Knish War

Hi chaps,

Well, a new book I've illustrated has come out recently, called 'The Knish War on Rivington Street'.

It's set in New York in the 1910's and is based on a real sales battle between two bakeries who both sell Knishes.
(In case anyone doesn't know, a Knish is a traditional Jewish food, baked or fried, that is made of pastry with various fillings.
They're not very common in the UK, but would be along similar lines to a Cornish Pasty.)

But it was a great book to illustrate, lots of detail and building chaos through the bok, and also historic detail needed.
And there's a recipe at the back so you can make your own :)

It's written by Joanne Oppenheim and published by the lovely people at Albert Whitman.

And it has now been reviewed in the New York Times as well, here.
That's two of my books that have been reviewed in the NY Times, huzzah :)

But do have a look and grab hold of a copy, it's a v nice book :)

Crowds

Hi Chaps,

I've been recently working on a book that requires some crowd scenes, and groups of people. Sometimes I do find I can be tempted to let the figures in a crowd or group become a bit non-specific, characterless, loose, drones, who all look the same, due to the repetition of filling the space.
Rather than making them all being individual characters.
And the difference is the enjoyment in doing the illustration.
Whatever the picture, if I can find something in it that fires my interest/inspiration, and gets me engrossed, then I enjoy doing it more, and therefore it comes out better.
So, my first task when doing an illustration, along with working out the composition, is finding the route to being inspired.
So with these recent crowd scenes I'm working on, I blocked out the composition reasonably quickly, and then had a nice relax with my sketchbook and enjoyed myself trying to think up different characters to populate the crowds.
And here they are.

Look What's Arrived...

Hi Chaps,

Look what just arrived in the post. Whole stack of Small Blue from the lovely people at Harcourt.

It's just over a month till it's out now, 26th Aug in the US and 1st Sept in the UK.
So mark the appropriate day on your calendar, depending on your continental location, or, indeed, your preference of international shipping or local post.
But in the meantime, here's Small Blue from the cover.

More to come soon :)

Another review for Small Blue

Hi Chaps,

There's been another review for my new book 'Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night' out soon with the lovely chaps at Harcourt in New York.
This one is on Publisher's Weekly here
And I've got the text below, and a screenshot too, just to make there's no way you can miss it :)
But it's a nice review, I like the way they describe the book, I feel like they've got the hang of it and they explain it well.

In his first outing as both author and illustrator, Davis (Stuck with the Blooz) uses gnomish pen-and-ink drawings to conjure up the “Gremlins and goblins, with empty, rumbling bellies, licking their lips, waiting for me in the dark” that Small Blue, a rabbit, feels sure are lurking in her bedroom. Davis resists the urge to draw creatures as scary as Small Blue’s thoughts: the imaginary goblins are small, blobby creatures with mild expressions, clearly anxious to please. Big Brown—who’s precisely the kind of towering, furry bear one longs to take one’s nighttime fears to—doesn’t deny Small Blue’s worries (“There could be...”), but suggests another way to look at things: “How do you know it wasn’t a delightful doggies’ Saturday-night unicycle convention?” A visit to the kitchen for warm milk develops the idea: “I can imagine the kitchen playing host to a retired- pirates’ annual sock-knitting jamboree.” Soon, Small Blue gets the hang of this kind of thinking, too. A winsome, even poetic introduction to the idea of reasoning one’s way through fearfulness. Ages 4–8

But here are some sketches from the book, as a bit of a teaser, of the things mentioned in the review, Small Blue, Big Brown and a couple of Goblins.

Mouse Sketches

Hi Chaps,

Well, I've been busy for rather a while, which is nice, but here I've managed to fit in time for a blog post at last.
But, one of the busy things I've been doing is a story game book about a mouse's birthday at an amusement park/fun fair.
This is a story/picture book that also has board games in it, which I have to design, which is great fun.
But I have something nice for you to look at - here are some sketches of the mouse, .
I've not drawn that many mice before, so it was something to figure out.

 But anyway, I'll see if I can get some more posts up soon :)

Box of Blooz

Hi Chaps,

I got a big box in the post the other day, here it is.

And it's my copies of Stuck With the Blooz. It's great fun to open something like this. Thanks to they guys at Harcourt.

I was tempted to dance on the bed, flinging them up in the air, like people do with money in films.

But they are hardbacks, so I decided to just make a nice curved pile instead.

 

Also, there has been another review of the Blooz, this one at publisher's weekly, you can read it here - publishersweekly.com
But it strikes me as being a very intelligent review, I like the way they say the story has an impressively light touch and that the readers are given room to feel the arc of the girl’s struggle.
I think that captures it nicely. So that makes me pleased with what they write about the art too.

London Book Fair

Hiya Chaps,
Last week was the London Book Fair, which I went to, so I thought I'd write a roundup post.
I was intending to write a post beforehand, but didn't manage it, so I'll just have to make do with this one :)

I managed to bump into a few people I know, and say a short hello, or even a fairly long hello, in a couple of cases, so that was nice.

It seemed to be a bit slim on the talk/seminar side of things this year, compared to last year. Or for things I was interested in anyway. But I did see a nice talk by Julia Donaldson about the Picture Books she's chosen for a promotion she's doing with Waterstones as Laureate. There seemed to be some interesting unusual ones, as well as some more common choices, so I think I shall pop in to a branch and have a good leaf through.

I also saw a talk with Patrick Ness, who's just published A Monster Calls, which has fab illustrations by Jim Kay. Very interesting talk about writing, and he seems a v. nice chap.
And the Walker stand had a copy I could have a look through.

Also on the Walker stand I noticed a copy of an Abney and Teal Picture Book, by Joel Stewart, to come out as a companion to the tv series on CBeebies which is a big hit in our house.

The Little Tiger Press stand was good as well, they always have lots of good stuff to see.

And, bit of a stop press highlight - on the Sterling Books stand was a copy of Watch Your Tongue Cecily Beasley, which is illustrated by me. Bit of a thrill to see it in real life, and I had a nice chat with the chap manning the stand too.
But here's a picture. A bit blurred inevitably, but you can see it ok.

It's due out in September, and, in case you're interested, it's available to preorder on Amazon here

But anyway, if you went to LBF as well, do let me know what you saw.

It's easy to write picture books.

Thoughtful blog post here, chaps.
I've read a few things about writing picture books, and some articles talk about how lots of people want to write a picture book, thinking it will be easy, and the articles say it's harder than writing a novel, because every word counts, and requires thought, and economy and skill to get the ideas across.
And I've also read articles that say that of course it's easier than writing a novel, because it's much shorter and you can rattle one off in a day or two.

Well, it's been trundling about in the back of my mind, and I've ended up thinking about it a bit, and I can kind of agree with both points of view, they both have elements of truth.
But I think the problem is that they're making slightly different points.

And I've thought of an analogy.

Is it easier to run 100m or 10,000m?
Well, one takes less than thirty seconds, and one takes quite a while.
Now most people can run 100m, whereas only people of a certain fitness can actually run 10,000m, so you could argue that one is easier than the other.

But... it's just as hard to win a gold medal in either.
Which I think is sort of the point, really.
Just because something's short, doesn't make it easy to do well.

Though it is maybe easier for more people to give it a quick go.

And having written this (for me) fairly serious post, here are a couple of sneak peek sketches from a book I've been working on :)
They're all bits of illustrations and backgrounds, so as to not give much away, but they are hopefully interesting too :)

London Book Fair

Well, it's the London Book Fair, next week, so I'm going along.

I've got some work printed, and postcards made, and I'm polishing my boots, and picking out a shirt.

I may wear my 'Kaftan Shirt' as it's called. (Not quite as groovy as it sounds, it's just not got a colllar, but it's nice.)

But anyway, I don't know if anyone else is going along, but it'd be great to bump into people.

Maybe at the Illustrator Networking thing on Monday, or at the Lauren Child and Anthony Browne conversation, or the Booktrust talk, or just round and about :)