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Blog
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‘I am not alone’
Another creative writing competition! When I planned this one last August, I honestly hadn’t anticipated our glorious government being quite so incompetent as to take us back to square one […]
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The Wildings
I keep on writing ‘Wildlings’ instead of ‘Wildings’ – this is a scene from Nilanjana Roy’s book, not George Martin’s. I’ve never quite gotten the art style right for this […]
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London Book Fair 2018
I’d never visited the LBF before, so it was an interesting experience taking part this year and having some of my art on display at the Illustrator’s Gallery. It’s the […]
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2017 Booklists
I’m not sure where the geometric idea came from – probably just the requirement to differentiate the lists as much as possible from the 2016 set. The backgrounds were originally […]
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2016 Booklists
These designs ended up looking really striking and allowed for the covers to be a decent size. The tidy design made them stand out from last year’s posters which would […]
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London Calling : Canvas Print
I was very kindly sent these pictures of my London Calling pixel city canvas print. I was – to be quite honest – waiting with baited breath for feedback on […]
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The truth is a cave in the black mountains
A live sketch for a Radio 4 gallery, for the ‘Book at bedtime’ story by Neil Gaiman. The nearest I’ll get to doing an ‘official’ illustration for his […]
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Iron Cat
I only had a couple of short sessions at John Scurr primary school and most of the workshop was drawing improvised picture book illustrations for an on-the-spot creative writing activity. […]
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First author/ illustrator visit!
Well, the Mighty Thumbslurp has been printed at last! To celebrate this momentous event, Janet and myself have just completed our first afternoon of workshops at John Scurr Primary School, Tower […]
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Task 3: Vanquish dragon
The final task for our heroine before she can sit down and enjoy the nice cup of tea
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You’re STILL a Pest!
In honour of the imminent (well, fairly imminent) publication of the printed edition of You’re a Pest, Betsy Thumbslurp! here’s a sample of artwork from the upcoming sequel. The print […]
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Task 1: Clean out the pond
You know what it’s like when you get to spring. The garden needs weeding, the lawn’s a patchy mess, the fence needs straightening, and the Something-nasty-and-slimy-with-tentacles REALLY needs to be […]
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The mighty Thumbslurp!
WARNING! This book is full of YUCKS, GGRRRRAAHHHS and SNNOOSSEEFFUUPPs.(Not to mention a flying hippopotamus!)
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Must Read Booklist 2014
The Must Read posters are the sister set to the Teen Booklist and generally follow the same visual teme. That meant another 5 doodle art posters to draw. And I […]
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Tower Hamlets Teen Booklist 2014
So my manager decides that we need a different design to the last few years, which have been rather clean and tidy, so I decided to return to the grunge […]
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Black skies
I wanted at least one opening line that could be worked into sci-fi. This is a bit of a John Wyndham apocalyptic sci-fi, but I think it’s quite atmospheric. This […]
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Apples in suitcases
I’m not sure whether any entrants have interpreted the ‘apple’ as an iPhone. I like this design but it’s certainly the most leading in terms of genre, but then again […]
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Jumping from windows
Being totally unused to Adobe Illustrator, this was the toughest of the 4 posters given the amount going on, but the crisp lines leant themselves well to the movement. The […]
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Spinning heads and deep holes
This shamelessly riffed on Hitchcock film posters and was one of the earliest designs for this series of posters, it was also the most abstract and was the reason that […]
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Ready to publish…
Janet chose this as the definitive picture of Coco, with her reaction to her newborn sister who supplants her as the centre of the universe. As well as a key […]
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THe List 2011: Spirit
The final poster in the 2011 series, and the one that didn’t quite survive being turned into CMYK colors.
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THe List 2011: Water
I love this poster. The colours and composition just work. This was the first in the series that I created and it inspired the whole elemental symbolism of the others. […]
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THe List 2011: Fire
Poster 3 in the 2011 series was Fire. The art was a deliberate reversal of composition from Water, but re-used some elements of Air.
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THe List 2011: Air
Poster 2 of the 2011 series was Air. The background is predominantly skyscrapers and other architecture from around Tower Hamlets.