I have had another productive week, characters developed and final image drawn for a bit of speculative work. Need to get them well presented and sent off.

From that I have been playing around with new style, very loose for me, My work is usually so tight and fiddly, but have enjoyed the challenge and liked the results, it is always good to work outside the comfort zone and sometimes we learn new things about ourselves.

This playing around with new styles for me has lead to this piece. My dear friend Mary has been nicely nagging me to draw her cats for ages and the new style seemed to fit perfectly (or should that be purrfectly?)

Anyway here is the sketch I did of Chester, Mary's beautiful cat (well one of them) and followed by my moggy Monty. The shape and styles still need working on but from the initial results I am really quite pleased.

Well now back to work on the Small Worlds project and some sketch ideas for a commission for a friend, busy, busy!

Aarrrhhh! this is so frustrating! I am working on two projects at the mo, one of which I really hope to sign a contract on soon, done so much work and know it will be 'big' if and when it happens, but more than that I cannot tell you.

The other is speculative work, developing characters and spreads, having so much fun letting my hair down with this one, trying so hard to loosen up my style a tad, which is so out of my comfort zone, but so far really liking the results, would love to show you all, but I can't.

It's so hard being creative and not being able to share it yet, so for now, sorry they stay under wraps!

Yesterday I had a great day at a masterclass in London run by SCBWI and Little Tiger Press.
LTP had sent out a brief to SCBWI writers earlier this year to write a picture book. These stories were then sent out to illustrators to develop the characters and illustrate spreads.

My story was Megan Dragon and the Monster written by Jim Northcott.
The story was a big challenge for me as I felt I needed to develop all the characters as they all play a big part in the story. Three boy dragons, Flash, Dash and Rory and little Megan their sister and of course the monster too.

Here are my characters...

The masterclass was good, constructive feedback and an insight into children's book publishing.

I came away totally inspired and decided to crack on with a bit of 'Mo and Po'... here is todays piece...

So much to do and too little time as always! anyway off to do some more work on the Small Worlds now.