AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATOR, SCHOOL WORKSHOPS AND FESTIVALS
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Other work
In addition to my own children's books, I've produced illustrations for other authors (collaborative work which I enjoy) as well as designing promotional posters, magazine artwork and book jackets. I've also created cartoons and comic strips for a variety of publications, including the Independent on Saturday, the Times Educational Supplement and The List. Have a look, and if you'd like to talk about commissioning me for your own publication or project, do get in touch!
INDEPENDENT ON SATURDAY MAGAZINE
Entitled Monuments for the Millennium, this series of cartoons for the Independent on Saturday magazine satirically imagined various public building projects in the run up to the year 2000.
Click for here for the bigger picture.
DEVELOPMENT OF AN ILLUSTRATION
The illustration above is from The Day Louis Got Eaten, showing all the monsters inside each other, which seems to intrigue both adults and children! If you click on it, you can read a short article about how I developed this picture book spread, with invaluable input from the editor and designer at Andersen Press.
THE TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT
This was a fun commission: a short run of cartoon strips for the TES's monthly First Appointments supplement, ironically entitled People Who Know More About Teaching Than You Do.
MODEL MAKING
All of my children's books feature invented vehicles of one sort or another, transporting my protagonists through air, sea and land. To assist me with the drawings, I sometimes construct small models of my inventions, such as the one above, which features in the opening and closing pages of my new book, The Day of the Daring Rescues (as well as being distantly visible throughout the story to readers with sharp enough eyes!)
Like the characters in my stories, I often make the inventions out of whatever comes to hand, although my construction skills are much slower than theirs! When I run workshops in schools, I find that pupils are really interested in this use of model-making, which can be a great spur to the imagination as well as an illustration tool. Click here to see how the models become the pictures.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
PUBLICITY IMAGE
My degree was in Performing Arts, and for several years I worked with Hunter Puppet Theatre, designing, making and performing in productions, mostly all over Scotland but once at a puppet theatre festival in Pakistan.
This publicity image was for Hunter Puppet Theatre's production of Alice in Wonderland, with the illustration based on the puppets I designed for the show. Click here to see the full picture.
THEATRE POSTERS
An early poster commission for Hunter Puppet Theatre, for their production of Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant. Click on the picture to see the full poster.
THE SCOTTISH BOOK TRUST
LIVE LITERATURE
An artwork commission for the Scottish Book Trust, an amazing organisation that has been transforming lives through books since 1998. Many of my school workshops are done via their brilliant Live Literature programme, which brings reading and writing to the heart of Scotland’s communities by co-funding author events. Annually, it supports events that reach over 20,000 people across all 32 Scottish authorities. You can find out more about my own sessions on the Schools and Festivals page, more about Live Literature here, and if you click on the aeoplane above, you'll see the full version of my picture, which celebrates many aspects of the Scottish Book Trust's excellent work.
THE MODERN PARENTS
AND THE CRITICS
Back in the early 1990s, I began getting freelance work published in the adult comic Viz, with my most popular long-running strips being The Modern Parents, featuring the insufferably self-rightous Malcolm and Cressida and their defiant sons Tarquin and Guinevere, and The Critics, featuring the ludicrously pretentious Crispin and Natasha and their misadventures in the arts.
Click here for brief examples.
CARTOON STRIPS
For many years I produced a cartoon strip entitled Hanover Square for the trade magazine, Property Week. With the input of factual briefings from the editors (supplementing my own complete lack of knowledge of the commercial property industry!) my storylines satirised the tricky issues and dubious culture of that world through the the fictional firm Bragg, Boombe & Bust. You can check out a few more of Sarah and Steve's obnoxious clients here, as well as their appalling boss Douglas.
DEVELOPMENT OF AN ILLUSTRATION
Click on the picture above to read a short article about the thought process behind this, the first picture in The Day Louis Got Eaten.
ILLUSTRATION WORK
I usually work in pen-and-ink and watercolour, but sometimes use other media. This was a publicity illustration that I created for Henry and the Seahorse – a play by a Danish Theatre company – using paper collage to create a bold and bright effect.
THE LIST MAGAZINE
This is a cover I created for The List, Edinburgh and Glasgow's fortnightly arts and events magazine. It was a challenge for my drawing skills, as the sleigh holds various famous people who were featured in this festive issue. From left to right: Moby, Courtney Pine, Boy George, Robert de Niro, a puppy from the live action film of 101 Dalmations, the Grinch and comedian Phil Kay.
For quite a few years, I was the magazine's cartoonist, producing a cartoon or comic strip each fortnight related to something being covered in that issue. Click here to see a few examples.
BOOK JACKETS
I designed the cover for this anthology of new children's stories, all inspired by Edinburgh. It was published by Birlinn in support of the One City Trust.
ILLUSTRATING OTHER AUTHORS
I also illustrated all the stories in the One City anthology. I really enjoy the opportunity to illustrate stories by other authors, and I varied my style for some of the stories – for instance, producing silhouette pictures for The Portabello Piper by Julie Bertagna and drawing the illustrations for Keith Gray's schoolboy graffiti story with biro on lined school-jotter paper (with added smudgy fingerprints!). Click here to see some examples.
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For my own story in the book, I produced a little comic strip with no words or speech balloons at all. There's a long tradition of wordless comic strips and it's a fun challenge to convey an entire story with just pictures, giving a different kind of reading experience. Click here to see the whole two-page story.
FESTIVAL POSTERS
For some years, I designed publicity material for Scotland's annual Puppet Animation Festival, some of which you can see here. (The stripy-topped puppeteer and puppet were the festival's logo figures, originally created by renowned puppet performer, Shona Reppe).
SCOTTISH BOOK TRUST TOURS
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This was a picture commissioned to celebrate Scottish Book Trust's school's touring programme, entitled Words on Wheels, sponsored by Scottish Friendly Assurance. As you can see, I've somewhat re-imagined their minibus! You can spot me waving from the roof – click on the picture for a better view!