The 7th International meeting of Illustrators

I recently attended the 7th International meeting of illustrators in São João da Madeira, not far from Porto, Portugal. It was a fantastic week, extremely well organised and I met so many amazing illustrators, the majority from Portugal and Spain, but several from France, Italy, Argentina and Chile too! My role was to run a workshop, but I also got to join in all the other activities, and take part in workshops as well as several visits to see local industry - a pencil factory, a box factory, felt factory and a shoe factory. These were all fascinating and a real eye opener to see what goes on behind the scenes and the amount of work that goes into the production of all these items. I will never look at a box, hat, shoe or pencil in quite the same way again!

My workshop was called 'Drawing the Impossible' and focussed on my book 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch.' Participants did several playful exercises with the aim of generating ideas and images that were surreal, imaginative and creative. Work by Cintia Martin, Ceci Moreno, Guiridi Rn, Sophia Morais, Fernando Perez Hernando and Mari Perez Pantoja. 

Unmöglich?!

The German edition of 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch' is out this week, published by Verlag Antje Kunstmann, and simply called 'Unmöglich?!' or 'Impossible?!'. As well as having a slightly different cover to the original, it has some new illustrations, as several of my 'Impossible things' didn't translate into German! Hence 'Flying pigs' became 'Flying words', and 'How long is a piece of string?' is now 'How long is a long cable?'. My flying pig is no longer flying but jumping over his own shadow, and I have also added an illustration of a jelly being nailed to a wall, something that I'm sure is impossible in any language!

Annual Report for the Kellogg foundation

Two of my illustrations were recently published as part of the Kellogg foundation's annual report. The 'treehouse' image (originally from 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch')  was adapted and used for the cover, and the 'community tree' of diverse heads appeared inside. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports vulnerable children and families, and was established in 1930 by W.K Kellogg, also famous for Cornflakes amongst other breakfast cereals! 

Bologna book fair

Last week I was at the Bologna book fair where I had a busy but great time as usual. A huge range of inspiring and beautiful books and illustrations, lots of nice people and of course delicious food and sunshine! This year I was very happy to have some work selected for the Illustrator's exhibition, and also rather shocked to be nominated for the Astrid Lindgren award. The award is anounced live from Sweden during the fair, and went to Dutch author Guus Kuijer. Here's some pics of the exhibition and fair, as well as the temporary book shop in Piazza Maggiore, with my chicken or egg illustration above the doorway!

Ilustrarte

Happy new year (a bit late)! I've had a good start to the year, with a recent trip to Lisbon for the children's book illustration biennial 'Ilustrarte' which I am very pleased to have been selected for this year. Three pieces from 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch' were chosen for the show - 'All the people in the world', 'Ice cream on fire and leopard', and 'find the needle in the haystack'. Here's a few pics of the very unusual exhibition set-up - many white chests of drawers with large lampshades above! It looked very cool and rather surreal - you had to open each drawer to view the illustrations. The exhibition is on at the Museum of Electricity until April 8th, after which it will be at the Royal Academy of fine arts in Ghent. More info here.

American Illustration

I've had two pieces selected for this year's American Illustration Annual, both from 'Sixty Impossible things before lunch'. The book will be launched tonight, with a party in New York at the Angel Orensanz foundation. Sorry not to be there!

A few of the Impossible things....

"Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." from ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’ by Lewis Carroll

This delightful conversation between Alice and the White Queen is the starting point for my new book 'Sixty Impossible things before Lunch' published by Edizioni Corraini. A book full of impossible questions, impossible pictures and impossible ideas, such as 
'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' 'Where is the middle of nowhere?', 'What does the universe look like?' and 'How long is a piece of string?' 
Questions without answers or questions that are so hard as to be impossible. And some questions with so many answers it is impossible to give just one!

The book was launched at the recent Bologna book fair with an exhibition at MAMbo, the modern art museum in Bologna. Here are a few spreads... Photos of the private view and kids workshop coming soon!