He’s worried about his pea seedlings, as he should be with this sun!
News
School author visits
I thought I’d give a heads up to Sarah McIntyre’s post about Society of Authors’ Talk on school visits. There’s lots of useful tidbits if you check the #CWIG or #SchoolVisits hashtag on Twitter.
I do a lot of school events, and I know for a fact that a lot of this stuff is what you can only learn from experience. It’s probably incredibly useful for any new authors or illustrators out there. And speaking of that there’s a great CWIG Conference if you’re a children’s writer/illustrator. It’s prohibitively expensive, which is why I won’t be going (as much as I’d love to), but if you can afford it you won’t regret it.
Sarah’s doing a great job promoting the children’s side of the Society of Authors. Back when I started out with the Mousehunter, I jumped at the chance of becoming a member. It was the thing that said I’d made it, and being a part of the Society was like joining the Dennis the Menace club (but for grown-ups).
There wasn’t much going on for children’s writers there at that point – SCWBI was and is far more socially organised – and a hideous experience at a Society event all about reading your work aloud meant I never renewed. (I still get nightmares of being critiqued by a load of fusty adult book writers. I definitely didn’t go there to be critiqued.)
Any way, this event looked great, and I wish it had been more like this when I joined 5 years ago – heck, if it keeps doing things like this, maybe I’ll join again soon.
Harold the Hamster at the beach
Pirate Hippo Salute
Chalky dinosaurs
Having a comics artist in your house (the super Gary Northfield) means you get pavement art in your garden!
Meet Alice Anteater
Another new character I’ve been working on. I’m really enjoying mixing the outline colours of these recent drawings, particularly for clothes. I think it lets the characters stand out a bit more, and lightens the whole thing.
Any way, I hope you like Alice Anteater. I can see her long nose being quite a problem.