Wally and Bert

I went to meet the very nice owner of Babushka books in Shanklin today. He has kindly agreed to stock Vincent and Royal Fleas; thanks Reuben! What a fab bookshop too - loads of interesting finds.

Last night I tweeted that I had been drawing weird shoes, hoovering the dog and shovelling foundations for my new studio. The latter may have been a slight exaggeration, however I had a really nice tweet back from @laurathisgirl saying that it was her best tweet of the day. So here are the shoes! This is the first two pages of my new book.

Royal Fleas

Just a few spreads from Royal Fleas to whet your appetite!

Front Cover

Each year, the Queen stops at Little Burpingham.

Sophie writes to the Queen to mention the Corgis' fleas!

Mr Horatio Flowers-Simkinson does his least favourite job.

A Day of Amazingness...

I spent the day in London yesterday at the Association of Illustrator's Children's Book Event, bathing in the glorious creativity of some really wonderful illustrators. On the one hand it was inspiring to be around such gifted people, on the other hand it made me feel a wee bit intimidated and on the other other hand, it gave me much motivation to find a cure for Procrastinitis and get on with producing some really good work.

I met Tony Ross (Little Princes, Horrid Henry) who has illustrated an astonishing 2000 books since 1976; he very kindly signed my copy of The Pet Person and drew me the dawg!

I also met Alex T Smith of Claude fame, who is currently one of my most favourite illustrators and thoroughly nice chap! We chatted about the merits of chihuahuas as we both have a duo and it transpires that the mad behaviour I have experienced with my two is quite normal.

So, back to the drawing board with my next book and onward with the building of the Groovy Studio.

I shall say zees only vunce...

My Mother has joined the French Resistance, as borne by her attire today. The onions might have been artistic license.

Octagenarian she might be, but she can shock a Nazi into submission with a withering look. I know it's Father's day officially, but I'd just like to say Thank Gawd for Mums!

In other news, I'm halfway through drawing out the pages for Wally & Bert, BFF. Now, I will have to do some serious research before I commit myself, but is it BFFs or BFsF? Best Friends Forever or 'Best-Friends-Forever's, as if the three words are turned into one noun? Hmm, any advice greatfully received!

Finally, as my Dad and Harry's Dad are no longer with us, I'd like to say Happy Father's Day to Roger, my 1st Father-in-Law and dear friend.

Wally & Bert

I've started the next book. It's about 2 best friends, Wally and Bert. It's going to be in a different format than Vincent or Fleas, smaller in size but longer in content.

I've done my planning and rearranging and some character studies. Here's a sneaky look.

My scruffy sketchbook.

 My messy table!

Disaster, danger and dear doggies.

Narrowly avoiding COMPLETE disaster, our day has been less than productive. The second of our three days of Diamond Jubilee fayres started with a bit of a breeze and soon became darned windy. Normally that would just be a bit annoying, but as we were on Tarmac and unable to stake our marquee onto ground, things soon took a turn for the worse. A huge gust of wind blew head on into our marquee and flipped it over, twisting the steel legs and ripping the sides.
Thankfully no one was in the way and loads of lovely people rushed over to help us retrieve the marquee and some of our pictures which had blown away. Amazingly, a large framed pic and it's accompanying easel which also made a bid for freedom was undamaged. Having packed away the busted poles and material, we struggled on without shelter, but by about 3pm we decided it was really getting a bit dangerous when the heavy duty Market stand next door nearly took off. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt, so we put the rest of our stuff away and headed home.
At least there were two happy little faces eager to see us on return. Dogs are great, aren't they? Bembridge Street Fayre tomorrow, 2-4.30.