Nosy Crow take on Weasels!

Another thing that happened in Bologna that thrills me so much it demands it's own post is that the lovely people at Nosy Crow want to publish my book Weasels. Now they shall finally take over the world! Mwahahaha!

Bologna 2012

This year I decided to take the plunge and go to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. I've had a bit of a headache ever since and I'm not sure I've ever done so much walking in such inappropriate shoes but it was well worth it. 

A big draw for me was the Cambridge School of Art's stand which I was lucky enough to be a part of. It was buzzing almost constantly (not just the afternoon we handed out wine) and I could barely squeeze in through the mob that consistently surrounded it to see my own book in situ. Having just said that I seem to have managed to take a photo at one of the few times it was empty, you'll have to take my word for it. I know for a fact that a variety of people who had work on the stand have had offers from Japanese, Brazilian, Italian, French and UK publishers and I'm not surprised because the standard was so high it was making me start to wonder if I should just quit now and become an accountant.

Thanks to my cunning agent, Frances McKay, I've met more publishers than I can count and I very much enjoyed a talk by Jon Klassen of 'I Want My Hat Back' fame. I learnt he has the laugh of a chipmunk and a Martin Salisbury attitude to the concept of style.

Here's a few holiday snaps for your perusal:

The Cambridge School of Art Stand

My books 'The Monkey Bus' and 'Monty the Monster' on display. Courtesy of Sarah Whelan.

The illustrators wall where you can see the highest concentration of promo pieces anywhere on earth.

And some people I know who do pictures looking a touch manic. Also courtesy of Sarah Whelan.

CSA MA Children's Book Illustration at Bologna 2012

This is probably a little short notice but this year at the Bologna Children's Book Fair the MA in Children's Book Illustration from the Cambridge School of Art has a stall, woo! It'll be showcasing the work of current students and graduates (one of those graduates being my fine self) and there'll be a drinks reception on the Wednesday from 4.30. If you just so happen to be in Italy next week do come along and have a look.

Camping

Mail Out: Stamps

Quite a while ago I sent out a pretty elaborate mail out but only now have I got round to blogging about it. I set out to do something a bit more interesting than the average set of post cards but I ended up doing something so eccentric and complex it verges on lunacy. I got a good few replies though so it seems madness sells.

The theme of this mail out was a stamp collection and each was assembled by my own fair hands. As each one was a bit of a mission to make I only did a limited number and considered carefully who I'd target with them.

Front Cover

Inside. Each stamp is individually cut out and positioned using a stamp hinge.

Detail

Inside you get a small portfolio booklet, postcards, a business card and some vinyl stamp stickers.

And here are the stamps in question.

Paris

Recently my boyfriend scored a lot of points by taking me to Paris and in return I made him sit around while I drew stuff. I do feel like I should post some more of the meanderings that go into my sketch book so here's some of my continental efforts.

A chunk of the Louvre.

Louvre cafe.

May I point out this is front the Catacombs which are so dark I could hardly see the page and I kept getting dripped on by creepy crypt ceiling water.

Notre Dame in the pissing rain.

Tree House Soiree

I did a picture of a whimsical tree house.

I always rather like it when people write a post about how they created a certain image so I thought I'd give it shot and reveal all my secrets. Hopefully it'll be moderately fascinating and not just internet drivel. 

Right, so my reason for creating this piece of woodland whimsy was three fold. Firstly, I wanted a big detailed image for the first page of my own portfolio, secondly, Bologna is fast approaching and I wanted a nice big image to go on my portfolio page on the CSA MA Children's Book Illustration stall (follow them @FindUsAtBologna) and thirdly I wanted to draw a tree house, is that so wrong? 

 
It all starts with a bit of sketchbook scribble to have an idea of colour, composition, particular characters etc. I don't have beautiful tidy show sketchbook like some do, mine are rough and 90% of it is either rubbish or makes me seem like a crazy lady.

Then I did a full size detailed sketch of the whole thing. This involved a lot of rubbing out, redrawing and getting angry.

Next I'll use that sketch and a lightbox to make a copy of it using coloured pencils. I swear by Caran d'Ache supercolor soft but spend half my life sharpening them.

 
Now I step out of the real world and turn to digital witchcraft. I scan the coloured line drawing into photoshop, clean it up and start to colour in each section in a paint-by-numbers style. I've got some rather lovely photoshop brushes that give a watercolour effect and some nice scanned textures I use for applying the colours. I used to use inks in the real world but that is way is much quicker, reproduces better and much less messy. I've never spilled a pot of photoshop everywhere.

When I've got the background looking okay I'll start on the characters. It never all goes smoothly, there's always bits that look appalling and then need to be changed and a world of tweaking needs to be done.

 
Once I've got it all filled in it's time for some light and shadow. I do this in a really basic adhoc way by making layers of flat colour a bit see through and then rubbing out bits. Alas I do use photoshop like a caveman. After a bit of tidying up I'll usually consider it done but at this point I'll close the image and not look at it for a few hours. I'll come back after having done something completely different and decide whether it's utter rubbish and needs to be reworked or I've created genius and should be rewarded with the Nobel Prize for Kid's Books. And basically that's how I do my job, now everyone can go away and be Elys.

Here's a few details: