tree thing

Can't think what to do with it yet

Australian Gothic (Quick scribblies)

Maybe I ought to use more than 1 layer in future.

Black Dog

Dragon in Progress

Instant Scratchies

Hmmm..just drawings -not much design to speak of,
note to self -work out designs beforehand.

Little red riding hood

Odds and ends

Recent Craziness...a summary

(Mind the wonky witch drawing- just did that quickly so's it wasn't all words.)
Last week I was at the "Ipswich festival of Children's Literature" on the Monday and Tuesday,- and also last Saturday/Sunday. It was held at Woodlands of Marburg. Marburg was apparently a friendliest town in Queensland. It did have a great utterly australian pub though.

Monday Tuesday I spent in a small tent thingy doing big A0 sized drawings, which I gave to the various classes of schoolkids as they happened by, but then each day that sort of degenerated into a throng of kids giving me pieces of paper to draw things for them. I was generally sticking to dinosaurs and dragons(because they are easy) - with interludes of giraffes/elephants etc , but then I'd get asked for "a unicorn" "a mermaid" and a fairy" etc as well as the dinosaurs and dragons. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of what I drew though. But briefly it was like being a celebrity in miniature, (now all I have to do is get famous somehow).
Or was is it just the joy of getting something for free that did it?

I didn't really know what to expect from it all- but I did sort of expect there to be a few more local illustrators etc manning tents.
I guess I was a bit of a ring in- I sort of felt a bit of an afterthought, but I tried to push on regardless.
Ah well.... the kids were pretty excited- and talk about speed drawing- I was pretty wired at the end of each day, but hopefully I made some sort of impression.

I did also get to meet and hang out with a few of the illustrators, who were all a fairly cheery mob and quite friendly(ie Terry Denton, Anne James, Jan Omerod,Elise Hurst).
The authors seemed a bit more humourless.
Its a bit like a bunch of gold prospectors I guess, but maybe illustrators are the type to head straight to the pub with the days digging.

On the weekend I had planned to man my tent once more... but it turned out to be really just me- and there was no-one wandering around in the breaks between talks- so after a couple of drawings on the Saturday I gave up.
But I did have a shared presentation that afternoon to do with Lucia (see link in artist menagerie). Not a lot of people turned up to our presentation - I think everyone was watching Jan Omerod, but at least the people who did turn up were quality people (Big Thanks Annes James and Haddon) so I think Lucia and I were honoured.
I did have a LOT of prepared rant which I barely got into,- I ended up showing stuff.
I might post bits of my rant who knows..

On the Sunday I attended a few of the illustrators talks- I think Terry Dentons and Anne James's was the pick of them. It was interesting because they got into the craft of the books and the word/picture flow/rhythm/pacing. Terry has the advantage of not only drawing funny things but being funny, and Annes work ethic and way of matching the brush stroke/mark to the mood/emotion were inspirational.

Then also last TuesdayI caught up with Christopher Trotter at a Queensland Sculptors meeting. After of all this time of saying "we should" I think its finally time to team up with Chris and create some Trotter type animated creatures etc.... we'll see eh?.

Morning doodlage

Ideas for 20

Oh go on....


have dinosaur scribble


It is The Lost World after all.

Two men and a frog.

Things have sort of been getting busier in the last couple of weeks and soon it will be crazy. Crazy because we are expecting our third child in about 3 weeks, but also there are couple of things on. After a fair bit of toing and froing it looks like I will be working on a series of small childrens books with Scholastic. Theres a fairly ambitious plan to turn out 26 small books in 2 years- although the new baby will slow production a little at the start. I've already done the linework and the basic shading for one but I don't think I can show it as yet.

Instead a few weeks back I began doing rough ideas with a pencil for a book called the
"The Frog Who Lost His Croak", so I'm posting a couple of those.
I think I'll do the same colouring as I did with my fox.
But in the faint sketchy lines so far theres a few good moments.






I think I'm going to settle with the little guy with the shorts and the long legs rather than the Tom Sawyerish one.







On top of that there is my ring in performance at the Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature.
Lucia(see link at side) and I are presenters at the festival one afternoon,- and I've also volunteered to man a marquee as a sort of "caged illustrator" on display for a couple of days. I was initially feeling under pressure to produce a big presentation with little video compilations of drawings- and I'd written down some ideas and spiel, however it appears our speaking session is spectacularly under subscribed. Everyone else is wanting to see a lady called Jan Omerod-in fact Iwouldn't mind seeing her speak but I'm supposed to talking at the same time- somewhere else.
Oh well I'll push on regardless- I might instead take a computer in and the couple of people that turn up can huddle around it.
A bit like my Supanova experiences maybe.

I went to a dermatologist and it turns out my Cintiq is part of the problem affecting my hands. The heat from it is giving me this horrible eczema thing on my hands (which was very bad in January...nothing like drawing with cracked and bleeding hands).
So I have to go and buy a little airconditioner I think, and cotton gloves to give a bit more distance from the surface.
- I'll be popular in summer I think, but there you go...score 1 for using a pencil- cintiq 0 for causing me hell.