This Little Pig...

Hello!

*waves*

Sorry I haven't updated this for a while. I have had the maddest month - non stop events AND trying to finish the artwork for CLAUDE book 5.
Aaaaaaaaannnnd...... Today I did it!
CLAUDE in the Spotlight is now complete and I've handed it over to my lovely designer for her to work her magic on it. I've had so much fun working on it, and I hope you all enjoy it when it publishes in April 2013. When I'm allowed to post a sneaky preview on here, I will.

In the mean time, here is one of the three little pigs. This one is the one who built his house out of wood, obviously. He started out as a doodle in my sketchbook, but I couldn't help colouring him in.
I'll try and put some of my recent sketchbook pages up on here this week and I promise to start updating regularly again starting from.........now!

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The Swimming Lesson

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The Borrowed Dog Circus...

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This is a picture I did for my little friend Nevaeh, to whom I am an Honorary Uncle because her mum is one of my best friend's from childhood.


The other day Nevaeh's mum Sophie got in contact with me to tell me that following the Britain's Got Talent final where a performing dog won, Nevaeh had formulated a plan which she (Nevaeh) believes will make her win next year's competition and propel her to SUPER STARDOM! 


The plan is as follows:


Nevaeh to her Mum:  


"I'm sure Uncle Alex will let me borrow one of his tiny dogs to train with for next years show?

Imagine what tricks we could do? Do you think the girly one would do some ballet with me? 

Nanny's Bailey is far to BIG and stinky!"

My dogs, as most of you know, are two tiny, very naughty chihuahuas. I say good luck to Nevaeh if she thinks she can train them, because I can't!

The image of this plan really made me laugh. I couldn't imagine my boy chihuahua, Mr Billy Bongo, being too pleased about squeezing into a tutu, so I decided to draw Nevaeh as a Circus performer instead.

It's Nanny's poor boxer dog Bailey who I feel sorry for. I'm sure a spritz of perfume and a jazzy bow would make the world of difference...

So keep your eyes peeled on BGT next year as you might see my two pooches sashaying around the stage with an excitable 5 year old. They'd certainly get my vote!

The Swing...

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The swing at the bottom of the garden was a great place to start another wonderful adventure...

Surprise (with light and shade!)

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As you'll see from the below post, I put this image online earlier today, but I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't quite finished. I am an awful one for tinkering about with my pictures - nudging things here and there etc, but I felt that this little boy's special surprise was missing a bit of light and shade. It needed just a little bit more drama, maybe. Some light coming through the (unseen) leaves.

Above is the 'tinkered with' image I'm happy with. The RGB jpeg format does flatten the colours a bit. The CMYK file is much richer than this, but that's Photoshop for you!

Now what I'd like to know is what is in those parcels...? Ideas anyone?

Surprise!

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Goodnight Mr.Pigeon...

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