It was such a pleasure to once again attend the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) conference in New York - it helped me get my mojo back!
Here's a bloggy break down of the watercolour painting I created for this year's Tomie De Paola award
I've moved across the world! Yes, um, again. This time from Melbourne, Australia to Providence, RI, USA.
In March I had not one but TWO book launches! The first was Jack's Funtastic Day, a book about getting active, which was acted out by some fantastic children. The 2nd was the hippity hoppity Egg Hunting We Will Go, an Easter book launched by none other than Peter Rabbit!
Ideas for illustrations always come from different places. Here I tell you about the making of an illustration that was really affected by my environment.
I was awarded a fellowship to stay at Varuna - The Writer's House, and I cannot think of a better way to start off the year.
I've been playing along with the 52-week illustration challenge and their Advent Calendar challenge for December. Happy Holidays!
I was thrilled to be commissioned by Broadmeadows Valley Primary School to create characters to personify the school's learning values. I was even more thrilled to be asked to do this as artist-in-residence, where I could create the characters WITH the students!
I'm in a monster state of mind at the moment... today I spent most of the day at Broadmeadows Valley Primary School drawing.... MONSTERS! with lots of great kids.
When I first started creating art for greeting cards, I thought a good way to go about it would be to create designs that I would like to give to my friends. I created a "Mother, Father, Baby" card without thinking too much about it. My next friends to have a baby were two women. I couldn't give this to them!
Before jumping into my next book project, I've done a little revamp of my website – replacing my landing image finally, and the background pattern. I managed to steal some time to create new work too... Ahhhh... it has been nice to create a few pieces just for fun.
I am so very incredibly excited to announce that I have an agent! I am now represented by Astound Agency, based in New York and London. This has been a HUGE goal for me for many years.
I took a brush-lettering workshop through Old School New School recently – it's always great to get back into a learning environment and acquire some new skills!
The latest task in Lilla Rogers' Bootcamp was to create some crusty crustaceans with patterns to decorate plates for a homewards assignment.
I'm again participating in Lilla Rogers' Assignment Bootcamp –– which is basically a way of forcing myself to create some art that is not for a client. We are given subject matter and size, and set freeeee....
I have had my head down getting things done so far in 2015... and I finally did! I finished the picture book that I have been working on for an entire year. Phew!
I was very happy to take a little break in January and now that I'm back I feel refreshed and ready to go!
I had the opportunity to create a piece to be exhibited at Supergraph. The theme was 'NATURAL SELECTION'.
It's been a big week on this end of the globe. I did my first school presentation as Books In Homes ambassador, and it was such a wonderful experience
Getting an agent is not an easy task, but it's my next one! I've been working on this dummy for quite some time, and I'm finally ready to start querying.