Bags of Books, Lewes

It's been a busy week! On Thursday I was in London where Open Very Carefully was awarded Best Picture Book in the Waterstones Children's Book Prize (!!!), and on Saturday I was at Bags of Books in Lewes for a book event, where I tried out my new crocodile onesie (verdict: success, but must watch where I swing that tail). I think this might just be my best week ever. Thank you for having me, Bags of Books!

Use Your Imagination Book Cover

My new book with Nosy Crow has been sent off to the printers. It's due for publication in August 2014, which seems a long way away. In the meantime, here's a look at the cover!

Blackwell's Crafternoon

On Sunday I was at Blackwell's for part of the Love Charing Cross Road festival. In my Colour & Count books with Blue Apple Books, I go over some basic printmaking techniques, and I was at the festival to demonstrate printmaking using everyday items such as leaves, play-doh, cardboard, and poster paint. The event was open to adults and children of any age and artistic skill.

There was lots going on at the festival including free face painting across the road in Foyle's, so I decided I'd better get my war paint on before getting down to business.

Sarah at Blackwell's had done a fantastic job of getting things together together for our crafting session.  I think the bubble wrap prints are especially awesome.

This is a print I made using cardboard, in case you can't tell, it is a sad elephant.

Francis' crafting skills put me to shame.

Skills.

Lovely ladies having fun. Photo by Luke Rhodes.

Thank you for having me, Blackwell's! See you next year!

New Cards

Spring has finally sprung! I've been working on a new set of cards to celebrate.

Personal Favourites

I own a lot of picture books. Books with great stories, books with great illustrations, books with gatefolds, pop ups, lift the flaps, long ones, short ones, tall ones, wide ones, so many that I have started making new shelves on my book case by stacking books horizontally on top of the vertical ones. I never grew out of them and I know I never will. It would be impossible to make a Top Ten list.. but here are a few favourites:

 Rhinos don't eat pancakes by Anna Kemp, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

 Mr. Peek and the misunderstanding at the zoo by Kevin Waldron

 Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch

 I am an Artist by Marta Altes

 The General by Michael Foreman, text by Janet Charters

 Augustus And His Smile by Catherine Rayner

 The Arrival by Shaun Tan

 Big Rabbit's Bad Mood by Ramona Badescu, illustrated by Delphine Durand

 The Cockerel and the Fox by Helen Ward

Wave by Suzy Lee

T-Rex Process

What a varied past couple of weeks, I've been doing a couple different samples for publishers, and of some unusual subject matter (maybe I should say, unusual for me). Here is a T-Rex. The publisher wanted flat colour with texture on top, and a ferocious character. I hope I ticked the boxes!

Cardinals

It's been a few months! If you haven't already, and you'd like to, please 'like' my facebook page, Nicola O'Byrne Illustration, which I update almost daily. I have been trying a couple things out for a publisher. The text is lovely but a little tricky to illustrate. The feedback I got for my first sample was that it was lacking in personality and the relationship between the papa bird and the chick wasn't developed.

I've tried to simplify things down and zoom in, hopefully this works better.