Bologna Children's Book Fair 2024

My first trip to Bologna Children’s Book Fair!!

This is an international trade show where all of the publishers from around the world sell their children’s books to different countries. A huge event in the Children’s book publishing calendar. As an illustrator it’s just nice to visit and see how the industry works. The visual feast of illustration on display is overwhelming and inspiring in equal measures!

Each year they have a Guest of Honour country and this year it was Slovenia. I have just completed a series of 4 picture books for the Slovenian publisher Morfemplus so I had to go!! Here I am meeting them. They were so lovely to me . .

I also visited the Nosy Crow stand to have a chat with the fab Tegan and see some of my books on display there. .

And the lovely Good Ship Illustration were also there, a group of amazing people who have helped so many of us with our work development.

We had opportunities to meet up with other illustrators, authors and agents, (didn’t photograph them all I’m so rubbish!) . .

After the show we could wind down in the beautiful city of Bologna and explore the piazzas and side streets then sit and watch the world go by. Look how gorgeous it is. .

I did some sketches. .

There seemed to be illustration everywhere we looked. .

The reward after walking round the fair all day was a beautiful meal. They are very proud of their local produce. .

I can eat pasta until it comes out of my ears so I was very happy in Italy.

Maybe we need a return visit next year. It was such a blast.

Grazie e ciao!!!

*Ruby Flew Too is 20 years old!! 2004 - 2024*

Today the author Jonathan Emmett and I are celebrating our book “Ruby Flew Too” reaching the ripe old age of 20 years old!!! Woohoo! This was actually the first picture book that I ever illustrated and it became a lovely series of 3 books about a little yellow duckling.

Read on for special news of our Omnibus edition of the Ruby collection plus a competition!!!

Ruby is the smallest of five ducklings, who is last to hatch, last to eat, last to swim but she eventually blossoms “in her own time!”

An early sketch of Ruby

Here are the other two books in the trilogy . .

Ruby has been translated into 8 different languages! And has also been adapted into a stage show by the fabulous Topsy Turvey Theatre! Here they are with their beautiful puppets!

Topsy Turvy Theatre

Despite it being 20 years since we made the first Ruby book, Jonathan and I only managed to meet in person last Summer. I think we can safely say that we did it “in our own time!”

These are photos of our day together and Jonathan also brought the Ruby toy that I made him so we could have a photo shoot.

Omnibus Edition : To mark the anniversary of Ruby Flew Too, Jonathan and I have published a print-on-demand paperback omnibus edition which contains all three Ruby books in One!! Click HERE for the link to buy.

Because Jonathan and I are so excited about Ruby’s birthday and the release of the Ruby collection, we are also running a COMPETITION (UK only sorry) on our social media sites HERE, HERE and HERE. Follow the instructions on the posts and good luck with your entry! We hope you’re a winner!

Competition prizes!!

Jonathan and I would like to thank all of you who have bought the Ruby books over the years and who have written to us because the stories have resonated with you for one reason or another. We’re proud to keep this lovely series in print and hope she is loved for another 20 years. Happy Birthday Ruby!

Looking back at 2023 . . . (I'd put the kettle on first!..)

It’s been a busy year of the Rabbit! I feel lucky having so much work on. Recently I finished illustrating my 50th children’s book which is amazing how that’s happened. At the end of last year I signed a contract for a 4 book deal with a lovely publisher in Slovenia. It’ll be full time working on these for the next year and a half- like a busy train chugging non stop until next March. Here are some images I’m allowed to show you so far… 

March ‘23: Dear Mothman, a gorgeous mid grade novel written by Robin Gow and published by Abrams came out into the world. I love this book so much. The story is written like a diary. It’s so moving and magical. The cover artist Tracy J Lee made the jacket illustration and I illustrated the inner foiled cover and b/w insides. It was a joy! Please read it!

Saw a lot of Live music this year - lots of different genres. These were my faves though…

April ‘23: It’s SO important to do art for fun. That’s where you learn new things but because of my deadlines this year, it was hard to find that time. So I’m grateful for the evening Drink&Draw sessions in Cardiff. They’re lovely social events and you get to meet all the other doodlers that usually work alone. Here’s what we got up to…

And I managed to squeeze a bit of sketching on holiday too…

May ‘23: My very first picture book that I illustrated was called Once Upon a Time Upon a Nest written by Jon Emmett. That was nearly 20 years ago!! And Jonathan and I weirdly, have never met!!! This May he and his wife Rachel, made it happen and came to Wales for a lovely visit. It was a beaut sunny day and I took them to the beach for a dip in the sea then we looked around our fab local welsh museum at St Fagans. Jonathan brought the Ruby toy that I made him, for a photo shoot!

July ‘23: On another scorching day, my agent Alice Williams had an agency drinks evening in London by the river. It was so lovely to meet other authors and illustrators and talk about our strange day jobs. 

I like to donate work every year to raise funds for good causes. This year they were for. .

The Bookmark Project, DoodleDay Epilepsy Action and Children in Read (Children in Need)

July ‘23: I made some very different art with Jon Ruddick in the collaborative art space Shift (Cardiff)

Sept ‘23: Topping up on some visual beauty for my illustration brain library, I visited a Dahlia field with a friend and we picked a bunch each and skipped around in dahlia heaven and didn’t want to leave even though it was raining.

Nov ‘23: For the first time I joined in the online illustration challenge Folktaleweek. A great chance to stretch the imagination in a different direction using their daily prompts. Because of my other work I couldn’t do the full week- but I did 4! And 4 is better than none I say. Here they are… (the prompts I managed to do were : Lost, Ink, Underground, Illusion)

How funny that I’ve actually had a few Rabbity things to celebrate during the Year of the Rabbit. . Look. . 

Nov ‘23: Snow Bunny’s Christmas Show came out into the world In November. Published by Nosy Crow (written in-house), we worked hard on this project last year during a heatwave. I remember painting snow whilst melting in my studio in the high temps. The seasons never seem to align with my book projects! Apparently the Snow Bunny series is in 16 territories around the world so far! I’m so happy! 

An article was published in the Costco magazine in Canada to celebrate the release of Snow Bunny’s Christmas Show in French.

On the same book birthday as Snow Bunny’s Christmas Show, A House for Christmas Mouse came out in a new Board Book edition just in time for Christmas!

Dec ‘23: And finally I was asked by Nosy Crow to paint a bookshop window in lovely North Books in Hay on Wye- a smashing end to the Year of the Rabbit!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone! Thank you for all your interest and support. If you liked the blog entry, please click the heart at the bottom and I’ll know you were here. Thank you!

Snow Bunny's Christmas Show Release

“Snow Bunny’s Christmas Show”

After working hard on this project in the heatwave of 2022 (the seasons rarely align with book seasons!) it’s wonderful to see the third Snow Bunny book out in the world. In this Wintry tale, the friends put on a show for all the other woodland creatures. Who doesn’t love a show at Christmas!?

Nosy Crow the publishers have put silver foil sparkles on every page which makes this a special gift for a loved one.

Dear Mothman. . .

Dear Mothman is out in the U.S today!! A middle grade novel written beautifully in verse by Robin Gow. The cover was created by Tracy J. Lee and the inside illustrations are by me.

Published by Abrams

At the time I was really booked up with work and thought I wouldn’t be able to fit this in but as soon as I read Robin’s moving story I knew I just had to do it somehow. It’s such a gorgeous novel, I got a little obsessed with it. Written in verse in the form of a journal a young trans boy deals with the loss of his close friend Lewis and finds comfort in writing to the cryptid Mothman in this journal. It’s a very hopeful story and we follow the main character Noah as he finds his way through this difficult time with a little help from some new friends and the special cryptid🖤

My challenge was to make a number of drawings from the perspective of the 2 young trans boys Noah and Lewis. I had to really think about this and try and stop my adult self getting in the way of the style.

Also I made several more realistic drawings of items and photographs that Noah had slotted into his journal.

Shout out also to Tracy J Lee’s lovely cover art and Deena at @abramskids who was so easy to work with and allowed me to make some creased paper suggestions in the book.
This moving novel explores grief, friendship and gender identity and has magic and secrecy woven throughout, describing childhood perfectly. You all really need to read this gorgeous book!!

Looking back at 2022

A belated Happy New Year everyone. It’s nice to file last year’s timetable into a blog just to remember. This is a bit of a diary dump, maybe grab a cuppa before you sit down and read it. I hope it’s not too long!

I’ve had a lovely run of books since last Spring which will take me well into 2025. After this period I will have illustrated over 50 books! Crikey! Unbelievable!

The start of last year was more varied however, and I got to meet . . .

. . Hywel Dda school in Cardiff and did a lovely collage workshop. They were all fab children. Clever and engaged.

April I went with some illustrator pals to the London Book fair for a browse around the Children’s Book Publisher’s stands and meet my agent and publisher Nosy Crow.

April The author Lucy Owen and I did a big online event for schools about our book “Flower Girl” and then planted a blossom tree in the lovely Santes Tudful primary school in Merthyr . .

May Next, Lucy and I had a book event in Waterstones Swansea, drawing , reading and book signing with local schools . . .

I like to make donations to charity each year, and in 2022 I gave some original artwork to the Bookmark project, Epilepsy doodle auction and Children in Read. All to raise money for brilliant causes. .

June I did a very big workshop with Cardiff Libraries and 71 children. We had no tables but they worked brilliantly on the floor, and we cut out and stuck down some amazing collage house concertina books. It was brilliant. I had a helpful interpreter as the children couldn’t speak English and we muddled through so well, producing some fantastic art. They made me cry. .

June I made a ridiculous birthday cake for my lovely girl. It was a real throwback from the 70’s and made us laugh . .

June I finished the black and white illustrations in a middle grade book for an American publisher. I didn’t really have time to do this one but I fell in love with the story so much that I just had to! The author is Robin Gow. It’s gorgeous and out in March ‘23 (I don’t think I’m allowed to show much yet but here’s a sneaky peak -I hope I’m not breaking the law!)

July Phew! Live music! again! We went to see the lovely Unthanks.

My plum tree went into mega drive and I had to stop everything and get cooking. I made . .

Jam, Coulis, plum upside down cake and crumbles. It was like the magic porridge pot with plums!!!

We managed to fit in a small but dreamy holiday full of walks, swims and sketching. The tonic we needed . . .

Oct I tried to keep up with Inktober again this year. Daily prompts to draw with ink in the month of October. There are some for sale in my website shop here

My baby girl went to University yikes! Time for a poignant sketch in the car . .

During the heatwave I worked on the illustrations for a snowy Picture Book! I had to really get my imagination working. The hot Summer made my paints dry too quickly and I ended up misting everything with water to slow it down, I had to mist myself too! It was boiling! The story was about Snow Bunny and has become the third in the lovely series with Nosy Crow. It felt like I was back with an old friend. I finished it all in December and my desk was a big, messy pile of paintings! This book will be out in October ‘23

Meeting the lovely readers

April 2022

When there’s enough space in the illustration diary, I can fit in an event or two and meet the important little people who read the books I have illustrated. This is a wonderful opportunity and my favourite part of this is listening to their ideas and comments. They are funny and honest and inspiring and I always feel brimming with emotions when I leave.

Lucy Owen and I have worked on 2 books together and we’ve enjoyed putting on several events but this was a big one! In the morning we did an online session featuring our book “FlowerGirl” - Lucy read extracts from the book and I taught the children how to sketch some blossom. 500 children were watching!!! Woweee!!! And the results were fantastic!!!!!

The lovely publishers Atebol had some extra funding and so used it to buy Cherry Blossom trees for lots of Welsh schools!!!! How gorgeous!! Here we are visiting one of the schools in the afternoon and we all planted it together! This lovely school in Merthyr is going to put benches around their tree one day and make it a quiet space to sit. While we were there I got to see the pupil’s drawings from the morning online session - ( in the flesh!! ) They were so amazing!!!! Take a look . . .

May 2022

Another event we put on, took place in Waterstones Swansea. A beautiful art deco building that was once a cinema. 2 schools visited us and we loved interacting with them and seeing their response to “Flowergirl”.

Lucy was amazing at keeping the classes entertained with reading, rapping and questions about superpowers while I did a LIVE painting of the front cover of our book with a twist. . . .

I made an aperture in the painting where the face of Cherry would normally go. Instead a lucky pupil could put their face through the hole and model for us all!

Brilliant! 👏🏼 It worked!!! And the schools got to take the paintings away with them! Thank you to all those who attended our events. We’ve loved doing them and meeting you all!! Hopefully it will encourage the future budding authors and illustrators out there!

Happy New Year Everyone!

It’s funny when I pondered over the work I’d done in the past year, it felt like I’d done very little. But when I compiled my list, it felt quite plump and healthy. Peppered in amongst the usual distracting domestic things, was a lovely collection of jobs. Here’s a few of them…..

The year started with some more illustrated packaging labels (which I LOVE doing) These were for 2 female businesses based here in Cardiff, both of which sell products I totally believe in. Check them out! The first provides a therapy space with amazing treatments plus beautiful organic products to calm and relax and the second is a female beekeeper with a range of gins containing her honey. Both dream jobs and I always love creating designs for them.

In Spring I was thrilled to be asked by the French publisher Gründ and Greenpeace to do a spread in a children’s picture book. It was a collaboration with lots of other illustrators and the book guides children and parents to live a more earth-friendly and sustainable life. I chose the palm oil subject. This is my spread…

Notre Planète. Gründ

I was so lucky to have a middle grade book published with Lucy Owen and Atebol in the Spring. The book had a beautiful blossom theme and we managed to get it out into the world while the actual blossom was still on the trees!!!

Flower Girl by Lucy Owen. Published by Atebol

I made a film for Pontypridd Children’s Book festival , a new skill I’ve had to learn (like alot of us have!) I really enjoyed filming, compiling extra bits and editing it. Watch it here

I sketched out doors nearly every day to keep my observational skills awake. And the fresh air and watching the seasons change is so good for the soul. I’ll expand on this subject later in the year but for now, here are a few pages from my sketch books. . . .

I like to help some of the charities that approach me during the year. I had a bit of time to create some pieces for auctions and do a couple of workshops online to help adults and small children. The workshops produced some fabulous artwork!! and really lifted us during socially distanced times.

Online art challenges are a good way to produce a new body of work and if there’s time, I like to take part in Inktober. This is an online drawing challenge using ink, with daily prompts for inspiration. Ink is a little change of medium for me! 31 drawings in a row is quite a commitment though!! But by the end of it your creative brain is trained up and your drawing skills have had a work out!! Here are a selection below- some are still available to buy in my website shop. . . .

So that’s a wrap for 2021. I hope you enjoyed some of the projects I showed above. I look forward to getting stuck into a new book project this month and developing some new portfolio pieces for my lovely agent. Thank you for reading this far, Thank you to all who have supported my work online or bought/borrowed my books. The feedback I get from all over the world is mind blowing and really keeps me inspired. If you liked this blog entry, please press LIKE at the end. Thank you again and Happy 2022 xxxxx

The release of "Flower Girl". Written by Lucy Owen. Published by Atebol.

This month shows the release of the middle grade reading book “Flower Girl”. This is my second fab collaboration with Welsh author and newsreader Lucy Owen ( see “The SeaHouse” in my blog here )

“Flower Girl” is a beautiful story of a girl called Cherry. Her mother wants a child more than anything else in the world and her wishes come true when Cherry is formed out of the blossom petals of her cherry tree.

With soft pink curls and her butterfly friend that lives in her hair, she’s a little different to everyone else. At school Cherry tries to fit in, but that’s when things start to go wrong.

Lucy sent me this magical story 2 years ago to read over. It conjured images in my head there and then, and before we even had a publisher, I began painting the main character ‘Cherry’ straight away. I just had to capture on paper what was whizzing around in my head.

That painting became the image that was used on the front cover.

The Welsh publisher, Atebol agreed to publish the book in Spring 2021 and confirmed that I would make the illustrations. Lucy and I were over the moon. They were so brilliant to work with and Rachel the Editor had a fantastic eye for detail so we really feel like we’ve put our ‘all’ into the book.

Because of the printing involved with this type of reading book, the illustrations inside have to be black and white. I love working this way and black and white can create lovely atmospheric pieces. I used charcoal powder and graphite pencil to make an illustration for each chapter. Then I designed extra pieces that would decorate the title page and ends of chapters. Here are some of them below. . . .

Cherry being formed from Blossom petals

We hope that you will love reading this modern day fairytale as much as we loved creating it.

Flower Girl can be purchased here

Pontypridd Book Festival is virtual again for May 2021

How fabulous to be asked again to talk at Pontypridd’s Children’s Book Festival. This year we are virtual again but how fantastic to still be able to celebrate the joyful world of children’s books together.

Watch my film HERE.

To tie in with the release this month of my 45th illustrated book, I chose to create a little craft project around this beautiful book, written by the Welsh author and newsreader Lucy Owen. The book is called “Flower Girl” and is about a young girl that’s made out of the cherry blossom petals in her mum’s garden. What a lovely thought.

So I showed the viewers how to make some little fairy characters out of petals and leaves and how to make a little concertina book to store them in.

First of all we made the scene inside the book…

Then we went outside and collected lots of pretty leaves and flowers to make our little characters…

These were found out and about in my garden.

Next was the fun bit, we made our little fairies. Here they are stuck on lollipop sticks like puppets…

We made a cover for the book and this is how mine looked….

I hope you managed to make your own fairy book with me. Please share them on social media with @pontykidsbooks and @rebeccaharryillustrator - We would love to see them! And if you need to watch the film again please play it HERE.

"Our Planet" published April 2021 by Green Gründ in collaboration with Greenpeace.

I was very lucky to be asked to create an illustration for “Notre Planete”- a wonderful project between my French publishers and Greenpeace. It’s a compilation of 18 illustrators’ work and the result is a brilliant Children’s Picture book about caring for the beautiful planet - “Our Planet”.

“Notre Planète” cover by Thomas Bass.

I chose to illustrate the Palm-oil free products page as it is an ingredient I am trying to avoid when I shop for my household. The destruction of this habitat and the wildlife living in it, breaks my heart.

Here is a close up of my piece.

It was lovely painting Orangutans.

This is my spread for the book.

The book is a great read for Parents and children alike.

***New Release***

Read a review here

A House for Christmas Mouse

Illustrated by Rebecca Harry * Published by Nosy Crow * Age 3+

I am so happy to announce that I have a new book coming out with the Independent Publishers Nosy Crow and it will be available from 5th Nov 2020.

The story is about a kind hearted Mouse who is looking for a cosy home before Christmas arrives. This is how the little Mouse began….

When I created little Mouse I had to imagine how she looked; her nose, her ears, her fur and her tiny fingers and toes. Then I drew her 3 new friends that would join her in the story. Next I had to design the snowy forest that they lived in. That was my favourite bit.

Here I am designing the inside pages of the Picture Book. These are called thumbnail sketches because they are very small. They help me see how the whole book is starting to come together.

This full size sketch is Mouse in the snowy ‘Treetop Forest’. I then turned it into this painting …….

…And this is the opening spread leading you into the story.

Now I’ll show you some of my favourite vignettes in the book ……

Mouse is helping Fox who will become one of her good friends.

I loved showing the contrast of the cold snow outside with the animals’ cosy little burrows and dens.

Nosy Crow have written a lovely story about little Mouse and there is a nice surprise for her near the end. I hope you’ll like it.

Manda the designer at Nosy Crow used some of my pencil sketches and turned them into these amazing Endpapers to decorate the inside cover of the book! I think they look brilliant.

Wow! It’s like the best Christmas wrapping paper 🧡

To make the book even more special, Nosy Crow have put sparkly foil on every page so it looks really frosty and magical. This was a gorgeous book to work on and I hope you all enjoy reading it this Winter.

Pontypridd Children’s Book Festival Goes Virtual

Lockdown didn’t stop Pontypridd having their annual Children’s Book Festival!

This year it was done ‘virtually’ and there was a great program of author and illustrator events taking place over on Facebook all day on Saturday 30th May.

They very kindly asked me to take part and for this event I had to make my first ever 25 minute film. 

To see my film, please click HERE .

(If you enjoy the film, please click the thumbs up on Youtube and the “Like” heart at the bottom of my Blog)

Making the film was quite fun - even though my equipment wasn’t up to much! To record myself, I sticky-taped my phone to a tower of Golden Syrup tins so that I had my hands free to draw! (Yes we love Golden Syrup in our house) How funny! But it worked!

My film shows how to make a concertina-style book. This type of book is like a normal book with pages, but it also opens out into a fantastic long scene! I chose a sea theme because I knew lots of us were missing the seaside during lockdown. I also made a little mermaid character to play with and she would live in the book and help us make up stories.

One lovely viewer called Rhia, made a book with her mum. They sent me the photos! The results were FANTASTIC! Take a look ….

Well done Rhia! I really LOVE your t-shirt too!

You could choose lots of different themes if you didn’t want to do under the sea. I’ve had a little think and here are some ideas I had below:-

The characters are a lot of fun. You can even put photographs of you and your friends on a stick and have adventures. I painted my little cousin as a mermaid! I hope she likes it!!

I hope you get to make one of these books soon. Please share them with me on social media if you do. I’d love to see them.

I’m on Twitter , Facebook and Instagram

Thank you for reading my Blog.

Find the Book Festival film HERE

Lockdown Creativity

It seems like a lot of you are getting very creative at home during lockdown. That’s just BRILLIANT! I know I feel a whole lot better when I’m being creative. And this artiness can come in many forms. Have a read of some of the ideas I’ve had and if you reach the end of this extract (well done!) and if you’ve enjoyed it, then click the ‘LIKE’ button on the bottom. *Being creative can be ….. doodling from life …

I’ve been sketching the enormous weeds growing in my garden! When it’s raining you could sketch the items on your kitchen table, or your pet sleeping.

*You can set yourself a daily doodling challenge which will keep you busy. Don’t make it too challenging or it will be hard to stick to it and make it about something that you will look forward to doing when you get up everyday. I made a series for a whole month of “things that I love”! I wrote a list of these things that I love and it made me feel nice and happy. I realised that my list was getting bigger and bigger and it filled a whole month with some spare ideas. So I may do part 2 some time soon. These are some of the images. They were tiny! About 4.5cm square! I needed my best glasses on!!

*You can watch videos online on how to draw. There are lots of amazing illustrators that are showing you how to do this and they look really fun!

*You can make things out of boxes and bits lying around the house. Use your imaginations to the max and go crazy! Make a city scape out of tea boxes, with street lights, cars and people, a dinosaur costume, make and paint bird feeders out of plastic bottles or pretty plant pots to grow some seeds on your windowsill. Masks! Cardboard puppets on a stick! Staple lots of different types of scrap paper together, brown paper, tracing paper, tissue paper etc and make a bedtime story book! Read it to your little brother or sister!

You see, once you start thinking a little bit, lots of ideas come flooding in! I made this little pocket pond out of a recycled sweet tin once using air drying clay and clear resin…..

*Don’t forget, Creativity can also be about the way you decorate your bedroom. How you place pictures on your walls, how you display things on your shelves and tables.

Make mini jungles in your plant pots with lego-people explorers! Or hang up some beautiful homemade paper bunting with your favourite insects done in collage.

Happy creating everyone!

How "The SeaHouse" illustrations developed....

The SeaHouse ~ Written by Lucy Owen, Illustrated by Rebecca Harry. Published by Firefly Press.

The Seahouse is due to be published in just under a week and Lucy Owen and I are very excited! I thought you may like to know a bit about the illustrations and how the pictures in the book came about.

When Firefly Press sent me Lucy’s lovely text, images instantly came into my head. I had to doodle them quickly before they disappeared! The idea of a house being underwater was so magical!!

The central character is a young girl called Coral. She was strong but was going through a tough, emotional time. I had to decide what she looked like first and foremost.

The immediate image came to me when I was out and about and only had a lined note book to hand! These are the early sketches of Coral….

The story starts when Coral wakes up in bed. Because of this, I put her in a long stripey t-shirt. This would look like a nightdress but also double up as a kind of Summer dress for the rest of the book as she is swimming around.

Next I tried her in colour in a watery environment…..

Coral was coming along nicely, Firefly and I agreed that we just needed to make her look a bit older.

Next was Coral’s new little friend ~ Fabulous the fish. This is the first drawing I did of Fabulous ……

She is a very tiny fish in comparison to Coral and the rest of the creatures, so it was hard to show a lot of detail on her. I would like to have kept her this big so you can see her up close!! :)

The cover was the first completed image I did for this book. Normally I do the cover last if I’m illustrating a picture book but this was a reading book where the cover is usually the main artwork. It was very important for me to get it right as this determined the feel of the book and also the exact look of Coral.

I drew a tiny thumbnail idea of it and tried out some colour backgrounds….

Firefly chose the blue background, then I took a deep breath and started the artwork. I didn’t want to make any mistakes with the detail on Coral’s face and I wanted the water to look nice and transparent. This is what I did…

Original SeaHouse cover art.

I needed to make Coral and Fabulous look comfortable and happy underwater but the sinister looking seaweed at the bottom implied a darker side to the story.

It was decided that Coral wasn’t quite prominent enough though so the designer, Claire Brisley cleverly tweaked my cover artwork and enlarged her so that she now sits more prominently beneath the title.

Next I designed the illustrations inside the book. These had to be in black and white because they were to be printed with the black and white text. I could have done these in many different ways: paint, collage, ink, but I decided to create them using graphite pencil. This allowed me to make the images with the same amount of detail and softness as the cover.

I then immersed myself in The SeaHouse …

and enjoyed every minute creating the underwater drawings….

This is one of the chapter headers for the SeaHouse.

Chapter headers are nice and decorative and help to break up pages and pages of text. I had to think of something that summarised each chapter and then create a little image for that title. I really loved doing these.

Here are some more….

Chapter headers.

The most difficult thing?? This was keeping Coral looking the same throughout the book…

When Coral met Fabulous.

But I had no problems with ideas as I felt very inspired by this lovely underwater world that Lucy had written about…

The naturalist Iolo Williams gave us a lovely review of the SeaHouse. Thank you Iolo!

“The Sea House is a wonderful book, beautifully written with stunning illustrations. It brings the marine world literally into our living rooms and I sincerely hope it helps to awaken a respect and understanding of the marine environment in its readers, young and old alike.”

—  Iolo Williams, naturalist and broadcaster.

Below are some tiny illustrations that weren’t used …..

These would have gone around the page numbers but we didn’t need them in the end. I still loved making them and they were good practice for the other pieces!

Dotted throughout the book are some larger illustrations that break up the text for the young reader…

Dr. Sweetlips trying to save little Fabulous.

There are several of these larger pieces throughout The SeaHouse.

Some of the fish that Lucy listed in her text sounded amazing!! I knew exactly what some species looked like, but there were lots that I didn’t know. I needed to do some research. So I watched some underwater films of these fish and some LIVE CAM aquarium footage from America. It was very dreamy and enjoyable to watch and I did some quick doodles as they moved around in the water. Here are my quick doodles….

Trunk Fish

Trumpet Fish

Triggerfish

Snapper

Wrasse

Butterfly Fish! ….

At the end of the book, Lucy wrote some Fabulous Fish facts about real creatures in the ocean. We need to look after our planet and our oceans and this little fact file helps us learn about some of the species that live there. We can build up our understanding of all creatures and that will help us to respect and protect them.

Here are some of the Fish Facts illustrations…

Stingrays in real life aren’t as bad as our villain Stealth. I enjoyed making this one friendly.

One lovely thing about having a book published is that you can dedicate it to someone special. A last little idea I had for the book was to draw portraits of the people that Lucy and I were dedicating the SeaHouse to…..

For Gabriel, Jeff and Denny xxx

Lucy and I are so excited about the release of the SeaHouse on April 11th 2019! We can’t wait to hear what you think about it. Please let us know on Twitter using the following:-

@BekHarry1

@LucyOwenWales

@FireflyPress

You can buy the book from the fabulous Firefly Press here:-

www.fireflypress.co.uk/product/the-sea-house

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Workshops at "Brilliant Books" Festival in March '19

It was the first year of the Brilliant Book Festival held in beautiful Insole Court in Cardiff.

I was lucky enough to run 3 workshops with the fantastic @BethMOrrisWorkshops. We had lots of busy tots attending with their helpers. We based the workshops around 2 books that i’ve illustrated. The first was ……

Ruby Flew Too-written by Jonathan Emmett

We read the story with our little Ruby puppet and then made some fantastic ponds with Ruby Ducklings in them. The ponds looked amazing!

The next 2 workshops were based around “The Little Puppy Lost” written by Holly Webb

We read the story and then got to work on some lovely puppy artwork….

Story time! Look at the beautiful Insole Gardens behind us!

I drew some puppy faces and asked if anyone was brave enough to help me fill the rest of the faces in. The children drew a ‘happy mouth’ a ‘sad mouth’ a ‘sticking out tongue’, some ‘glasses’ and a ‘sleeping pup’. They looked brilliant! Great pencil holding skills!!

Now everyone was warmed up, Beth Morris had some excellent Pup art projects for the tots to do!

They made……

….. collage puppies with furry fabric and paper plate Pups too! Everyone had brilliant artwork to take home!!I

I signed some of my books at the end….

A chance to meet the lovely little artists and sign some books.

What a Brilliant Day at the Brilliant Books Festival!!! Thank you to everyone who came!! See you there next year!! xxx

The SeaHouse pre-launch at The Brilliant Books Festival

This March held the very first “Brilliant Books” Literature Festival at Insole Court in Cardiff. We were lucky enough to start the festival off with a pre-launch book event for the SeaHouse ~ a month before the book is published.

Photo by ©Nigel Pugh

We had a full room! There were bubbles to make us feel like we were underwater and Lucy read some chapters from her lovely story.

Meanwhile in the background, I did some live-drawing of some of the characters in The SeaHouse..

On display were some of the black and white illustrations I did for the inside of the book. We had a slide-show of the illustrations too because our audience hadn’t seen the book yet! We wanted the children to get an idea of the underwater world of the SeaHouse and to meet the sea creatures that lived there. We also introduced them to the main character, Coral and her sparkly fish friend, Fabulous.

Black and white illustrations from The SeaHouse

At the end of the event there was a gift for one lucky member of the audience who had been listening carefully…..

Lovely Morgan was the first to answer a question correctly on the SeaHouse and took home the live-drawing for her bedroom wall. Well done Morgan!!

There was a lot of Fabulous the fish colouring-in at the end of the session…

Look at this beautiful work from one of the children…..

It was lovely to talk to the audience afterwards and Lucy and I are now looking forward to the Book Launch at the Cardiff Literature Festival on Sunday April 7th.

Endpapers

The endpapers of a book are the pages where one half is pasted against the inside cover and the other serves as the first free page.

My current 2 books that I’m working on have no endpaper designs. Which made me think about the endpapers that I have designed over the years ………

Catch that Kitten by Pamela D. Edwards Published by PanMacmillan

Some are purely decorative ……….

I’m Big Enough Now by Pamela D. Edwards published by PanMacmillan

This set that I drew for Nosy Crow has beautiful foiling on it and sparkles when the book is opened…..

Because I Love You by David Bedford

Sometimes the endpapers are really elaborate. Look at this one that I illustrated for The Bluebell Woods series…..

Written by Liss Norton published by Little Tiger Press

These endpapers also formed the cover and opened out to reveal the secret little world of 4 lovely woodland friends. They neatly folded inwards where the apertures overlapped one another, framing an image of the main character of the story. This was particularly difficult to design. I had to think about both sides at once! A bit tricky for my brain!

You can see the rest of this lovely series in the ‘Books’ section of this website.

Often endpapers are an after thought, the last thing to illustrate. But sometimes they are a really important start, enticing you into the book.

These endpapers from the Ruby the Duckling series written by Jonathan Emmett gave you a little clue about Ruby’s character……..

Published by PanMacmillan now available on Amazon

Another lovely book written by Jonathan Emmett was Foxes in the Snow and probably my most detailed endpapers ever!

The front papers showed the opening scene of the story. Take a look…….

Written by Jonathan Emmett and published by PanMacmillan

And the endpapers at the back of the book closed off the story when the snow had arrived….

Written by Jonathan Emmett and published by PanMacmillan

They took a long time to do but I am SO glad we did them!! I think they are one of my favourite sets.

Traditionally the endpapers are the place to put bookplates or the owner’s inscription. I like the fact that they are an added extra, a decorative touch, a little secret to discover when you open the cover. Like having a beautiful lining on your coat the endpapers make the book even more special and something to keep and treasure .

Been too Busy to Blog!

I've been a busy bee and neglected my blog!! But here's a sneak preview of what I've been creating. It's another book by the lovely author Stephanie Shaw from Oregon - our 4th collaboration! This time with a really great independent publishers in the US called "Read Your Story".

It's been a joy to work with this team. We've been creating a personalised book for young children called "What would you like for Tea?" The book is released later in the Autumn and Customers can order from their website. Here is a little part of one of the spreads. You can see my cut marks at the edge of my painting where the printer will need to trim it back to. The other part of this painting will feature the little child's face. I know babies love seeing their little faces in a book! 

....And off it goes!!!!

 Have you heard of the "Sketchbook Project"? This is how it works...Purchase a blank sketchbook from the Brooklyn Art Library, fill up by the due date (this year's was extended to 30th April '18 so last Friday, mine was packed up and sent to Brooklyn in order to meet the deadline) A list of themes are given to inspire participants, you fill your book up, rebind it within the restricted size guides if you feel like, register it online, post it back and become part of the world's largest collection of sketchbooks! They are taken on a little tour of N.America and Canada before being stored indefinitely in the Brooklyn Art Library. 

 What a lovely thing to be part of!

 Now in their 14th year, they can boast a fantastic 40,000+ sketchbooks in their library from different people all over the world - and you don't even have to be an artist to participate! 

 Last year I was coincidentally working on 3 water related projects. One of the Titles for the sketchbooks was Underwater so I felt I had to choose it as it would sit nicely alongside everything else and I could use the sketchbook to experiment in. It took a while to make a mark on the first page as I just kept thinking "anyone could see this!!!" ....But once this was done I was away.

I dipped in and out of this little book over the next few months not knowing where it was going really....

It ended up being about mermaids and women, I had no idea this would happen....

The sketchbook sat on my desk every day and I became quite attached to it .....

The thought of giving it away to complete strangers and never getting it back was a bit frightening...

......but also very liberating !

 I think I am secretly going to be over the moon when my sketchbook barcode gets scanned for the first time and I am told that someone, somewhere is looking at it!!!!!