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Dotty Detective The Holiday Mystery

Dotty Detective The Holiday Mystery

  Pink heart jazzies all round - Dotty Detective is back on the case with a brand new adventure, The Holiday Mystery! Dot and her family and Beans and his dad are all going on holiday to the Sunny Glades campsite by the seaside.     They make a new...

black and white #5

black and white #5

    My last black and white illustration - of this batch - to show. Look out for this fine chap in Picking Pickle! I don't know what the things I love to draw have in common. Whether it's a baby or a Great Dane or a Chevrolet Corvette, they probably all...

black and white #4

black and white #4

    Cars and trains and boats and planes... I've been a Mr Toad (poop poop) for as long as I can remember. Not just cars: basically if you can get in it and go from A to B it's a YES PLEASE from me!      

Picking Pickle

Picking Pickle

    We're back! What better way to welcome the spring. May I present Picking Pickle, a new picture book to be published by Pavilion Books in June - written by Polly Faber and illustrated by me. We've been yelping excitedly in the wings for a long time on...

black and white #4

black and white #4

    Scenes, settings and stories... oh and hats! I also found out, while inventing the Fancy-Coat-Lady's fancy coat, that in the 1950's the advances in nuclear physics combined with the decorative patterns of the era to create atomic florals, which seemed...

black and white #3

black and white #3

    Animals! And the journey of anthropomorphism: from a real-life natural pet, McClusky, through to Dixie and Percy with their three-piece suits and driving licenses, via Bambang and Mary Plain who inhabit that glorious world somewhere in-between. This is...

black and white #2

black and white #2

    Today: drawing children, then and now. I love the vitality of contemporary life, but when it comes to classics - oh those scratchy grey woollen shorts and button-over shoes and homemade haircuts... when I got the job to re-illustrate Milly-Molly-Mandy,...

black and white #1

black and white #1

    This week I'll be sharing some of things I love to draw. Illustrating fiction in black and white is the greatest happiness. Because dress it up all you like and the deliciousness of colour notwithstanding, it's the line that underpins it all, the heart...

happy first day of spring!

happy first day of spring!

    After this wretched winter, too. Nothing says spring like a hare on a bike ride - and even if you can't see inside you just know there's egg and cress sandwiches on board.    

McClusky’s birthday

McClusky’s birthday

From Dotty Detective The Birthday Surprise: We don't know when McClusky's birthday is, because he's a rescue dog, so each year he has THREE birthday parties diabetes (just in case he didn't have enough special celebrations before he became part of our family).  ...

a year of Mary Plain

a year of Mary Plain

  In 2017 Mary Plain returned in style! You can read more about her journey – and mine – here. Four books were published (looking so smart and beautiful - Egmont really did us proud!), meringues were eaten, rosettes were worn.     Mary made new friends...

to my Grenfell art therapy heroes…

to my Grenfell art therapy heroes…

  Instead of banging on about what I did this year, I’m looking back to what we did. This was without doubt the absolute highlight, and has filled me with a toasty-warm feeling of pride and optimism ever since. In the weeks that followed the Grenfell Tower fire...

Mary Plain #7

Mary Plain #7

Happy Publication Day, Mary!   So this day has arrived at last. Mostly Mary and All Mary have put on their best rosettes and stepped out into the world. Egmont UK have done us proud. These books are all I could have wished for. Meringue, anybody?    ...

Mary Plain #6

Mary Plain #6

cake continuity error   When you make a mistake of this magnitude, there are two ways to go... You can either deny everything, or like the Ancient Mariner fix everybody you meet with a beady eye and tell them the whole horrifying story. I SO nearly didn't spot...

Mary Plain #5

Mary Plain #5

the bear pits in Berne   I've pored over pictures and collected old postcards...     but it was time to pack a sketchbook and go to Berne to see those bear pits (now the BärenPark) for myself!     The original pits are still there, exactly as...

Mary Plain #4

Mary Plain #4

Mary's picture writing   Mary has many ways to unequivocally get her message across, but none quite so charming as her picture writing. Sometimes it's easy to decipher, sometimes a little head-scratching is called for. In my family we have always sent messages to...