Colour foraging, pencil penguins and a million paper scraps

Story Street #1

Why did I call my newsletter Story Street? I hope reading the newsletter will be like a twilight wander down a row of houses where bright windows show interesting creative things going on. You are invited to look in inside to find out more…

Yesterday I was out in the woods in East Sussex, on a foraging course (thankyou for the gift, Meg and Tom). Our guide told us which green shoots were safe to nibble, then gave us a detailed description of the slow agonies of hemlock poisoning to make sure we stayed cautious, before leading us to the last of the season’s fungi.

This gorgeous, frilled wonder is called a false turkey tail, and can be used as chewing gum (I tried, and it wasn’t too bad). But just look at those colours! I realised afterwards what it reminded me of – the colour palettes I was making with my students at Putney School of Art on Friday afternoon. I’m going to have to use these fungal ones in a picture book some time…

A few weeks ago I went sketching at London Zoo, and this week I turned one of the drawings into a little postcard painting to donate to the Friends of Putney School of Art for the Christmas Fair next Sunday, 4th December (I’ll be there selling books and artwork from 10-5pm).

Making the painting reminded me of all the visits I made to those very same penguins when I was grappling with motivation for the characters in my picture book ‘Tiny Penguins and the New Baby’ (if you know anyone expecting a second baby soon, it’s the perfect gift for the big sibling). Here’s a snippet from my comic diary at the time – and the finished book with the penguins.  

If you’d like to know more about the process of making a picture book, I wrote a detailed blog post about it for Words and Pictures, the SCBWI online magazine, and you can read it by following this link. There’s also a video on my YouTube channel where star illustrator Fiona Woodcock chats to me about the process of making the book - you can watch it right here:

I’ve had a very busy autumn with various collaborative art projects on the go (more about these in the next newsletter) and a new picture book taking shape on my desk. It’s a story by Paul Stewart about a little mouse who is afraid of going outside, and I am illustrating it all in collage. Here’s what my desk looks like at the moment…

and here is the organised chaos that is my paper scrap collection. It’s carefully colour-co-ordinated, but neat it is not.

I love my job as a picture book illustrator and author. I was recently asked to complete a questionnaire about picture book making for a PhD student at Edinburgh University, and I thought I would share this quote here which explains my motivation:

For me, children’s books matter because children are important – they are our future. Picture books are perfectly placed to build empathy in the next generation, and to help them grow into adults who are kind, curious, and thoughtfully questioning. And I am very proud to be part of that.

That’s all for now… this was a warm-up post, but from 1st December I am going to get into a proper routine of a newsletter each month. And I have lots to tell you about next time, including a music-themed comics class zine swap and a big community collage project.

If you have enjoyed this newsletter, do share the link with friends!