Last week I brought my brand-new Dinosaur Firefighters book to share with St George's Junior School in Weybridge. And we had a lot of fun drawing Dipsy the Diplodocus!


Photo from St George's Junior School blog

I hadn't tried this book with any kids yet, and I didn't know if the drawing might be too complicated, but my fears were groundless - they did a terrific job!


Photo from St George's Junior School blog

Check out some of these great Diplodocus drawings!

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Look, some of my photos are in Devon Living magazine! You can read the whole article here. I took this first one when my sister, her partner Mike and I were visiting the Reeves on Dartmoor.


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For the very first time, the British Book Awards celebrated Illustrator of the Year, giving a voice to the winner, Axel Scheffler. He had something strong to say, that reflected the fear and uncertainty many illustrators in Britain are facing right now.



I was so thrilled to be able to present this award, sponsored by The Quarto Group, whoever won it, because it's a sign that the bookselling industry is finally starting to take seriously the contributions illustrators make to the UK economy. And there's partly been an economic reason for this oversight: unlike for writers, there are no sales figures easily attached to our name - a shortcoming of book data - so our economic value tends to get tied to the success of the writers we work with, or the publishers overall. And our names, and industry's tracking of individual illustrator careers often gets lost. But Axel Scheffler is one person whom the nation can never forget, because the Gruffalo is so firmly embedded in the national consciousness, and in the hearts of children all over the world.



It was telling that the two people who got standing ovations just for going on stage were both illustrators: Axel Scheffler and Judith Kerr (Mog the Forgetful Cat, The Tiger who Came to Tea). It's the combination of words and pictures that have won people's hearts.

Because children's books are an art form, and are shared intimately by the light of bedside lamps, we tend to shy away from putting economic value on the work of illustrators; we naturally talk more of 'love' for illustrators than 'value'. All of the pre-existing illustration awards I know recognise these creative and nurturing aspects. But an important way of showing genuine love to illustrators is to help them build careers and flourish in their professions and not, through neglect, forcing even top illustrators to scrabble constantly for enough money to pay the rent, or having to worry that Immigration officials from the Home Office may show up at 5:30 in the morning at their houses to deport them because the government didn't have, or didn't choose to access, the right records on file (as we see happening around us).



So often illustrators do not have a voice for many reasons: lack of industry recognition, working in effect as 'ghost illustrators' without credit or book data inclusion, fear of being labelled 'trouble' and overlooked for commissions, fear of being singled out by the Home Office for deportation. Or simply for choosing to illustrate, not write and illustrate. It's not like we're doing something wrong: children's books are a leading UK export and our work contributes toward the education and overall well-being of children and children in relationship with their families and schools. We shouldn't have to be scared, but it's a big help when industry leaders champion the work of top illustrators and say, 'You make a difference, we value you, we're glad you're here'.

And sometimes we have something we need Britain to hear. You can read the full text of Axel's speech on the blog of one of his publishers, Nosy Crow:


Read more here...

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On Saturday, the 5th of May, Gosh Comics in Soho hosted a big fun day of drawing! It coincided with Free Comic Book Day, and people queued down the street in Soho to get free comics, but it was more than that; lots of families came to meet creators, sit around a table and make comics with us. My favourite part about it was getting to read comics that kids had brought from home - I got to see some real talent!


Photo by Mauricio Molizane de Souza for Gosh London

The brilliant thing about making comics is that kids don't have to wait until they grow up to be comics artists, they can do it right now; all it takes to self-publish comics is a photocopier or home scanner/printer.



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People often wonder how I get from having an idea to holding the real book in my hands. Here's how it happened with Dinosaur Firefighters!



The basic idea: Dinosaur Firefighters started with my editor suggesting the title, and its predecessor, Dinosaur Police was just the same. So I needed to come up with a story to fit it! I've gotten into a habit of running story ideas by Philip Reeve; we're often on the road to events and this time we were meeting up for a drink the evening before school assemblies the following day. We sat down and talked through possible storylines and came up with the basic plot. (Thanks, Philip!) He even sketched out some possible characters, a couple of which you might recognise from the book.



Character design: After that, I went back to my studio desk and started sketching out all the dinosaurs that might be in the Dinoville fire brigade. I like to post them right over my desk, so I can refer to them for continuity as I work.



I wanted to make Dipsy big and blue, and not obviously girly (I mean, eyelashes aren't really a big thing in Dinosaur biology anyway. You can read a bit more about the ideas behind Dipsy the Diplodocus in a previous blog post.)



Thumbnail roughs: The next step was figuring out how to fill each 'double-page spread'. (A 'spread' is what editors call the two pages facing each other.) In a lot of ways, knowing the exact number of pages simplifies things a lot, I just have to work out how to make the story fill these little boxes. This is when I think about the story's pacing, create a sense of story rhythm, and create build-ups to surprises when people turn the pages. Sometimes I write the text first and then do these, but this time I did very, very basic scribbles to help me figure out how to structure the story. (No one would be able to work out what I've drawn except for me.)



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