Last month I was lucky enough to celebrate World Book Day with the wonderful Fosseway school. We chatted about what it means to be an Illustrator and discussed how picture books are made. Here's a little peek at my presentation showing the different stages of development when illustrating picture book spread 👀 (this particular spread is from 'Elephant's Pyjamas' by Michelle Robinson) Then things became a little bit more interactive... We whipped out the flip chart and got scribbling. I showed everyone how to draw the cheeky Monkey character from Monkey's Sandwich. Just check out these amazing Monkeys (I have some stiff competition!) In the afternoon I ran a couple of book building workshops, which involved constructing crazy stories together as a class by playing a fun 'consequences' style game. Everyone then illustrated a page of the story, which we assembled together in a picture book (now that's what I call teamwork) This story is c...

For World Book Day this year I visited my old school (eek!) with the super talented Michelle Robinson  for a fun day of 'Monkey's Sandwich' activities. Incase you didn't know, 'Monkey's Sandwich' is our shiny new book published by Harper Collins. Here it is: And incase you've never seen our faces, here we are! We had a great day inventing, drawing and constructing some crazy sandwiches, reading stories and generally monkeying around. Here's our towering sandwich featuring squirty cream AND mustard... Looks tasty, right? For me, the best part of the day was live-drawing some absolutely  bonkers sandwiches, fuelled by the * interesting*  and * unique*   suggestions from the kids. Yes - there's an octopus, T-Rex and a car in this sandwich... (please excuse my bad case of Illustrator's 'claw hand') We also learned 'How to draw Monkey' step by step, following this handy sheet:  ...

Hello and a Happy New Year to you! 2016 was a busy year for me and I wanted to share a few highlights. For starters, my Dad returned home after a 18 month stint in hospital. My family adjusted to life with disability, undoubtedly the best bit being Dad's new mobility scooter - a thing of wonder, providing hours of entertainment. Over summer I decided to make the most of flexible Freelance holiday and managed to get away hiking in both Norway and the Swiss Alps. It was just the dose of nature I needed to recharge my creative batteries. A happy Emily on a Norwegian mountain top  👌 With the help of my Mum I rediscovered some of my earlier works (i.e. clearing out the attic). It was a real joy going over my old artwork, I recommend digging out your old stuff - if you can find it! I'm particularly proud of this peacock: (the Dino-foot picture isn't bad either) On the work side of things, 2016 proved to be a hectic year. I finished off illustrating my secon...