And the winner is...

My little assistant picked a name out of a hat for my greeting card giveaway today, and the winner is.......Jeannie! Well done lady, they'll be making their way over to you soon, hooray! And a big thanks to everyone who left lovely comments :) 

Greeting cards giveaway!

To celebrate Spring and all it's lovely colours and sunshine, I've decided to do a giveaway, hooray! Here's a selection of greeting cards I've worked on over the years for PK Press, USA. They are:

3 x Birthday cards including one for a 1 year old

3 x New Baby cards

1 x Peace card (well, it's a slightly out of season Christmas card!)

To enter, simply leave a comment here on my blog or my Facebook page about when you last sent a card and what the occasion was. Winner will be picked at random on Sunday 27th April. Good luck! :)

Julia and the Triple C

I received my copy of "Julia and the Triple C" the other day, and what a lovely treat it is! It's a beautifully illustrated picture book by my friend Staffan Gnosspelius. Gorgeous colours and lovely textures, really warm and magical and rich, "about enjoying the little things in life that are often overlooked". Me and my boy have been enjoying reading it everyday :)

I'm a Little Alien

Here's some artwork I recently completed for James Carter's book of poems "I'm a Little Alien". This is my 3rd collaboration with James. My first ever illustration commission was with him back in 2002, titled "Cars, Stars, Electric Guitars" for Walker Books, then followed "Hey, Little Bug" for Frances Lincoln in 2011. You can see the style of my work has changed quite a bit over the years.

The challenge for me with these books is that the inside illustrations are B/W, and I'm used to working in colour, but I've really been enjoying creating collages using muted tones. I also love working with James as he's such a lovely bloke and his poems are really fun! Even better, included in this collection is a poem he wrote for Oki titled "Duck!" :D

"I'm a Little Alien" will be published by Frances Lincoln this August!

Stripy bear

I'm still trying to get rid of all the odd bits of wool I have. This is my latest woolly creation, a stripy bear. He's quite a squishy cuddly fella :)

Languages

I've been reading a Mexican folktale to Oki, about a Coyote and a Rabbit. At the end of the book there is a glossary of Spanish sentences, which I've been reading as well. It seems someone has been taking all this in, as he completed a sentence I was struggling to remember. I couldn't believe it! Admittedly, the pronunciation is probably all wrong as I have no idea how to speak Spanish :P

I try to get Oki to translate Japanese into English often. We helped a blind man across the road one day, and later on I asked Oki to tell his Daddy about it. He doesn't know the word "blind", so was hesitating and thinking awhile before he said "the can't see people". It was interesting to see what words he'd choose out of his vocabulary to try and explain something.

It's fascinating stuff, the beginnings of language and a toddler's mind. I'm constantly amazed by how much he's absorbing. My tired old brain just can't retain that much information anymore. It's a struggle enough to remember what day it is.

Hide & Seek

We've been playing Hide & Seek, me and my boy. Funny, he thinks if he doesn't look at me, he's hidden, even though he is pretty much standing in front of me.

The other day when we played, his farty bottom gave his position away. He was doing such a good job of hiding as well :P