a bit about me
SUMMER 2010
LATEST NEWS:
- 'SHOW AND TELL' - An exhibition of work, in collaboration with fellow children's book illustrator Rebecca Elliott, will be held at Gallery 47, 1st Floor 47 Gainsborough Street, Sudbury, Suffolk from 22nd to 27th October. Further details will be published here nearer the date...
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I’m very lucky to have been illustrating for independent children’s book publishers, Little Tiger Press, since early 2008. My first picture book with them, ‘Gruff The Grump’, written by Steve Smallman, was published last year in the UK, US and 8 other countries. It is one of the 'Reads Of The Year' in the Younger Children category of the Red House Children's Book Awards 2010. Since that I’ve illustrated a story by Marni McGee: ‘Bumble, The Little Bear with BIG Ideas’ and 'Too Hot To Hug' by Steve Smallman (both currently available in hardback). I've just completed two board books written by Marni McGee, 'Sleepy Me' and 'Messy Me', these will be published in 2011. My current project is another picture book, this time written by Sue Mongredien.
Previous publications include some novelty books for toddlers for Dorling Kindersley US, French publisher Editions Babiroussa, greetings cards for Two Bad Mice and various other commissions. My way of working has continued to change and develop, especially after completing an MA in Children's Book Illustration as a mature student at Cambridge School of Art in 2008.
Although children's illustration is now my focus, I also work occasionally in a more adult style for a cool little cult magazine called One Eye Grey.
I love music (loads of stuff, though rarely anything very mainstream), language, humour, studying French, daydreams, and my shed where I work, and I'm endlessly fascinated and enthralled by nature, especially birds, which I adore. And bugs. Well, not the ones that make you ill, or the kind that bite you in bed. But creepy crawly ones are fine.
I dislike straight lines...! ~ ~ ~
I enjoy life drawing too, which is a great discipline, but for me illustrating picture books has to be the most rewarding of all.