It's a picture book idea for older children exploring the intensity and drama of children’s play and the big sister/little sister dynamic. I remembered how stories I told my little sister were often quite scary and how hands could magically become a stag, a crow or a rabbit and that a sheet could be a world. Little Sister is also in each image for the viewer to find. It was great to do some black and white images. They were made digitally incorporating some handmade textures. I've put some of my sketchbook drawings next to them.
More printy experiments, this time done with Play-doh prints with digital overlay. They were done for Folktale Week - you can read the whole story on my Instagram page.
Experiments with liquid charcoal monoprints made for the Once Upon a Winter challenge run by Orange Beak Studios. The monoprints were the starting point for this project. I layered several up and then looked for landscapes for Bear, Belle and Arthur to inhabit; a bit like looking for shapes in the clouds. It was lovely to develop Bear and Belle's characters further and take them outside to play. Longlisted for the World Illustration Awards 2023
I've enjoyed making these, they are all based on the original Pinocchio story but I've used vintage toys as inspiration to create all the characters; the con merchant cat is from a Czech skittle set, the magpie was based on Japanese folkart pull along toy and the fish are inspired by celluloid Fortune Telling Fish - do you remember them? They were made as a square concertina book so you see the left half of the image first, it stretches out to reveal a linked landscape.
Sometimes I like to come at story sideways; by using animation I had to keep things very simple to tell a tale of not going to bed.
This little girl was so absorbed in her book that she didn't notice me sketching her and the circular seat was such a good frame for these spots. I've tried to keep the spontaneity of the original drawings by using a limited palette and a very textured pencil line. Can you see what book she's reading? It's one of my favourites. Swipe to take a closer look.
