I was rooting around for some paper the other day, when I came across a small portfolio case, tucked down the side of my plan chest, which contained a collection of my early artwork, much of which I had forgotten about.
When I first set out to become a children's author, I'd intended to both write and illustrate and the artwork below was drawn to accompany one of my early story poems, The Fool's Apprentice.
The writing now feels awkward in places and the linework lacks expression (it was done with the same Rotring technical pens I was using for my day job as an architect) but it shows my first steps in something akin to a picture book format, with several images illustrating the same story.
Click on the images to see larger versions.
If the illustration of the Queen looks familiar, it might be because it was inspired by an illustration by the Czech Art Noveau illustrator Alphonse Mucha. Mucha is one of my favourite illustrators, a master of line, colour and composition and, in my view, one of the greatest graphic artists of all time.
The Queen in my illustration was inspired by Alphonse Mucha's Princess Hyacynth.
One of the reasons I stopped illustrating was that my agent advised me that, while there were hundreds of great illustrators looking for picture book work, there were relatively few authors that could write good picture book texts and that if I wanted to make a living out of picture books, I'd do well to focus my efforts on the latter. This proved to be excellent advice, but I often wonder how my illustration would have developed if I'd stuck at it.
The Pig’s Knickers, a book I did with illustrator Vanessa Cabban, was shortlisted for the Picture Book Award and this was one of those slightly nerve-racking award ceremonies where you don’t find out which book has won until it’s announced at the ceremony itself.
The other books shortlisted for the Picture Book Category were I’m the Best by Lucy Cousins, Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School by David Mackintosh and The Fearsome Beastie written by Giles Paley-Phillips and illustrated by Gabriele Antonini and David and Giles were also at the ceremony.
David and I had met before as, in addition to being an author/illustrator, David is also a designer and had designed a couple of my pop-up books and one of my picture books. However we’d only met in person once and that was ten years ago so I don’t think either of us would have recognised each other if we’d met elsewhere.
I hadn’t met Giles before, but it turned out we had very similar views on my pet topic of ‘why boys don’t like reading’. I’ve always felt that this aversion needs to be tackled at picture book level and Giles and I both think that boys would find picture books far more appealing if more of them were scary and dangerous rather than cute and cosy. But this is what I would have expected from an author who has written a story about a child-eating monster and an axe-wielding granny!
If you’ve never been to the Magna Centre before, it’s well worth a visit. Apart from the exhibits, the space itself, a former steelworks, is incredibly impressive and atmospheric. My son, Max, hadn’t been since he was little, so he came along to have another look around and to help out with my signings.
This photo only shows one corner of the huge hanger-like hall in which the ceremony took place.
The awards were held in Magna’s “Big Hall”, which although only a quarter of the size of the main exhibition space, was still MASSIVE and more than big enough to accommodate the hundreds of children who were attending.
One end of the hall was taken up with displays inspired by the short-listed books and created by the schools that had voted in the awards. Several of these featured The Pig’s Knickers and I spent some time inspecting the wide range of porcine undergarments (some of which are shown below) and reading some of the funny book reviews that the children had written.
Thurcroft Infant School's display ...
… included this charming underwear catalogue.
Each of the authors gave a quick speech to introduce themselves and then there was a lively signing session, in which I met lots of enthusiastic young readers, one of whom informed me that he was wearing a pair of polkadot knickers just like Pig’s in honour of the occasion (I opted to take his word for this).
Many of the displays were COMPLETELY PANTS ...
… but in a GOOD way!
I’d already had a good day, but it was made even better when it was announced that The Pig’s Knickers had won The Picture Book Category. I hadn’t prepared a speech, but then I didn’t need to — tip to future award recipients: you really don’t need to make much of a speech if you are prepared to pull on a pair of red polkadot knickers in front of an audience of school children. I mentioned that it was not the first time I’d donned the knickers in public and it appeared that my reputation preceded me as one of the organisers had enquired earlier whether “I had my knickers on me?”. A question I assumed she did not ask of the other authors attending.
I was lucky enough to take one of these shiny fings home with me!
A big “THANK YOU!” to all the children that voted for the book and to the awards organisers for putting on such an enjoyable event.
As a paper-engineer, I’m always on the lookout for interesting uses of pop-ups, and there has been quite a lot of animation work done in recent years using pop-ups — or at least what appear to be pop-ups.
Readers of the earlier newsletter version of the Scribble Street News may recall me writing about the title sequence for the film adaptation of Le Petit Nicolas. Like many pop-up animations, this appears to be as much artful animation as genuine paper-engineering, and many of these animations are made entirely with computer generated imagery rather than card models.
Up to now, such animations seem to have been limited to one-off projects such as title sequences, adverts and short films. However yesterday I met Vanessa Hill, Director of UK TV company The Foundation, who told me about Quick Quack Duck, a new children's series they are making, which takes this style to a whole new level of storytelling and enchanting visual complexity.
It will be a while before the series is on our screens, but you can get a taste of how it will look from the trailer below.
And here's the award-winning short film The Happy Ducklng, directed by Gili Dolev, from which the series hatched.
I’ve never needed much of an excuse to monkey around with a video camera, so when my daughter decided she wanted to have a movie party for her 8th birthday, her older brother and I decided we should make some cheesy Pearl and Dean style adverts to show before the film.
My daughter had another movie party for her 11th birthday last weekend. This time around we made some movie trailers and my daughter got in on the act.
I was given a pop-up green screen for my last birthday, so we used this, along with Apple iMovie’s excellent trailer templates and my kids' cuddly toy collection, to make trailers for Quackula Rising (a supernatural tale of fowl horror) and Carrots are Forever (an edge of the seat carrot-juice-fuelled spy thriller) which can be seen below.
We got a bit carried away and ended up shooting most of the plot to Carrots are Forever but, as is often the case, the trailer is much better than the film - so just imagine how bad the film must be!
Don’t expect me to write the novelisation any time soon.
Illustrated by Mark Chambers and published by Bloomsbury, it tells the story of Wanda, a young wallaby who is unable to hop like the other wallabies. Wanda’s father tells her that she needs to find her BOUNCE, so she goes on a journey through the Australian outback trying to do exactly that. She encounters a variety of Australian animals but no one is able to help her until she comes across a crafty crocodile.
One of the spreads from the book.
The book is part of the Stories from the Zoo series of fact and fiction books published in association with the Zoological Society of London and I was invited to the series’s launch party at London Zoo a couple of months ago. One of the reasons I went was that the party was in the evening, after the zoo had closed to the public and, having seen Madagascar, I wanted to witness first hand all the animals letting their fur down and running amok between the enclosures.
Imagine my disappointment then, to discover that all the animals were asleep and that the zoo was in total darkness (to replicate the animals’ natural habitats). The party was taking place at the rather gorgeous Mappin Pavillion, but the zoo was so dark that guests had to be guided there by one of the keepers. Unfortunately the group I was with lost sight of our keeper and we spent ten long minutes wandering around in the dark before our guide found us again, by which time I was glad that the animals weren’t allowed to run amok as I’d originally envisaged. I still held a glimmer of hope that the drinks at the party might be served by penguins (they’re already wearing dinner jackets after all), but there were regular human waiters.
On the plus side, I did get to meet Mark Chambers who illustrated the book. Most people are surprised when I tell them that authors and illustrators are not usually in contact during the production of a picture book and indeed, although the book was finished, this was the first time I had met or spoken to Mark. In addition to illustrating Wanda Wallaby Finds Her Bounce and Stop! There's a Snake in Your Suitcase for the Stories from the Zoo series, Mark has worked with London Zoo on a number of other projects including the illustrations for the Zoo’s Animal Adventure exhibit and the online Animal Adventure game, which you can play here. And I'm immensely jealous of him as he was invited to spend a day working as a zoo keeper as you can see in the video below.
I was also able to have a nice face to face chat with the book’s desk editor, Isabel Ford, who’d only been a voice on the phone before then.
Me and the other authors and illustrators attending the launch party.
Illustrator Mark Chamber is in the middle.
Wanda Wallaby Finds Her Bounce is published in paperback by Bloomsbury in both the UK and the US.
You can find out more about the book, including how it was originally inspired by an illustration by Pig’s Might Fly illustrator Steve Cox, on this page of my web site.
If you are even remotely interested in children's book illustration, you might like to check out this excellent video by one of the true masters of the profession, Quentin Blake.
Blake is now perhaps best known for illustrating Roald Dahl's work. The Dahl books I read as a child, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, pre-dated the Blake editions and were illustrated by other artists, such as Faith Jaques and Nancy Ekholm Burkert.
I left a fog-shrouded Nottingham at the crack of dawn and, after a four-hour train journey, emerged blinking into the Hampshire sunshine in time for a pleasant lunch with the awards organisers, Kathryn, Hannah and Emma, from Hampshire’s Schools Library Service.
The award is for the best picture book for older readers as voted for by Year 5 pupils in Hampshire schools. The presentation was held at Ringwood Junior School and in addition to Ringwood’s Year 5 pupils, children from several other schools were also in attendance, as was my editor, Emily Ford, who had torn herself away from Macmillan’s frantic final preparations for the Bologna book fair.
The award came in the form of a piece of engraved glass, which looked like it had been plucked from Superman’s crystalline Fortress of Solitude. After being presented with the award, I explained how the story had been partly inspired by the real Santa traps I had built as a child.
After reading the book, I sprung a surprise on the audience by showing them a video message from the book’s illustrator, Poly Bernatene. Poly was unable to attend the presentation as he lives in Argentina, but had sent me the video message to say “Thank you” for the award. The video turned out to be an even bigger surprise than I’d anticipated as, until that point, nearly everyone attending had been under the impression that Poly was a woman (as his name is so similar to the English girl’s name “Polly”). However the video showed otherwise and got a big round of applause.
I’d like to say a huge “THANK YOU!” to all the children who voted for the book and to the School Library Service for organising the award and looking after me so well on the day.
It’s a huge shame that picture books and other illustrated books are often regarded as being for young children only — especially when there are talented illustrators like Poly producing such fabulous artwork. So it’s great that Hampshire has this award to recognise their wider appeal.
