Heart gallery

Many illustrators including lots of those involved in the 7th International meeting were asked to contribute an image with a heart theme to a new gallery - 'Heart gallery' opening in São João da Madeira tomorrow. Here is my contribution!

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. 

Illustration for Principality Building Society

I was asked to produce an illustration for Principality Building Society using a quote about 'home' of my choice. Here is the result and you can see Principality's website here.

A Letter in mind exhibition

I recently took part in 'A Letter in Mind' exhibition at the Oxo tower gallery in London. Artists were invited to create their piece using only a simple white envelope and the title 'A letter in mind' as a starting point. There was a huge variety of responses, and some well known names involved, including Grayson Perry and Chris Haughton. Works were exhibited anonomously and then auctioned off in aid of the National Brain appeal, with the name of the artist only revealed once a purchase had been made. For my piece I used the address of the National Brain appeal which I broke down and fully illustrated on the front - I then sent the piece directly through the mail, hoping it arrived unscathed - luckily it did! You can see the full range of artworks on this link.

Tu Chi Sei?

Tu Chi Sei? (Who are you?) is a philosophy book for children and curious adults, published by Edizioni Corraini and written by Ilaria Rodella and Francesco Mapelli, collectively known as Ludosofici. It came out last week and was launched at Festivaletteratura in Mantova. I contributed some drawings of philosophers, plus a portrait of the authors!

Bunnies and raisins

Here's an illustration for the current issue of Red magazine, about how your life changes when you have children. Are those raisins next to the bunny, or something else?!

Association of Illustrators award for COOP poster!

I am very happy to be selected as a winner at the AOI awards, in the Research and knowledge communication category. The brief was to design a poster for COOP, Italy that aims to present ideas about sustainable living in a simple and clear way. It was a collaboration with Italian publisher Corraini Edizioni who I work with regularly, and the second part of a larger project about education in schools, called Sapere COOP. The poster will be used as part of EXPO 2015 in Milan, with the general theme 'Feed the Planet, Energy for life'. Here is the final image and an early sketch!