Your miserable and most unworthy scribe goes to Durham!

What a day I had yesterday!!  I was very honoured to be asked up to the Palace Green Library in Durham to do a workshop as part of their Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition (which is amazing by the way, as is its region wide programme of events - well worth checking out!).

When I arrived in Durham it was clear that this exhibition is a very big deal - there are signs and banners for it everywhere, and the town, which I'm getting to know and love more with each visit, has a really nice buzz about it.

Anyway, here's what I did - a live drawn Lindisfarne Gospels timeline, taking you through the background of why it was made, who made it and how, and the ripping yarn of how it came to settle in Durham for hundreds of years...

Now, I say 'here's what I did'...but it should read 'here's what we did'.  The whole point of it was that large parts of it would be filled in by kids, parents, grandparents (and exhibition staff!) who popped in, and they really didn't let me down!

I also brought quill pens, reed pens and silverpoint for kids to try out, but as you can imagine didn't have much time for photogramaphising, so you'll have to imagine the chaos that entailed.


Oooh and another thing - I got a brief ten minutes to look around the exhibition itself, and I'll say again, it is absolutely fantastic.  I got the history bug doing the 'Discover The Lindisfarne Gospels' book, and I learnt so much more in just a few minutes wandering round.  I saw the big book itself which was amazing, but my fave bit was seeing St Cuthbert's pocket bible, which was taken from his coffin when he was exhumed and (I think!) is the oldest book in England (Europe? The world? Calling all experts!!)  to have survived with it's original leather binding intact....kinda lovely.  Click here for some more 'must see's .  A top exhibition, staffed by people who love the subject, which has some kind of intrigue at most turns...I thoroughly recommend it.

A big thank you is in order to everyone there for an absolutely fantastic day.

Brillustration take Marksbury Road!

On Saturday morning a crack squad of Brillustrators turned up at Marksbury Road Library to set up our 'Brillustration Saturday Scribble'..but conditions was icy, so it was anyones guess as to whether anyone would come.  

So did they?  Blimey..yes they did!

The next 3 hours were a frenzy of drawing, cutting out, story telling, badge making, clandestine biscuit eating and even snowman making.  The library reckons we had about 70 'paying punters' (50p each with squash and a biccy chucked in can't be bad!), and it felt like all of them got stuck in.

There was the normal riot of colour, cool pictures and requests to draw dinosaurs (you know who you are!)...

....and we also managed to jazz up the (already pretty snazzy) kids area, with a rabble of cut-out characters parading all round the tops of the bookshelves.

Sean Julian explains how he always likes to get into character before drawing a bear.

Some kids deciding to 'go 3D'

A MASSIVE THANKS to the Friends of Marksbury Road Library and library staff for inviting us, making us feel so welcome and putting in a considerable amount of legwork themselves.  

HATS OFF also to Brillustrators Sean Julian, Lauren Tobia, Paula Bowles, Rob Starling, Sam Church and Louise Cunningham, and all the kids and parents who turned up and drew like fiends- YOU ARE ACE!

AND REMEMBER KIDS - USE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!

Keepin it real down Bristol way again!

Spread the word Bristol peeps, spread the word...

The wizard....

And another one.  I would like to look like this when I grow up.

Fairy Trouble...

Another dedication, this time for the younger, girlier demographic...I'm afraid I tried drawing cute and princessy but it wasn't quite me....

Elementary....

Another picture for the lovely people at Ashton Gate School library!

This week oi av been drawing mostly....

...little monochrome pictures for dedication pages for library books at my kids' school.  I'll post more through next week..

Zooage and Sewage!

Variety is the spice of life.  This week I have done a fun but slightly odd poster for a Bristol Zoo sponsored walk...

... and been informed that I will shortly be receiving copies of a book about (hem hem) plop that I did the cover for some time back for the nice folks at A&C Black....

To round it off I have just completed a surreal Department Store scene (aren't all Dept Store scenes surreal..just slightly?) for an American kids' magazine - more when it's published, but rest assured there will be bears...

And finally apologies to all those waiting for their latest slice of pen nerdery.  I have all the ingredients in place for my ink making jaunt, except perhaps all the oak galls.  They are in my local oak tree in abundance, but I was having pangs of guilt about boiling them up before the tenants had left..wasps that is, I don't have lodgers... There will be an update soon!

More dinosaurs!

These (and the recent maracca shaking Steg) are from a raft of pics I did for Bristol Zoo's kids party room..an extra fun zoo job as it allowed the pictures to be as bold and silly as I liked (no-one could complain that the partying dinosaurs aren't 'accurate'!!).  Suggested names to the usual place.  Please note that i have already dibbsed 'Discostuosaurus'.

That it should come to this...

Here's me at my kids' school fete, sticking my head through one of my own creations (..and how many people can say that?).
I am dazed from standing in the sun for 3 hours manning a badge making stall, and am slightly worried I am going to be on the receiving end of another volley of wet sponges.  Welcome to middle age Mr Church!

All joking aside, a very good day was had! Oh and keep looking over your shoulders sponge throwers...

Redressing the balance

It occurs to me that being as I work as a children's illustrator, this blog is often maybe a tad:
a) monochrome
b) not of children's illustration
c) too wordy

Here is a picture of a dinosaur playing maraccas.

Durham!

Last year I was lucky enough to be asked to do a kid's guide book for the World Heritage Site of the lovely city of Durham.  I kinda fell in love with the place...hopefully the pics below give an idea why...

 Even luckier, they keep asking me back!  The most recent trip was a couple of weekends back, when I was asked to muck in with the WHS Visitor Centre team for a weekend of family workshops.   I worked with the kids (and parents and staff!) making illuminated letters, mythical beasts and most popular of all ....BADGES!

I bought a badgemaking machine, which turned out to be a very shrewd investment ... people could do their own designs, get me to draw something for them or do their initials in swanky medieval calligraphy (all with optional gold detailing as I had gold leaf too...).  As you can imagine that was me pretty much taken care of for the weekend!  Look at the photo above...not even P Diddy can boast of gold dandruff.

As you can see, in addition to drawing I also got to indulge my twin passions for looking gormless and wearing tudor hats..below you will see me just about managing to make said hat levitate..

Also, much to my amazement people starting asking me to sign their guidebooks....finally my moment in the sun!!  I would like to say a massive thankyou to all at Durham World Heritage Site Visitor Centre (staff and visitors) for a cracking weekend, and for making me feel so welcome...again!

A slight return..

Nearly forgot..on Tuesday last week I got asked back to Ashton Gate by my son's teacher to do a picture of Zeus for a display in the classroom (Greek Myths and Legends being their term project).   All in all a fun way to spend a lunchbreak!  Thanks son for filling me in on what Zeus looks like, could have been messy otherwise...

Sam's first writing effort gets mixed response from its characters..

Yep, after much hinting that it was coming out soon, the story wot I wrote (and illustrated)  for Driver Dan's Story Train did indeed air today (it's about 6 mins in).  Haven't got the kids' verdict yet as they were in bed by the time it I-playered, but I think I got away with it.  It's a daft story about a lion that rocks up uninvited for lunch and then won't eat anything he's given.

There is of course also some dancing...

And cos it's StoryTrain, more dancing at the end of story party!

Yay for the Driver, and thanks to all at StoryTrain for giving my story a whirl!  

Brillustration and Ashton Gate do book week

Dammit I've been itching to tell you about this for ages, but time has been against me (so many cartoon lemurs to draw!) and photos have been like hens teeth (massive thankyou to everyone that had the presence of mind to take a camera and let me use your photos!) .  A couple of weeks back I organised for a bunch of my Brillustration chums and me to descend on Ashton Gate Primary School in Bristol to help them celebrate book week.  

I've posted about it at length on the Brillustration site (and will do again as more pics come in) so I won't  go on about it too much here, but suffice to say there was a bit of this...

 ...a bit of this (I'm nothing if not a paper nerd...I also have thumbs to be proud of)..

a fair bit of this..

And a lot of this!

 It was mad week, but an incredibly enjoyable one.  The good folks at Ashton Gate are probably getting bored of me telling them how great they are, but I'll say it again...you're ace!  Of course I should also gently remind the kids not to get too good with the drawing...some of us have a living to make you know.....