Liverpool Central Library

I'm doing a lot of travelling around at the moment (as well as writing of course) as schools and libraries everywhere are celebrating Book Week. Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the day at the wonderful Central Library in Liverpool (recently refurbished).

The library is a huge and impressive building from the outside but since its refurbishment it has become even more impressive inside...

Throughout the day I met children from St Cleopas Primary School and from St Francis de Sales Primary School... it was an absolute pleasure meeting everyone that came along - we had a great time.



The sessions were all held in the huge Children's Library, or Discovery Room... a very airy and bright room with lots of space.



I had a little wander round Liverpool Centre at lunchtime but spent most of my free time just having a wander around the library itself... The Reading Room with its rows of books on different levels and spiral stairs is very impressive and atmospheric.

 

After the visit I set of for Peterborough as today I'm visiting Gunthorpe Primary School - so here's a Big Hello to everyone there. See you soon. Which reminds me... I'd better get going.

Interview with Marijke van Velhoven

Earlier this year I was asked to write a couple of funny stories for Oxford University Press for their Oxford Reading Tree - Treetops Chucklers, series. It was lots of fun writing the stories and it's been great seeing them being brought to life by the wonderful Dutch illustrator Marijke van Veldhoven, that the publisher chose to illustrate them.

When I visit schools and talk about the illustrations, children and adults are often surprised to hear that I don't choose the illustrator and I don't tell the illustrator what to do... In fact, most of the time, authors and illustrators don't actually talk very much about the book that is being created between them. Children ask me lots of questions about the illustrators but I can't always answer them... luckily, Marijke was happy to help with this and here she answers a lot of the questions that children have been asking me...

What is the best thing about being an illustrator?

The very best thing about being an illustrator is; doing what I love as a living. I have been drawing everything and on everything since I was little (it drove teachers crazy) and it was wonderful to make it to an art school. For the first time I could do art full time! After that I worked hard to make a living with my illustrations and I've been doing that ever since. It's great to create something for others to enjoy. And I like making jokes in pictures too (I do that with stand-up cartooning too, making funny cartoons during a meeting or training session).

How long would it take you to do all of the pictures for a book (like the Sock Eater and Nelly’s Nest) ?

All the pictures in a book! It can different for each book. But for 'The Sock Eater and Nelly's Nest' it took me 4 weeks for the sketches and 6 weeks for the colour art work. On a big picture book I would work for months!

Is it hard thinking of how people or creatures will look?
 

Sometimes it is hard to get them just right. With a little cheek, or very strict or just very lovable. And sometimes I get it right immediately. I have a special sketching strategy to design the characters.

 

Do you have to do lots of rough sketches of characters before you are happy with them?

Yes I do, most of the time. The characters always need fixing before they are right. And of course they need to look good from every angle.

What is the hardest thing to draw?

For me, the hardest things to draw are cars.

What are your favourite things to draw?

I love to draw people and animals.

 

What do you not like to draw?

 

Cars (no surprise there)

Do you use computers to help with your drawing?

The drawing is done by hand. Colouring I do by hand and with photoshop (or combined).

What do you like to draw and colour with? (Paint, pastels, pencils, chalk...)

Sketching with a good old pencil. I use pen and ink a lot. For colouring I use gouache and some water colours. 

Were you really good at drawing when you were at school?

Yes, I had some talent and I practiced a LOT.

Apart from yourself, who is your favourite illustrator?

I love several illustrators: The Tjong Khing, Annemarie van Haeringen, Quentin Blake, David Roberts, Peter van Straaten, Maaike Hartjes and many more.

How many books have you illustrated?

I've illustrated about 25 books.

And finally the answers to those questions that everyone gets asked...

 

Favourite food: a good lasagne.

Favourite animal: cat.

Favourite colour: green.

A big thank you to everyone that gave me questions to ask Marijke - and a special thank you to Marijke herself for taking the time to answer them... As soon as I see finished pictures (and the finished book itself, I will let you see it here.) You can see more of Marijke's work by visiting her website... the writing is in Dutch of course so you might have some difficulty reading the text but there are lots of pictures and video clips to look at...

Book Week

Another quick diary entry here just to say a big hello to everyone at Ysgol Bro Gwydir and Ysgol Capel Garmon in Llanrwst, Ysgol Betws y Coed, Ysgol Cerrigydudion and Ysgol Llangwm... I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone this week in the libraries... see you soon.

More big hellos for next week to everyone at Crackley Bank Primary School in Chesterton, St Margaret's CE Primary School, Gunthorpe Primary School in Peterborough and Holly Mount Primary in Bury... Also looking forward to visiting the new Central Library in Liverpool for sessions there next week... phew!!! a busy time.

Hoping to fit in quite a bit of writing too...

Keep your eyes open for tomorrow's diary entry as it will feature an interview with the wonderful illustrator Marijke van Veldhoven - who has been busy illustrating a little book that will be published early next year by Oxford University Press called Smelly Socks and Terrible Tangles...

Ince St Mary's Primary School

Here's a Big HELLO to everyone at Ince St Mary's Primary School - I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow and hope that you all have a fun day... 

Today I'm busy writing, and researching, all about Christopher Columbus for a book I'm working on so I haven't got much time to write in my diary. I've been interested in Columbus and Explorers since I was in Primary School and one of my favourite books was this wonderful pop-up book all about Columbus's voyage to the new world. The cover of the book has a ship's wheel that rotates to reveal sections of a map. The middle of the book is a fantastic pop up of Columbus's three ships - the Santa Maria, the Nina and the Pinta.

Over the next few weeks I will keep adding little diary entries to say hello and to let you know what I'm up to and where I've been.

Blood Brothers

Right now I'm hard at work on a longer fiction book - and I'm having lots of fun writing it... I can't tell you much about it but I can tell you that the unlikely hero of the book is a young boy called Stanley Shrimpton... there are quite a few nasty characters in the book too - like Dr X (that's not his name but I'm not going to give that away at the moment) and his nasty side-kick Bananas (he's not really called Bananas but that's his nickname... his real name is ??? Hmmm... you will have to wait for that one too.)

As well as this, I'm doing some research for some non-fiction books - It's quite exciting to do this as it's not what I normally do...

We've had a busy weekend doing the usual boring things like shopping and tidying the house etc, but it's not all work though...

....on Saturday we went to the theatre in Llandudno - Venue Cymru - to see the most excellent Blood Brothers...  A marvellous, moving, musical play written by Willy Russell. If you ever get the chance to go and see it then we would highly recommend it... it's funny and sad and powerful - great entertainment.

Ed-Alleyne Johnson

We love living near Chester, it's an old and beautiful city, full of character, life and history. 

One of the many  things that add to it's life and atmosphere are the street performers and buskers - and there are some extremely talented buskers to be heard on the streets of the city.
One of the most popular and most accomplished has to be Ed-Alleyne Johnson, a very impressive electric violinist, composer and performer. We already had a couple of Ed's cd's but whilst shopping for a present for Vicky's birthday I thought it would be nice to get another (Echoes) and have him sign it for her.

 

If you're not lucky enough to live near Chester and hear Ed for yourself, give him a listen on You Tube...



A Postcard From Tenby

It's back to work and school for everyone now but I hope you've enjoyed the summer holidays as much as we have.

I've got lots of writing to be getting on with and quite a few school and library visits already set up for the coming months. If you are interested in having a visit to your school, please get in touch as soon before all the best dates get taken up. I've managed to get a bit of work done during the summer but we've also had a few nice days out together so over the next week or so I will let you know what we've been up to and let you see a few photographs.

 

We visited Tenby again this year and had a lovely time. The weather was great (most of the time) and we even managed to have a little swim in the sea.

We thought it would be really nice if we could go on a boat to see whales, dolphins, puffins and who knows what else, so we drove to Martin's Haven to board a little boat that would take us out on a bit of a sea safari. The water was calm near the shore but got a little choppier further out so we were given waterproof clothes and lifejackets to keep us warm and dry. It was roasting when we put them on but I'm glad we did as it was certainly a bit cooler out at sea.  

  

 

The boat whizzed across the water, bouncing along from time to time and covering us is spray as we headed to Grassholm - a small uninhabited island about 8 miles off the Pembrokeshire Coast. Although no people live on the island, it's the home to thousands of Gannets. From a distance it looks like the island is covered in snow but as you get closer you can see and hear all of the birds (when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction you can smell them too).  

 

As well as the Gannets diving into the sea and circling overhead there were seals soaking up the sun on the rocks below... it was quite a sight.

 

After leaving Grassholm, the boat took us to two other little islands - Skomer and Stokholm - to get a closer look at the seals and see the Guillemots and Kittiwakes in the nests on the cliffs. We caught a fleeting glance of a couple of Porpoises as they came up for air but sadly we didn't see any dolphins. The Puffins had all headed off to see a few days before so we didn't see those either but we still had a great time.   



 We spent most of the time just relaxing and having a wander round Tenby and some of the other towns and villages, but we did go and visit Pemberton's Chocolate Farm where we saw how they make all of their delicious, handmade, chocolates. In the picture above you can see some of their chocolate animals and eggs. We even got to taste some of the chocolate and make one for ourselves... Yum!