagram photos of green, slimy crazy professors, bugs (don't EVER Google Image Search an eyelash mite - just don't. You don't want the nightmares), poo, wee, farts, brains, witches etc etc you would've seen.

I'm just finishing off a few bits and pieces of the initial work in time for the London Book Fair next week, then, hopefully, it will become a whole book. Full of farts.

More WIP

WIP

Batemans

Home of Rudyard Kipling, now run by the National Trust.