New 5 crocodiles page for '40 Elephants'.

I much prefer this to the other crocodiles, they are much better colours, shapes and just in general. Might have to do something about the paler line running through the middle of all of them. I think this is possibly where the two sheets of paper are joined.

Now I need to re-think the Zebra. They're quite clumsy looking and the layout is pretty dull. I think I need to sketch some next time I'm at the zoo so that I can get more movement into the images and make them more exciting...

MA Children's Book Illustration Graduation Exhibition 2012.

Please come and see our MA Exhibition, everyone's work looks amazing. Its in Foyles Book Shop (Charing Cross), Wednesday 8th Feb 9am until Tuesday 14th Feb 6pm. Everyone is well come.

'40 Elephants' extended pages 28 & 29

'40 Elephants' extended pages 27 & 30

The Back cover of the book is the same as extended page 30, adding up to 40 elephants with the ones on the front cover. Shame about the tiny elephant on the spine, may have to rethink that one...

'40 Elephants" pages 26-27

'40 Elephants' pages 24-25

I'm not too keen on these crocs. I might substitute them for the larger crocodile with his new tail (made for the exhibition).

'40 Elephants' pages 22-23

'40 Elephants' pages 20-21

'40 Elephants' pages 18-19

'40 Elephants' pages 16-17

'40 Elephants' pages 14-15

'40 Elephants' pages 12-13

'40 Elephants' pages 10-11

'40 Elephants' pages 8-9

'40 Elephants' pages 6-7

'40 Elephants' Title page

'40 Elephants' End papers

'40 Elephants' Front Cover

Bologna Entry: 'Pteropus rodricensis'

Bologna Entry: 'Pteropus rodricensis'

Bologna Entry: 'Pteropus rodricensis'

Bologna Entry: 'Pteropus rodricensis'

Bologna Entry: 'Pteropus rodricensis'

Springbok sketches

Lemur sketches

Meerkat sketches

Bat sketches

I spent over 3 hours sketching the bats in their new upgraded eco-tunnel home at Jersey Zoo. It was wonderful to spend so much time with them. I've really missed them since I left the zoo. I decided to substitute the meerkats in '40 Elephants' for Rodrigues Fruit Bats. It was very self indulgent but I wanted to make beautiful prints from my sketches. I also wanted to keep elements of my initial idea of putting unpopular animals in a children's book. The only down side was that meerkats are one species and are easily recognizable so children will already have an idea of their size and scale. This is not so with the bats... oh well...

Hedgehog Lino

Lino print cockroaches

This was my first attempt at a print with more than one colour. Also my fist attempt at mixing my own colours (summer 2011) - which took several hours. Thankfully I'm much faster these days. This print started off an idea about an alternative alphabet of unpopular animals which led to the size and scale idea for my masters project '40 elephants'.

Lino Print Dog Aggression Ethogram

Kennel Prints

I like the idea behind 'Dumped', but I think I would like to explore using collographs more and possibly a different colour scheme if I were to do it again.

Dumped

Dumped was created for the sequential image project and taught me a lot about designing a 32 page picture book. I'm generally quite pleased with the outcome, although it is largely unfinished and there are quite a few changes I would like to make to it. I feel a little bit bad that it portrays kennel life so bleakly. Shelter kennels are not a particularly nice place for dogs to live, but they are provided with lots of enrichment devices and bedding to make life more enjoyable. I decided to leave these out because I the print element of the illustration requires simplicity to make the most impact. I feel like I am doing a dis-service to rescue charities, but at the same time I think the desolate isolation of the kennel works very well to emphasize Squids loneliness and isolation.

'Dumped' pages 28-29

Fin.

'Dumped' pages 26-27

I would quite like to give Squid a new 'bling' collar to emphasize the idea that he belongs to someone.

'Dumped' pages 24-25

'Dumped' pages 22-23

I think this might be better swapped round with p.24-25 just to vary the page lay out a bit - I think thats what I did for the printed dummy version.

'Dumped' pages 20-21

'Dumped' pages 18-19

'Dumped' pages 16-17

This image will be similar to page 12-13 but still needs all the dogs and people to be added. I have put Squid in to show the change in ear position as he gets more and more depressed.

'Dumped' pages 14-15

I'm very fond of the dog in this image because it was the first collograph I made. I would like to remove the cream colour from behind the dog print to make him stand out more from the background.

'Dumped' pages 12-13

This page still needs a lot of work. I like the idea of the brightly coloured people contrasting against the drabness of the kennel backdrop. The three lines of kennels will eventually show many of the dogs in them being picked by people and taken home, except for Squid, who no one is interested in.

'Dumped' pages 10-11

'Dumped' pages 8-9

I like the idea behind this page, but would like to reprint the kennel worked and the dog as they are not quite right.

'Dumped' pages 6-7

'Dumped' Endpapers

'Dumped' Cover

I really like the texture of the collograph print on the brow paper but am not keen on the type face, it appears very fat when seen along side the printed images. I would like to replace this with the typeface I made and printed for my newer book, but in the same brown colour as the printed dog.

Potato prints and collographs in the sequential image project

I thought about drawing line drawings of dogs underneath but felt that they wouldn't be bold enough and would get lost behind the bars. After some experimentation I decided to use a mixture of ripped cardboard prints for the main characters and potato prints using gouache paint for the rest of the characters. I liked the way the gouche merged with the moisture from the potato to give the dogs more organic markings in contrast to the starkness of their printed outlines.