How to work a book fair

The London Book Fair: in the belly of a vast exhibition centre, the gentle illustrator is confronted with stretches of purple and lime green exhibition stands lined with books. In the children's book section, yellows and shouty pinks sprinkled with glitter vie for attention under the neon lights. 

Yikes. Most unlovely. I found myself heading for the door within the hour, grabbing a tea and banana bread from the cart outside for a break and some sunshine before giving it another go.

Here's a survival guide for the visually sensitive.

• Focus is key. Hone in on the talks that offer something of value, slowly walk the aisles and explore when a book looks particularly inviting. Ignore the rest, or try to.
• Check out the non-English markets
• Arrive early for the portfolio show and tell, grab a ticket and bring along an actual  portfolio, as in paper in leather bound cover. Ten minutes max with a random publishing house, but still. I hope to be there next year.
• Ask for a publisher's Children's Book catalogue. Most publishers are happy to hand them out.
• Make forays outside for regular doses of fresh, (Earl's Court) air.
• Arrange to meet up with a friend. Fairs can be overwhelming.

I did enjoy a talk on becoming a children's book illustrator hosted in the Children's Hub where seasoned pro Chris Wormell showed slides of the ideas pages of his sketchbooks: stuffed full of notes and thumbnail sketches, not a single idea wasted. Ideas that have turned into one book after another. As well as many a book that didn't make it, but that's all part of the fun.

Templar Art Director Mike Jolley told us that he enjoys receiving submissions. And looking at blogs. More so than websites, he said he finds blogs far more interesting. Good to know, not so?

And for me, the treasure of the day was in the foreign languages section. Belgian illustrator Anne Herbaut's new book je t'aime tellement que for Casterman. True, the cover is pink, but it is, I think you might agree, a thing of beauty. 

Phew, at last - something genuinely lovely.

How do you survive trade fairs? Any ideas welcomed - please do leave a comment below, I love hearing your thoughts.

The Big Blue book launch

 

My friend Yuval, author and illustrator of The Big Blue Thing on the Hill, had a book launch at the Idler Academy in Westbourne Grove yesterday. Here, his young friend Elliot reads aloud, surrounded by his brother Finley and little sister Scout, amongst others. 

Yuval seemed perfectly at ease signing books and chatting to visitors - he says an upcoming reading at Paddington Library for a school group is a more daunting prospect!

What a fab spot in Westbourne Grove is The Idler Academy - a bookshop of the small but perfectly formed variety - light filled, cosy, with a teeny cafe in the garden and just the right amount of deliciously enticing reading. 

Sharing the love - my friend Yuval's book is out

You read it here first. 

My friend Yuval Zommer's beautiful children's book, The Big Blue Thing on the Hill, is out. The Big Blue Thing may be a camper van to us humans, but it is a greatly mysterious beast to the animals of the forest, and they want it gone.

It's a first for Yuval, and indeed a first for our circle of children's book illustrators.

I met Yuval on a children's book illustration course at City Lit a while ago, and together with one or two others, we have met once a month to do a show and tell ever since.

The kernel of this book began as an idea sent out to various publishers via email, titled I think, 'The Animal Olympics'. 

In that work, he drew a series of animal characters outdoing one another in sporting feats - a project conceived while watching the Olympics here in London in 2012. 

These drawings, so clearly done with a sense of humour and delight,  were a breakthrough for Yuval. As was discovering drawing on the wacom tablet.

Publishers were immediately interested, but the Olympics had come and gone and he was asked to come up with another concept. Yuval cheerfully got to work on a new story about animals. He always has one or two stories up his sleeve anyway, and wastes no time in waiting for inspiration to arrive.

During our meetings, Yuval has shared the process of the book's development with us and we've all gained insights into the process of crafting a children's book. The collaboration with the publishing team and the way it extended his range, was particularly great to learn about.

How about some flying insects, an editor said. 

Flying insects? 

We'd never seen Yuval doing flying insects. But he was happy to give it a go. At our next meeting, he showed us insects. Wasps. Bees. Funny, wonderful swarms of the things, invading every nook and cranny of the story. And then frogs. Then birds. Snakes. A forest menagerie.

Yuval is already onto the next story, although first up are book launches and the rounds of the trade fairs.

The Big Blue Thing on the Hill goes on sale in late March, but you can pre-order it here.

illustration friday - wild

Playing around with my new drawing tablet and pen and ink a bit, tons more I could do here but a person has design work to do too. I do so love a tiger and a jungle. And a Henri Rosseau painting, distantly remembered too of course comes into play.

Illustration Friday - snow

Mice should enjoy Christmas too you know.

Finding my way around Photoshop, still early days but I love how it makes new ways of working possible. And fast.

shy

Here's one that got away before we left for South Africa. Thought I'd post it anyway,  and it'd be a pity to let that go to waste as a lost little jpeg icon on my desktop. So, in celebration of experiments and tentative sketches, here she is. Belatedly for Illustration Friday 'shy'.

illustration friday - tall

A quick one to stretch my newly acquired Photoshop skills - I guess the 'Limpicks seeped into my consciousness after all! The setting was inspired by Clare Mallison's lovely  illustration for a Young Times story, Garden Olympics.

illustration friday - carry

One for my children's book illustration portfolio, which I've been working on this week. I've been out drawing in the play area near home, so I had plenty of sketchbook material to turn into something fun. 

Clearly, drawing some dogs while I was at it would be helpful too, eeeek. Does anyone else find it tricky to integrate animals in the same style as people? 

Guess it's really a question of more practice, like all drawing wobbles.

Illustration Friday - sight

I had in mind a line from The Famished Road by Ben Okri, which has lived in my notebook for years. In this image, the line has a completely new context.

Constellations were visible in the sky, each star a different colour, luminous and pulsing.

The waves are inspired by an illustration by Dorry Spikes, one of my favourite illustrators.