The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The Bologna Book Fair is terrifyingly near and I've not had much time this year to do any self-initiated projects amidst all the published stuff. The situation only got worse after The Day The Hard Drive Died and I had to spend many miserable nights doing work I'd already done. I have however done a few black and white bits from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the last few days. I remember vividly having all the Narnia books read to me as a child (I was a slow reader, this helped) so it's been interesting to revisit this familiar story.

The Stone Table

Aslan

Mr. Tomnus

Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter

Mr and Mrs Beaver

NEWS FLASH!

Many, many things have happened over the last couple of months. I'll start with the good things...

Weasels is up for more awards than I could possibly have imagined. It's on the longlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal with the likes of Oliver Jeffers and Anthony Browne. Weasels is also in the final 6 for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize which is great because I get to go to an awards ceremony at the beginning of April where I will eat my own weight in canapés. And then there's the Read It Again children's picturebook award which is run by Cambridgeshire Libraries and voted for by local schools.

So many awards. It's as if there's been some kind of admin error.

Also there are now advance copies of Nuts in Space in the world! Here’s mine:

In other news I bought a house. It's currently a building site which features gems such as this 70s wallpaper. 

Eventually I'll have a shiny new studio though and when I do I'll post pictures.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I've also just started my PhD (which is in funny picturebooks believe it or not). It's good to keep busy isn't it?

As for bad news my hard drive died and took half a picturebook with it. This means that my every waking moment is spent desperately recreating the 6 spreads I lost in time for Bologna. It's just awful. On the bight side these spreads do contain things such as these toymakers:

Accident prone toymaker

Furious toymaker

Twerking toymaker

 

Snail discovers Christmas

Weasels getting ready for the the Roald Dahl Funny Prize

Tomorrow is the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and my book Weasels is up for it! The Weasels are busy getting ready for the ceremony and I must say eye-patch weasel is quite the snazzy dresser. The less said about Dave the better.

Father Christmas Activity Card

I finally got the samples of a Christmas card/activity book I did ages ago. IT HAS STICKERS! I may have just spent a happy 10min doing the activities myself. It's available from here.

World Domination Machines

The Just Imagine Story Centre ran a competition with Elsenham Primary school for the kids to design their own World Domination Machines much like the one from Weasels. There were some particularly brilliant machines with a range of features, aside from the usual switches and buttons, including Sky TV, a collection of trophies, some kind of homicidal dog and a cosy little bed and breakfast. Here are the finalists:

And here's the most excellent winner by one Josiah. It seems to have both a quiet area and a pitch n' putt. Congratulations Josiah!

Weasel nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal.

To celebrate my book Weasels being shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal (these are both rather good things in the heady world of children’s books) I’ve created a montage of my favorite bits from the book. If it's a little small here there's a bigger version here on my tumblr.

Want to know what on earth any of this is about? Well you can get a copy of Weasels from here, here and here.