On the move

I've moved my blog over to Tumblr. It's now at http://alipye.tumblr.com

This blog helped to get me my first commission. My friends Matthew and Kirsten Abbott showed it to their friend, Annie Peters, who at the time was working at Egmont. Annie showed it to her colleagues. I went in and saw Sarah Malley and Lara Hancock; by a lucky coincidence I had an image of a crow in my portfolio and Lara had a manuscript on her desk that featured a crow...

That was two years ago and Gerald the crow will be chasing Fred the caterpillar through bookshops from March next year. Things take a long time in publishing!

So thank you Blogspot, and thank you for reading this, wherever you are. If you'd like to stay posted, have a look at Tumblr every now and again.

xx Ali

Horniman Museum

Horniman Museum, a photo by ali.pye on Flickr.

I visited the Horniman Museum in south London today; it is full of beautiful and wondrous things. Admittedly many of them are dead, but if you like carefully labelled glass cases, taxidermy and obscure objects from around the world, the Horniman is a magical place. I put some photos on Flickr.

'Where is Fred?' on Amazon

'Where is Fred?' is available on Amazon - exciting! It won't be published until March, but you can see it here.

Ten things I have done since leaving my office job

1. Finished the first roughs for 'The Miniwiggler', the picture book I'm working on for Egmont
2. Met some lovely people at publishing houses and showed them my work
3. Drawn samples for some manuscripts (fingers crossed)
4. Thought of an idea for a story
5. Spent far too much time on Facebook
6. Ditto Spotify
7. Eaten a lot of toast
8. Avoided Topshop, Zara etc
9. Steadfastly ignored the washing up / ironing / daytime TV
10. Not regretted it for one single minute.

Here's an example of what I've been up to: a sweet little girl skipping through a wood...

A Columbo kind of day

" just one more thing..."

Sobek and Thoth

Some drawings by Pye jnr. He's back at school tomorrow. It feels a bit like a new term for me too - I finished the day job in August, the school holidays are finally over, so it's down to work AT LAST. Yippee!

Facebook page

I've started a Facebook page for my illustration work. If you'd like to have a look, search for 'Ali Pye Illustrator' or www.facebook.com/alipyeillo.

Experiments

I'm trying out new colours and textures for my new work for Egmont.

Secret lake

Work in progress.

Agent

I have an agent; I'm now represented by Jodie Marsh at United Agents. I could be cool and business-like about this but hey, phooey to that - LOOK, LOOK! Here I am on Jodie's webpage! In fairly close proximity to enormously talented people! Including, among others, Russell 'pirate dinosaurs' Ayto, Sam 'Mr Pusskins' Lloyd and Sarah 'Morris the Mankiest Monster' McIntyre.

Sorry, I'll calm down now and go and make some lunch.

Here is my page, by the way.

Festival critters

I went to Latitude with my friend Lou. We saw these in the shops. Bought a couple of hats "for the children."

Sketchbook magazine blog

My work is shown on the Sketchbook magazine blog today. Thank you, Sketchbook.

Busy week

On Monday I had a meeting with Sarah and Pete at Egmont to talk about the new book. It was good to kick some ideas around. Sarah gave me a blad (see post below) of 'Where is Fred?' - it's FAB. Colours have come out lovely, wood free paper looks the bomb and feels ace, plus there's some pretty tasty spot varnish on the cover. I really, really hope people like it when it's published next year - and hopefully want to own it.

Today I went to see Emily at Caterpillar Books and Tom at Stripes. Caterpillar publishes some really cute novelty books, while Stripes is a young fiction list. Both are imprints of Little Tiger publishers.

I particularly like Caterpillar's series of finger-puppet pop-up books illustrated by Corinne Bittler (image above). I had a look at her website - I should have known, she's French!

Stripes are doing a series called 'Ninja Meerkats' - inspired, why didn't I think of that? Just told off my 7-yr old for reading it in bed, at 9.30pm. Ninja-boom!

CSM: Howard Tangye

One of the highlights of studying at CSM was taking part in Howard Tangye's fashion illustration classes. He is the best drawing tutor I've been lucky enough to encounter, and I remember the classes being exciting and dynamic, just like his work. Looking back at my old sketchbooks I can sense the movement and life he encouraged in the line. It really was a joy to feel everything flow during those lessons.

Image by Howard Tangye. See his work here.

Central St Martins

I studied fashion communication & promotion at CSM for my first degree. Why they let me in is anyone's guess, as I was completely useless at communicating, promoting or indeed anything to do with fashion. But anyway it was a special experience, and I wanted to have a look around the Charing Cross Road and Southampton Row buildings before they shut for the last time – everything is moving to a shiny new campus in Kings Cross over the summer. I took some photos; they're on Flickr here.

The person who doesn't make mistakes is unlikely to make anything

I'm about to test that theory out by giving up the day job. More time/less money: could be a great decision or a big mistake.

PS: saw this image on a review of the Kingston University undergraduate degree show. Unfortunately the designer has not been credited. Whoever you are, you are a genius and I salute you!

New commission

I’m working on a new picture book for Egmont. It’s a very fine story by Jill Lewis, the pair of writers behind ‘Don’t Read this Book’, which is also published by Egmont and illustrated by the super-talented Deborah Allwright.

What is interesting about the commission is that Sarah and Pete (the designer and editor) would like to do something a bit different visually. It’s going to bold and graphic, with less line and texture than the images I made for ‘Where is Fred?”. This is a direction that I really enjoyed exploring last year when I created a set of screen-prints for my degree show, so I’m hoping we can create something really exciting and fresh.

The (unrelated) image I’ve used here is a picture of the crowd at Chelmsford City Football Club, taken around 1954. I just love how happy and jolly everyone looks. That’s my dad, second from left on the front row; he went on to play in goal for the club. A few gate-crashers appear to have sneaked in through the turnstiles.

Royal wedding doodle

Huzzah!

Costume 3 Pièces

I follow the French illustrator Lili Scratchy's blog, and I had a look at her agent's website. There's some truly amazing stuff there that I hadn't come across before. I especially like the work by Gaëlle Duhazé (pictured), which combines fluffy things with surrealism - always a winner in my book. If you're already familiar with Marc Boutavant and Delphine Durand, feast your eyes here. French illustrators rock!

Booksniffer blog profile

I was at my 'day job' today but had a big smile on my face all day thanks to a book-sniffing pug (and Sheena Dempsey).

Now on the nightshift, drawing.

First proofs

I got a set of proofs through the post from Egmont today. They show where the designers would like changes (eg, stuff like altering the colour, or adding bits that I've missed off). The author has a set too, and will mark any corrections that he wants. So, I am ignoring the beautiful spring sunshine outside and working through the amendments so far.

Blads etc

Still slogging away at the crow book. Last week I had a really helpful chat with Sarah the designer at Egmont. Learnt some interesting publishing terms:

"Blad" - sounds dangerous and somewhat sinister, but it's a dummy version of the finished book, used for preview and marketing purposes. Blad stands for book (or basic) layout and design. Once I've finished everything we will have a blad, yippee.

"Wood free" - this is what I would think of as 'matt' paper. It's really nice and smooth - can affect the colour, but having seen it in practice I quite like this look. mmmmm.

"Matt art" - not wholly matt, confusingly. It has a bit of sheen to it.

Simples

I'm currently attempting to draw an ogre playing basketball. Unsuccessfully so far. So much of illustration is about taking something complex and making it appear simple. God, it's hard sometimes!

Work that doormouse

I posted my Alice pic on the illustration news site Little Chimp Society. Got some nice feedback in response. Thank you, LCS.

Alice on Amazon

Just seen that The Alice Project (see post below) is now published on Amazon. My first work in print, yay! It's only one image but exciting all the same. All profits go to Oxfam. Thanks to Dan Bergevin who created and organised the project.

http://www.amazon.com/Alices-Adventures-Wonderland-Lewis-Carroll/dp/0980247993/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292092788&sr=1-9

Character sketch

Here's one of the characters I've been doodling lately.

White on black

Gave the children some black paper and white pencils - in return they gave me monsters and spaceships.

Finished doormouse

I wasn't too keen on the colour scheme here - too grey and cold - so submitted a sepia version in the end; there's a copy on my website.

Fluffy

Sleeping doormouse

I'm going to contribute an image to the Alice Project, a collaborative publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that has been organised through Behance. My image will be the sleepy doormouse. Just started to research - instantly smitten.

ID parade print

I sold some copies of this print at the show.

MA final 3: Show time!

It was an unusual approach to a private view - make everyone wait outside for ages, and then turn away people from industry. Some of the students had to queue get into their own show, even our tutor had to beg to get in. Thanks, "Tent London".

Everyone's work looked great. You can see examples on our MA website, www.kuia10.com.

MA finish 2: hang

We all arrived at 10. Gallery not ready. 'Come back at 3.' Finally started hanging at 5. Kicked out at 7. Back today, lots of work and it all looks amazing. More pics on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/kuia10/

MA finish 1: crit

So interested in people's work I forgot to take many photos. Next: hanging exhibition on Monday.

B-sides

Didn't use these in the end.

Finished book

At last.

Postcards and stickers

Shiny, shiny. From moo.com.

Degree show coming up

Screen-printing

Final deadline getting closer. Lots to do. These are for the show.

Danny Fox by David Thomson

I've started to read the children my favourite books from when I was a similar age - the 'Danny Fox' series by David Thomson, illustrated by Gunvor Edwards (best-known for her work in the Thomas the Tank Engine books).