I’ve a feeling November will be here faster than I think, so I’m busy researching and learning stories from the Arabian Nights for this exciting concert with my regular collaborators, the de Havilland Philharmonic. I adore this music and I think it will be a really special, magical afternoon. As usual with my children’s concerts, […]
Category: Katie
This is a post category for posts about Katie and includes posts imported from the original Katie’s Picture Show blog on Google Blogger.
Katie celebrations in Edinburgh
It was such a joy to be back in my favourite city in the world, and a rainbow filled the sky to welcome me. Naturally Katie In Scotland was the main focus, and my first event was at the Book Festival, involving all sorts of monsters, Loch Ness or otherwise. It was a very funny […]
Farewell Starry Night Skies… and to Katie.
Apart from a cover design, the 12th Katie book is finished and safely delivered to Orchard Books. They seemed to like it. I’m pretty pleased and think it has something a bit special about it, I must admit. A dream like quality that I’m a tiny bit excited about. As always when a book is […]
Nearly there!
Come on James! You can do it! Step AWAY from the computer and pick up that brush! There’s light at the end of the tunnel. One more big push and you’ll be there. Think of it… No more early starts and late nights. No more blues and yellows swirling before your eyes. No more thinking […]
Chromatism in Cromer
A family holiday in Cromer in the middle of a book isn’t ideal, but I duely packed up the illustrations for Katie and the Starry Night to continue “colouring in” the drawings. The flat was booked months ago and the clash was unavoidable. Had the weather been fair it could have been rather a relaxing […]
Work in progress: Starry Night
Lots of distractions – lovely ones – have interrupted the flow with Katie and the Starry Night: The Ella Bella event in Cheltenham was swiftly followed by a giant pop up book at the Pop Up Festival. (Click on the words to find out about them!). But here are a couple of glimpses of how […]
Dreaming of wolves
I should be working on Katie and the Starry Night. But I couldn’t resist creating this little poster for a performance this autumn of Peter & The Wolf. Not only will I be narrating the story, I will also be illustrating it LIVE on stage! Crazy? yes! Fun? you bet! It takes place in Saffron […]
Wishing on a star…
Here are a few sketches for the new Katie book. These have been sent to Orchard Books and I’m waiting for their reaction. It’s an exciting, creative time, as already some problems in the story have come to light and now I have the task of adjusting my own story to fit the images I […]
Starry sketches
I’ve almost completed the roughs for “Katie and the Starry Night”. As always, the challanges have been to make the gallery interesting and not too predicatable. Not easy when the paintings have to be viewed “face on”. That limits interesting perspective somewhat. I’m also not sure where to fit type onto the Starry Night scene. […]
Meet Our Authors (and illustrators)
Yesterday I was very honoured to be the first illustrator to be invited to participate in the Authors Live events with the Scottish Book Trust. It was the perfect way to launch Katie In Scotland and I had a great time telling legends of pirates that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson and demonstrating how I created […]
