Hansel and Gretel – an illustration

This is a working colour illustration for ‘Hansel and Gretel’, based around this piece of text:

‘It was now three mornings since they had left their father’s house. They began to walk again, but they always got deeper into the forest, and if help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And when it had finished its song, it spread its wings and flew away before them, and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of which it alighted; and when they came quite up to the little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar.’

My strangely proportioned candy and cake roof suspension of disbelief, as does the story. In an attempt to break away from the traditional Black Forest cottage look, I’ve gone a bit oversized on the roof, which inspired by the giant roof shape of the iron age round house, peculiar to Britain.

I may need to rethink the orangey gingerbread – not the easiest tone to scan, however it’s back to the drawing board for now.

Dog’s Day at Book Launch

Last night I caught up with some friends from SCBWI at Sue Eves‘ launch of her brilliant book, ‘The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog’. Yummy dog biscuits, (for humans) got the thumbs up from everyone, including a real dog who faced off with Sue’s ‘noisy dog’ puppet. Not to be upstaged, ‘the noisy dog’ fed the real dog a treat, captured here by Sarah McIntyre. As always, The Illustration Cupboard, off Piccadilly, was the perfect venue, and it was a great chance to see original artwork from Angela Barrett’s latest book on the wall.

Alternative Press

Before the snow really set in I headed to the London Alternative Press Fair yesterday; essentially a basement stuffed with comics, zines, hand-crafted books, goodies, and a heaving crowd. 

I snaffled a DFC with a gorgeous purple-y cover designed by fab Comic and book writer/illustrator Sarah McIntyre, who had given a talk on book illustration to our MA group on Tuesday. DFC is subscription only – it’s apparent illustrators have freedom with cover design that one perhaps wouldn’t expect on a shelf publication.

It’s a good week for reading as my Hi-Fructose arrived too. Mainly lowbrow art, very West Coast, and so entirely non-London. This issue features the remarkable Yosuke Ueno.

Lunch Bag Art

‘A new bag each day for my kids. I’m the dad. I make these during my lunch break.’
More at Lunch Bag Art.

SCBWI

Time has whizzed by since our last illustrators’ crit group meeting, and this month sees a major weekend event on the SCBWI calendar – the ‘Turning Pages’ conference – at which Layn and Sarah are both speaking.

Photo: Sarah holding my copy of DFC - her ‘Vern & Lettuce‘ strip appears weekly in this fab kids’ comic.