Page 2

New online shop!

It’s taken me a L O N G time but here at last is my first online shop, with a selection of original screenprints from the same editions as my picturebook illustrations, three kinds of Christmas cards and various OTHER THINGS.

It’s a bit like this but on the internet, and with less fairy lights:
(this was my stall at House of Illustration’s 2017 Illustrators Christmas Fair).

Also, I recently won some FREE Newt with crisps STICKERS (based on my screenprint) from @freestickerfriday so naturally I am slipping one into every order to pass on the freestickeriness.

Natalie and Alphonse on TV!

On Saturday 30th June, Matt Berry read my second book, ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO! on CBeebies Bedtime Stories and it was dead exciting and also FUNNY. You can find it on BBC iPlayer for a few weeks, and here’s a little teaser that CBeebies tweeted:

Can you hear us Matt Berry? Matt, can you hear us? ?

Get ready for his #BedtimeStory ?????

He reads Alphonse, That Is Not Ok to Do! tonight at 6:50pm ?@Deenface @porksmith pic.twitter.com/H3GPtmQCI9

— CBeebies Grown-Ups (@CBeebiesHQ) June 30, 2018

So that clears up one of the questions raised by the endpapers of my new Natalie and Alphonse book, I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE!

But still, where ARE all the peas? And also, what is it with peas and telly in these books? They always seem to come together – this is from ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO!

I do not like book launches anymore!

Well that was a lie. I had a monstrously good time at the launch for I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! at Gosh Comics on 10th May – so many of my favourite people in one room and oh my giddy aunt THE BISCUITS!!
The biscuits were made by the completely amazing Emily Wilkinson who has been baking my books since before they were books (see previous biscuitmania). One of my favourite things was seeing photos of children clutching monster biscuits at breakfast time – very impressive of their parents to get them all the way home without even nibbling their ears (the BISCUITS’ I mean!).

I’m so hugely grateful to everyone who came and made it such a lovely evening, and to Gosh! for being grand hosts again (and just the most brilliant shop). And I was extremely touched by the things Deirdre and Lizzie, Walker Books Publisher and my Editor, said – I’m very very lucky to work with them.

Many thanks to Emma O’Donovan and Penny Dixie for the photos.

I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE!

I made these two gifs to celebrate the publication of my fourth picture book, I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! This is Natalie and Alphonse’s second adventure, following ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO! and is all about what happens when Natalie starts learning to read, and how she and Alphonse manage to carry on enjoying books and stories in their own way.

I only started making gifs again a couple of months ago – you can find a few others on my Instagram. Alphonse in his fairy costume comes from a part of the book where he and Natalie dress up to play “stories they remembered or made up.”

If you’d like to know more about the book and how I made it, have a look at Walker Books’ Instagram which I took over for publication week. I also have a couple of events coming up soon, and am busy making window displays – this one was at Jaffe and Neale, a bookshop-cafe in Chipping Norton, and it will be moving to their Stow shop in a few weeks too.

World Illustration Awards

I was amazed, and very happy, to hear that I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! is shortlisted for the Association of Illustrators’ World Illustration Awards. Just being included in the exhibition at Somerset House is a bit too exciting.
It’s especially exciting as the book isn’t even out yet: Walker will publish I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! on May 3rd and there’ll be a book launch at Gosh! on the 10th. This is Natalie and Alphonse’s second adventure, following ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO! and I’ve just finished the artwork for their third escapade – so I’ve got to know these monsters very well.

I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! is about what happens when Natalie struggles with learning to read – and how she and Alphonse find their own solution (involving an ambitious elephant and a caterpillar driving a truck). I’ll be sharing more about the book, especially on Instagram, in the run-up to publication.