Early Drawings

This morning I was looking through some of my old drawing notebooks and came across a number of pictures that I'd drawn when I was 8 or 9 years old. There was quite a selection of random pictures - some of them were completely made up cartoon types, but the majority were copied from other illustrations in books or were sketches of household objects. Pretty much all of them were free-hand drawings. The earliest picture I found in the notebooks was this one, drawn in 1995, when I was 8.

Comic book characters seemed to feature quite a lot in the notebooks. Another one that was done, at age 9, was this picture of the character Tintin. The drawing was copied from the comic book 'Tintin in America'. I'm still a huge fan of all the Tintin adventures.

Although these two pictures are in colour, most of the drawings that fill the notebooks are only black and white pencil sketches. Here is an early example of me trying to get a realistic drawing of my bike. I remember getting that bike as a birthday present and being so proud of it as I rode it to primary school!

It's fascinating to see how my style and attention to detail change over the years. Sometimes I'm asked how I know what to draw next on a piece - and I always have to answer that I just follow what the picture says. I don't know how it works. There is a lot of practice, patience and providence - but other than that, I can't explain how it happens!

Last Page Quandary

Yesterday I spent part of the morning working on the dummy book, attempting to write a complete text to accompany the pictures. In my mind, I know where I want the story to go, but it can be so difficult to transfer those thoughts onto paper. I managed to write text for twelve of the thirteen pages. However, the last page proved to be very elusive.

When writing children's picture books, I have found that every word is gold - each word has to be useful and carry the story along, or it just pulls everything down. I don't usually have my audience (children) consciously in mind when I'm working on the text. Instead, I gravitate towards stories that interest, inspire and satisfy me. Without the help and advice of Vivienne, a wonderful manuscript assessor, though, the text wouldn't be as well polished as it could be. I need an outside eye to guide the writing process and to advise on how to craft the words to sound the best.

But before I can present a manuscript to an assessor, I need to actually finished the text! I can see that the last page will take a while to emerge. I have almost finished the illustration for that page - only the facial features and background details to fill in. Hopefully it will be done by the end of this month.

Dummy Book

I've been working on my second picture book since late last year and I've decided that its time for me to get started on making a dummy-book so that I can see where the project's going. As I find it easier to draw the illustrations first and then concentrate on the text when the pictures are finished - or almost finished - I haven't really spent much time on the words yet. Over the past few months, I've attempted putting words together and trying to get a story-line sorted out, but its still got a long way to go. So far I think I've written parts of it out about four times - and I haven't even made it to the end yet!
Anyway, here are some pics:

This is just after I've glued the pages together - a tiny blank book that I've got to try to fill with appealing pictures and creative text...

I printed out some of my finished illustrations this morning and stuck them into the dummy-book. This time round, I'm making the book portait orientation instead of landscape like Cuastard and Carriages.

 And here is another page of the book. So far I've completed 7 illustrations and have another two in progress. For the finished book, I will need thirteen illustrations - I'm slowly getting closer!

Wonderful Book

This is a brilliant book! I was given it as a present last year and I love it. I haven't read it all through yet, but I'm slowly getting there. It is full of inspiring biographies of children's book authors and illustrators - I find it fascinating to read about the lives of others who have worked in this area.

The author of this hefty book, Anita Silvey, has a great website which you should take a look at: http://www.anitasilvey.com/ Of particular interest is the part of the site 'Children's Book-A-Day Almanac' which features a different book each day and also includes other interesting or significant events for that day.

Favourite Illustrators

While I enjoy working with pastels - especially the way that I can get my fingers dirty and manipulate the picture as I'm going - I think pencil sketching is still my favourite medium. Because I'm a perfectionist, the nature of drawing with a pencil means that I can produce a much clearer picture than what I could with pastels. I use a mechanical pencil with a 0.7mm lead, which allows me to get a very high level of detail into the drawing.

Also, there's something alluring about working in black and white. It frees me to concentrate on the shadows and lines, without having to worry about whether or not I'm getting the colours right. I've been so busy lately with illustrating my second children's book - in pastel - and now I'm beginning to feel a need to take a break from it to emerse myself in pencil again. I would love to illustrate a book in black and white pencil, but at the rate it takes me to complete one drawing, a full book would take me about ten years!

One of my favourite illustrators is Chris Van Allsburg. His drawings are amazing, especially considering that he works mostly in just black/white. Check out his website: http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/ Below is an example of his style - incredible!


Another exceptional illustrator is Robert Ingpen. He has a different style and tends to use colour a lot more than Van Allsburg. He has illustrated many classic stories such as Treasure Island and The Jungle Book - which the following picture is from.


And another favourite is Christian Birmingham. His use of pastels is mind-blowing - he is an amazingly talented artist. His website is: http://christianbirmingham.com/

Book Launch Photos

Both launches on the West Coast went very well on the weekend. I had no idea how many people to expect - or even if anyone would turn up at all! Thankfully, a number of people did make the effort to attend to launches (even though the weather in Hokitika on Saturday was miserable) and they were all incredibly supportive! Many thanks to both Wynne at G.D. Library and Anne-Maree at W.D. Library for so kindly providing the venues.

So here are some snaps from the events.

Grey District Library

Westland District Library

Waiting for the masses to arrive.

Trip to Ashburton on Labour Weekend!

The Plains Vintage Railway and Historical Museum in Ashburton is holding a celebration for their 40th anniversary on Labour Weekend this year and I'll be attending! I received confirmation from the organisers that they would be more than happy to have me selling Custard and Carriages during the celebrations. The dates are: Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 October, and the Railway/Museum will be open to the public on Monday 24 as well. Check out the website: http://www.plainsrailway.co.nz/stock.php?page=1

On this site, they have photos of some steam engines that are very similar to some of the ones that appear in my illustrations. Take a look at this one:







 It is a Ja 1260 - which I must confess, doesn't actually mean a whole lot to me!

Then there's this one - a T R 119, which looks a bit like the train that came crashing off the rails in one of my illustrations.