Bears, Jam, Workshops and SALE!

I have all sorts of blogging plans, but never seem to get round to actually writing them! Here's a quick round up of the last week or so.

Firstly, there's a sale on at the moment in my Notonthehighstreet.com shop. Take a look, there's 20% off almost everything including the popular bird prints which you can now buy packaged with a mount ready to frame - they make a wonderful gift!

My exhibition at The Jam Factory is now up in beautiful Oxford, featuring lots of new work...

...most of which is now up on my website, here's a snippet of something beary:

I also held my first Book Builders Workshop at The Book Barge on Thursday. Here are some of the wonderful drawings the children made - next week it's storytelling! There are still spaces left on the next 4 workshops, so do get in touch if you know a budding author/illustrator who'd like to take part!

Talking of the Book Barge, bookseller extraordinaire Sarah is writing a book of her own in an attempt to raise funds to keep the barge open. You can read all about the motivation behind it here and find the first few chapters here!

Hope you're all having a super weekend! Go Team GB! Go EVERYONE from EVERYWHERE! I love the Olympics so much more than I expected.

Book Builders - Summer Holiday Workshops

I'll be running a series of workshops for children aged 7+ at The Book Barge in Staffordshire this summer! Here is a highly informative poster, packed with essential details and a rabbit for good measure.

 

Hopefully, if you come to each session you'll end up with a finished children's book of your very own, although each week will work equally well as a one-off workshop if you're only able to come to one! 

Here's some more info about what we'll be doing each week:

2ND AUGUST: DRAWING WORKSHOP
Introduction to a variety of image making techniques, from traditional pencil to ink and collage. This workshop will help you develop a style for your book illustrations and spark story ideas by creating a character or setting for your book. We’ll look at picture books illustrated using a variety of media for inspiration.

9TH AUGUST: STORYTELLING WORKSHOP
We'll talk about what makes a great story and, using a mixture of writing and drawing, you'll develop a spellbinding narrative for your own picture book.

16TH AUGUST: CREATING YOUR BOOK
How to bring your story to life on the page! Concentrating on sequential drawing we’ll look at everything from getting your character moving to planning out each page of your book. The drawings created in this workshop will be used as a starting point for the final artwork.

23RD AUGUST: ILLUSTRATING YOUR STORY (PART 1)
Begin creating finished artwork for your book. There will be a choice of materials available to use and expert advice on how to make the most of them!

30TH AUGUST: ILLUSTRATION YOUR STORY (PART 2) + BOOKBINDING
Continue with artwork plus the opportunity to learn how to bind your finished book together, ready for sharing! (Books can be bound with space for the illustrations to be completed at home if necessary.)

If you'd like to book a place, please call Sarah on 07946 605324 or email info@thebookbarge.co.uk. I'm really looking forward to it and having fun planning all the things we're going to try!

A tremendously exciting advance copy of... ABC LONDON!

Hooray! ABC LONDON IS HERE.

I actually did a forward roll of excitement when I first had an email about this book from Frances Lincoln (this was back in the days when I lived and worked in my carpeted London bedroom). I spent last summer embroiled in a paper London, lack of sleep driving me to do ridiculous things like gilding the tops of the fence at Buckingham Palace with tiny fragments of first class stamp, not pausing to realise that it will be utterly impossible to discern the queen's minute gold eye peering out from the railings.

It is WONDERFUL to see the finished book.

Here's a sneak preview of P and Q, I'll post more of the illustrations when the book is published on 7th June!

ABC London will be available in all good bookshops, especially The Book Barge, where I'll be signing books on Saturday 9th June from 2-4pm at Barton Marina, Staffordshire.

More news about other book signings, especially one in London on Sunday 10th June, coming soon!

It's also had a nice mention in the Bookseller:

This unusual alphabet picture book really caught my eye. Celebrating London's unique, diverse culture with entries like "B for Brick Lane", it's got a contemporary feel and lots of gift book potential.
- Bookseller


 Hope you're having a super weekend!

Leaving London by Book Barge

Apart from having a job that I LOVE, one of the best things about being a self-employed illustrator is the possibility of taking sudden and unexpected holidays.* On a sunny-Sunday-afternoon sort of whim Ronley and I volunteered to join the crew of The Book Barge as she made her way out of London to Staffordshire (admittedly only as far as Watford where we switched to rail). Opting to abandon our usual, excruciatingly slow London Midland train journey for two days on a narrowboat wasn't a difficult decision.

Sarah took The Book Barge to London for the Guardian Open Weekend and spent the week in Angel before finishing at Broadway Market in spectacular style with a wonderful Operation Alphabet reading and workshop (if you ever read to children, The Ministry of Letters' Sammy will inspire you to quadruple your usual effort - she is a picture book reading phenomenon!). Sarah has just arrived back at Barton Marina (having traveled at lightning speeds of 4mph for 10 days) for a flood of Titanic anniversary book signings tomorrow evening. Life-jackets not included.

We sailed merrily from Angel through to Camden, Little Venice and London Zoo all the way to Watford. We even visited the farm where Black Beauty was filmed! Thus proving my rashly concocted belief that there is NOWHERE important that cannot be visited by barge.

Paying no heed to the Private Property signs, we accosted a wheelbarrowing stablehand who, somewhat bemused by our enthusiasm (“Black Beauty? Yeah... I think that was before my time), kindly let us have a look around.

Glorious!

The Book Barge is a truly wonderful place. Visit if you have the chance and if you don’t you can still support Sarah by buying your books from the Hive network. All you have to do is select The Book Barge as your favourite book shop and she’ll receive some of the proceeds. AND prices are discounted - Magpie’s Treasure is currently just £4.89! What more could you possibly want?

*Other advantages to working at home include accounting in pyjamas and ALL art materials counting as business expenses, even ribbons and encyclopedias of mammals! Disadvantages mostly revolve around not actually having any time off because of overwhelming feelings of failure, guilt and/or stress or a good, old-fashioned, looming deadline. However, this is ultimately inconsequential because you can throw open your curtains every morning singing "I have the VERY BEST job in the WORLD!" to passersby, or in my case, cows.

Coming to a Book Barge near you!

There's more information in my last post, but if you're a Staffordshire local or fancy a day out it would be great to see you there!

Pop-Up Shop and Exhibition in Staffordshire

 Hoist the main sail! Step aboard The Book Barge this weekend for a pop-up shop and exhibition of my work.

For two days only I will be pirating the fair vessel and alongside the usual literary delights you will find original artwork from Magpie’s Treasure and the soon-to-be published ABC London (out in June 2012) as well as prints, brooches, cards and quite possibly part of the famous, travelling YSP aviary!

Come along from some spur-of-the-moment collaging and drawing, book signing, pirate-hat making, and general skull-duggery on the high seas of Barton Marina (map here).

Free entry and a free postcard. What a bargain.

It really would be marvellous to see you there.

Signing and Workshop on board The Book Barge!

Good morning! Just an update following my previous post here to say that if all goes according to plan, The Book Barge will be at Camden Lock on Sunday 26th. I'll be there from 3 - 5pm signing copies of Magpie's Treasure and running a collage workshop.

If you're in London it would be marvellous to see you there! I've created a Facebook event here so you can stay up to date with any last minute changes of venue as The Book Barge wends it's way from Oxford to London sometime this week.

Signings and Collage Workshops Ahoy!

This Saturday, the 18th JUNE, I'll be at Bedford Park Festival in Chiswick, West London, from 10 - 11am running a collage workshop for children, reading Magpie's Treasure and signing books!

Supporting the community and some great casues, this year the festival is raising money for the Upper Room charity, which helps the homeless and vulnerable of West London and a Chiswick youth charity called CEDARS, a drop-in centre for young people.

On Sunday 26th JUNE I'll be on board the extraordinary floating, now travelling Book Barge in LONDON, somewhere on the Regent's Canal, for more collage workshop fun, book signing and most exciting of all (weather permitting) the chance to sit in a deck-chair on the lately astro-turfed roof of the boat reading Magpie's Treasure to all and sundry.

If you haven't heard about The Book Barge's amazing, adventurous tour to promote independent book-selling I urge you to illuminate yourself and have a look here: The Book Barge @ Large. Aiming to live off books for the duration of her six month tour, Sarah will happily swap a book for a startling variety of things from a shower to slice of cake. To find out what The Book Barge needs and where it currently is, you can follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Please come along if you're in the area, it would be great to see you there!

Just Imagine Window Display!

I spent 3 lovely days at Just Imagine in Chelmsford just over a week ago, visiting schools, installing the Magpie's Treasure window and giving a talk to their Illustrators Group. A big thank you to Nikki for lending me her window and organising the school workshops which were fab! For a chance to win a signed copy of Magpie's Treasure have a look here on the Just Imagine website!

Here are some photos of the window, more can be found on my Facebook page.

The Book Barge is Coming!

 
...In all likelyhood to a canal near you. If you happen to live in England that is. Usually to be found moored in Barton Marina, Staffordshire, this wonderful, water-borne bookshop will be touring the country from May til November:

"We're going on something of a summer jolly taking in as much of the country as we can, spreading the good word(s) of independent bookselling and burning Kindles village by village. There will be pyres on the towpath and the celebratory pealing of church bells."

Read more about it here and follow their Facebook page and Twitter to stay in the know about the boat's whereabouts and events along the way. There's also a handy Book Barge @ Large page with further info.


I'll be joining The Book Barge in London and hopefully a couple of other destinations for Magpie's Treasure events galore!