I started my career as a writer and illustrator in 2001 by publishing two board books “Strawberries are Red” and “What is Black and White”.  Walker Books published the books. They are my best selling board books and they are still in print.

For these two books I received  “ Newcomer Award 2001” by Books for Children.

Since then I have published ten more board books. Board books take a special part of my work.

I have sometimes felt that booksellers and bookshops often overlook the importance of board books. I have noticed, that in the shops there are less and less board books. They are often pushed somewhere into a corner (or by the floor), where they are hardly noticed.

We should understand that a board book could and often is a child’s very first contact with a form of visual art.

A board book has usually “only” seven spreads. Working on a board book may look easy but the opposite is true.

To make a good board book is hard work and it takes time. Children may not have as much experience as adults, but they are not stupid.

Board books with random images without any concept won’t do. Children want more and they deserve more.

Children do like colourful pictures and images they may recognise, but they also appreciate a good story. This is the hardest part of a board book. To come up with a simple and interesting concept for a board book is not easy.

I’m lucky to be published by Walker Books. I work with editors who are very professional and very passionate about children’s books.

Together we spend hours discussing new ideas for board books. My editors won’t be happy until the book is absolutely right. In my drawer I have at least three times more ideas than I have published board books. Not every idea works.

A big part of my board books is a novelty aspect. All of my board books have holes, cut outs, shaped pages and sometimes a turning wheel, which changes colours in the final image.

The child can chase a mouse through the pages of the book, follow a car which is going to visit granny, travel by train over the hills, woods and bridges. The shaped pages slowly build into a final picture as you turn the pages.

Yes, the game itself is important, but I also do like the idea, that children are learning to like books as an objects. Next time the child sees a book, it will feel the need to touch it and open it.

The shape, the quality of the materials, the whole feel about the board book is very important. That is another strength of board books published by Walker Books. Walker publishes a series of high quality board books as “Baby Walker”.

My latest board books are call “Time for Bed” and “Honk Honk! Baa Baa!”

I’m off to Prague.  I’m taking part in the book festival Svet Knihy 2013 (World of Books).  The festival takes place in this beautiful art nouveau building. It is called Vystaviste.

One of the reasons I’m going is the publication of Puffin Peter in Czech, my mother tongue.  Quite exciting!  The Czech publisher Portal is publishing it.

There will also be workshops to do and a few interviews including one on Czech Radio.  Paintings created at the workshops by children and me will be presented to the children’s ward of Bulovka Hospital.

I also hope that there will be time to meet friends for a pint.

Larger doesn’t taste as good as in Prague.  Talking about beer here is one of my old pictures from my sketchbook.  It’s called A Queue for Beer.

I was asked to do a picture for a charity auction. Since it’s a Secret Art Show exhibition, I realised – I could tell you the name of the organisation and wouldn’t be able to show you the picture, or I could show you the picture and not  tell you the name of the organisation. Hmm…I don’t know.

I’m  going to show you the picture this time and I may mentinon the organisation  some other time in my blog. Here it is.

I like the idea of secret exhibitions. Artists are asked to donate a picture of an exact size. In this case it was 25cm x 25cm. The name of the artist is on the back  of the picture, so people who buy it don’t know who the artist is until they have bought the picture.  Nobody buys a name, but the picture they really like. It’s a great idea to raise money.

As an illustrator I also like the fact, that it is relatively easy to do the picture in a short time. Format 25 x 25cm, or the size of a postcard is not too difficult.

It’s also a good opportunity to try something different. My picture is called  ”An Old Lady is waiting for Something”. I don’t know exactly why I did it, but I’m quite happy with it.

I don’t draw people very often. I prefer drawing animals, but for some reason in last few days I haven’t been doing anything else but drawing people. Not just ordinary people but also lots of pirates.

These are just first pencil sketches for the book..can you guess what the book is? I’ll write about the book more in the future, so I will let you guess for now.

Friend of mine Andrew opened a bike shop.  It’s called “Barbourne Bicycles”.

It’s a lovely little shop and there Andrew services, repairs and restores bicycles. Here is the proud shop owner himself in the company of one of his beauties.

I like cycling and I like Andrew, so I decided to paint a picture for Andrew’s shop.

I’ve painted and drawn a few “cycling pictures” in the past. Here are some samples.

I don’t know why  the deer is following the man. It’s one of the drawings which happend too quickly to allow me to think about it. I like the image though, so I painted it again.

The previous pictures are rather small, so I took it  as a challenge to paint a big version of  the man being followed by a deer. Here it is – the final picture for “Barbourne Bicycles”. It’s called “Andrew’s Bike” the size is 800 x 500 cm.

I must say, it looks quite good in the shop. Andrew also seems to like the picture I think. If not, he acted well and hung it on the wall with a big smile.

And one more picture popped out from my computer as I was poking through my cycling images.  It’s me some time ago. These days I have less hair, a bigger bike  and a bad knee, so I won’t be able to do this again any time soon.

I just came from a walk. What a beautiful morning it was. I saw butterflies, bumblebees and beetles everywhere. Maybe spring is finally here.

I was looking for some pictures of insects in my folders. I found quite a few of them. This is a final spread from my book  ”Butterfly Butterfly”.

And here are some drawings of the butterflies from my little sketchbooks.   This one is flying against the sun. It explains why you can’t see all the colours. This is one is a moth.

Some time ago I  published a board book called “Flutterby Butterfly”.  This earthworm and caterpillar are from the book.

Here is rather strange snail from my little sketchbook. If I’m remembering rightly, this drawing was inspired by an image I saw a Grayson Perry vase.

This drawing was inspired by Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. It is Franz himself being attacked by a beetle.

Talking about being attacked by an insect, here is a gardener being attacked by a rather big ladybird.

Another thing happened yesterday to me.  I was already drawing for some time in my studio, when I realised, that on the chair next to me is a big bumblebee. He was alright, just not quite fully awake after the long winter.

On this last picture is a man being knocked out by incredibly big fly. Oh yes, I also have a book about a Fly. 

At the last meeting at Walker Books we were talking about working on a new pop-up book.

I actually like this stage, when I’m thinking about a new idea. It won’t be a surprise, if I say that there will be animals.

One of them should be an orangutan. I found it rather difficult to draw apes and monkeys. In this blog, I would like to show you some bad drawings of orangutans. I have a few of them.

This one is older. Not just the orangutan, but the drawing too.

Here is a girl talking to an orangutan. It makes me think, that I have a picture of a girl and gorilla somewhere.

Here it is. Talking about a gorilla..here is one more.

When I was searching for an orangutan on the net I found this lovely photo. Isn’t it great?

And here is my first sketch of an orangutan for the pop-up book. Hmm there’s a long way to go.

Easter was good!  It was nice not to do much.  I went for walks across the frozen Somerset Levels. I also ate most of this masterpiece created by my mother in law. I’m not proud of it, but at the same time I can’t help it when I see cake.

I also did some work. Here are some of  the finished pictures for a book called “Jump and Fly”.

I was also drawing and sketching a koala bear.

It was fun. I was thinking about writing some stories with the character. 

And that is it. The sun is shining out side. I can’t believe it. Time to get out.

I finished a book! It will be called “The Mouse who ate the Moon”.  The book is a free sequel to  “A New House for Mouse”.

It’s eight years since “A New House for Mouse” was published.

“The Mouse who ate the Moon”,  as  “A New House for Mouse” is a novelty book with cut outs and shaped pages, so my designer and I knew, that we wanted to have a cut out on the cover as well.

Louise, the clever art designer from Walker Books I work with, sent me her idea of the cover and I sent mine.

As you can see they were very similar.  We agreed, that it would be good to have the cover blue.

And here is the cover. O.K. I’m probably rushing it a bit, since we haven’t had the final meeting yet, but I’m quite confident that it will look rather similar to this one.

And now some pictures from my little sketchbook. This one is loosely related to Easter.

Look, the Dodo has been hatched !

Happy Easter!

In one of the schools I visited recently,  I was asked what is my favourite animal. I said bears and there was a surprise. The children  expected me to say  goose, puffin or some kind of other birds. Apparently I do lots of pictures with birds. I thought about it and realised that there is some truth to it. I do like drawing birds and I like bird characters in my books.

In the past I did three phonic books for HaperCollins. I’m currently working on another one. Three out of these books are about a bird.

The Lonely Penguin

A Day Out   

and a work in progress – Jump and Fly. 

Here are more birds from Jump and Fly.   

I’m doing pictures of birds. I was also asked to donate a picture for charity helping families called “Wise Books“. They asked for a picture of…an Owl. So yes, I drew a bird once again. I enjoyed it. Here it is.

And just to finish, here are two more pictures from my sketchbook.

A White Crow on Trafalgar Square.

I’m getting on with the illustrations for my latest picture book about a little mouse.

It’s going well. I’ve nearly finished. I now have to sit down and go through the pictures, try to look at them from “a different angle” and do a bit of final touches. I will also need to move on with the cover.

I also visited one more school. Duke of Kent School in Ewhurst Surrey. It was a rainy day, but I did enjoy the visit. The school was in the hills in the woods, the children were clever and teachers friendly. I was well looked after by Laura and Katherine who organised the book festival at the school. They made me welcome and the day was fun.

  Children did lovely pictures for a mural.

This is a very colourful dolphin.

Rabbit Fairy. The picture is not upside down by the way. It’s the fairy who is flying upside down.

I also got lots and lots of drawings from children to take home. I love the pictures. Unfortunately I can’t remember all the children’s names, so they have remained anonymous.

Flowers for me. Cat on a skateboard.

Hot air balloon.

Lion.

And a picture of deer.

I love this drawing very much. On my way from Worcester, I was looking at deer from the train. I saw lots of them. They were the colours of trees and dead grass. Actually it’s quite difficult to see them if you don’t know what you are looking for. Here is one deer from me.

Oh yes and a card from Ciara.