Naughty... but Lovable

Have had a great work contract that I completed recently, explaining why the length between posts.

In the second half of last year I had a great consultation with Ann James, expert illustrator who was so encouraging and gave me many fantastic tips. The biggest change I'm going to be making from her suggestion is to rework my pigs to make them naughty but lovable. At the moment they are quite ugly characters, so I am looking at toddler body and facial shapes and young piglets. Everyone knows toddlers are naughty, but you can't help but love them. That is the type of look I'm going for. I've made a clay model of a head and some early drawings and look forward to developing these characters. Ann James loved my pigs houses and thought my sheep were endearing. I look forward to be able to post some pictures soon.

CYA Conference 2013

A great day today learning from some amazing illustrators:
Judy Horacek ('Where is the Green Sheep?' by Mem Fox)
Serena Geddes (helped illustrate Disney's 'The Lion King')
James Foley ('The Last Viking')
and I got to sit next to Katherine Battersby and chat.
James Foley had a look through my work in progress and was so encouraging.

Collaging sheep

The Big Bad Building Inspector

This is the result of some minor changes to this image to improve it using some of the ideas Tohby Riddle had - change the shape of the beard and make the text more of a feature.

Mentor Tohby Riddle

This morning I had the invaluable opportunity to have established author/illustrator mentor me with my work on 'The Three Lazy Pigs'. He was such a wealth of ideas and suggestions. I can't wait to tweak the manuscript and get busy putting my dummy book together.

New DSLR Camera

I bought a fantastic new DSLR camera and a trip to the zoo was the perfect place to test it out. I fell in love with the world's smallest monkey species, the pygmy marmoset.

One-on-one with Tohby Riddle

I am so excited to be able to have some time with Tohby Riddle soon as part of the ASA mentorship program. His picture books are fantastic so I can't wait for him to give me some advice with my picture book.