Frances McKay Illustration

RINGO THE RAVEN

A new Year and a new book illustrated by Henning Lohlein.

Mother Hen's Important Day

 

 
“This is Mother Hen, and today is a very important day for her . . . . “

 

Gilbert the Gander

 

Its here, my first book is finally here in print. It arrived on the snowiest day just before Christmas, so at least it got here unlike much christmas mail!

Grim Tales

Sorting through my portfolio I've just rediscovered these: a couple of book covers I made a few years ago. Firstly, 'The Collector', which has to be one of the eeriest books ever written. For anyone who is familiar with John Fowles' more famous title, 'The French Lietenuant's Woman', this is in my opinion equally impressive (however it's likely to haunt your dreams for a while so consider yourselves warned). This cover is less hand crafted than usual for me and was pretty fun to make. Fun, when I was able to separate myself from the creepiness of the story anyway.

Snuffler Says......

..........Happy Birthday Kate!!!  We hope you have a wonderful day! With best wishes from all of us at FMI XX

'Snuffler' Illustrated by Kate Willis-Crowley.

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Gilbert’s Boat

I have almost completed my first ever book illustrations for “Gilbert’s Boat,” that I am illustrating for North South Books. With just 2 more pages to go I am getting pretty excited, and my deadline is mid June, so I am on schedule, phew! I am so loving doing this, and the more I sketch Gilbert the more fond of him I get. The way I work, means that the illustrations need to be drawn quickly otherwise the ink marks can appear laboured and this then effects the whole feel of the piece. Therefore I have found that if I sketch when I plan to sit down at my desk and work hard, often the illustrations don’t work out as planned, as I guess I can become too precious about it all. I have found for me that the best way to work, oddly enough, is when I have a few minutes spare whilst getting other jobs done or getting my girls tea, or helping them with their homework etc. I work in stages, and build up the layers, so this is very doable. However one wrong mark means the whole piece has to be re done.
This by no way means that I have a carefree attitude about my work, far from it, its my ultimate dream, it just means that the ink strokes become much more free, and the piece becomes more alive, rather than over worked. I just have to ensure that no jammy fingers touch my art, or that Spaghetti Bolognese isn’t accidentally splattered across the piece! Jill Latter Jill's website Follow us on Facebook

A Bad Tempered Goose

Gilbert was very cross!! This is a page from my book that I am currently developing with North South Books. It was written by Frances and is about a bad tempered goose. I really loved developing this character and used my Inky Stick to create his feathers and movement. This particular picture has won me a space in the Images 34 Exhibition with the AOI, which I am excited about having on display this coming summer.

Jill Latter
www.jillustrator.com

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Tropical Bristol

This funny-looking fellow comes from the meeting of sunshine and a piece of old wrapping paper…

A few days ago I was working from my studio in Bristol when suddenly the sun came out from behind the clouds and filled up the room with so much light that for a moment I fantasized I was somewhere far away, in an exotic land blessed with summer.

In that I happened to set my eyes on an old piece of wrapping paper and I noticed a tropical bird, which, although still eyeless, was clearly staring at me from the wrapping! I had no choice but take a break from what I was doing and set it free. With scissors and glue at hand, in a matter of minutes our funny fellow was flying across the page, through ferns and palm trees. 

Valentina Cavallini 

PS. In case you’re wondering what I was doing before the sun came out, I was story boarding a new book for the Secret Seed Society. This time it’s all about carrots! But this is another story for another day….

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