Frances McKay Illustration

Happy Christmas 2017

Rosie Eve

 

Charlotte Cotterill

Kate Sheehy

 

Christina Bretschneider 

 

Henning Löhlein 

 

Happy Christmas and all best wishes for the New Year from everyone at Frances McKay Illustration.

 

Happy Halloween

Best witches from Nicola Pontin.

 

Happy hunting from Elys Dolan.

 

Monkey paws galore from Sean Julian 

 

And a fright to remember from Alan Marks.

Happy Halloween from everyone at Frances McKay Illustration.

 

 

Season's Greetings and Festive Cheer

 

Rachel Boulton 

Jill Latter 

 

Festive jollity to everyone from Jane and her cat, Celeste.

Jane Eccles 

 

 

Have a jolly Festive Season, and a fabulous happy New Year!!! 

Henning Löhlein 

 

The two characters that have made it onto my Christmas card this year are from a picture book story I am currently developing about possessive friendships.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Algy Craig Hall 

 

 

 

Tom Morgan-Jones 

 

Donough O'Malley 

 

  

 

Belinda Worsley 

"That looks painful!" said Penguin.

Sean Julian 

 

A piece of concept art for a picture book about the magic of Christmas.

Neil Price 

 

http://www.fidgetandco.com/ Latest poster to download for free, in time for the holidays... The Adventures of Dr Fillie Fidget and Hamish the Dog. 

Happy Christmas all!

Bee Willey 

 

The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will the robin do then? Poor thing!

He’ll sit in a barn, And keep himself warm, And hide his head under his wing, Poor thing!

Alan Marks 

 

This is a little booklet I made in the style of a medieval woodcut chap book, illustrating the Christmas story of Babushka, for those not familiar with it....

I recall this story being read on Jackanory one December long long ago on the TV, and it had such an impact on me a child, and it has stayed with me ever since.

Often mistakenly thought of as a traditional Russian tale, this is really an Italian tradition, alive and well, with the children there receiving gifts and sweets down the chimney on January 5th from La Befana - a kindly old woman with a broomstick - they are threatened with getting lumps of coal if they misbehave.

After much digging around researching the origins of the 'Russian' tale, I read that it was actually an English woman visiting Russia in the early 1900s,  who coming across a published version of the story and was not aware it was a translation from the Italian to Russian, as she subsequently translated it to English thereby becoming responsible for creating the myth in the west of the Russian Babushka story! The basic story was not however lost in translation!

  

I hope you enjoy the little tale as much as I did all those years ago: along with the notion that a kindly hardworking woman is responsible for the mysterious gifts in your stocking on Christmas morning and not an old man with a big beard and muddy boots!!

Irene Dickson 

 

 

Season's Greetings, Happy Christmas and all good wishes for the New Year from everyone at Frances McKay Illustration.

 

In the Spirit of Halloween

Bee Willey’s illustration for Macbeth opens our celebration of all things All Hallows’ Eve.

 

Check out my Pumpkin fairy and others, part of a growing family!

May your Halloween bee full of wintry sparkles!

Bee Willey  

  

Monsters are hiding everywhere, as the little hamsters Mini, Paul and Max find out in their adventure "Hamster Monster", just published by North/South in Zürich, Switzerland. Three little hamsters are tired of being called cute and sweet - so they decide to be scary, but they get a reaction, which they don't expect...

"The Conference of Scary Ghosts" a cover for a Young Fiction title, published by Arena, Würzburg, Germany, written by Amina Paul. A child is sent to spend the holidays at his uncle's house, a castle, where not everything is what it seems.

Henning Löhlein 

Here's a raven I drew for the RSPB's 'Wingbeat' Magazine, which illustrated an article concerning why we associate certain human characteristics with particular animals and birds.

 

And here are two spooky characters I drew for a book pitch a few years ago, or is it three characters I can spot?

Tom Morgan-Jones  

This is an illustration of The Black Skull from a young fiction story I am currently developing - 'The Mysteries of the Magic Map'. 

Algy Craig Hall  

A while ago I had an idea for a story about a group of witches that gather together every fortnight to exchange spells and broth recipes, learn new witch-crafts and have topical conversations about all things related to being a witch. The group was going to be called the Witch's Institute or W.I. for short. 

One of the Witch's laws was going to be that if you did too much dark magic, bits would start to drop off. So if you ever see a witch with a carrot for a nose - be wary!

Sean Julian  

This is literally hot off the drawing board, work in progress for Little Tiger Press, an extension to the Gift Book range that I illustrated for them a few years ago, this will be book number 7 in the range, "Thank You Teacher."

Jill Latter  

I love drawing kids all dressed up for any occasion, especially Halloween, and no matter witch sort of Halloween you have I hope it's FANGTASTIC! 

Rachel Boulton 

Here in Germany Halloween has become more and more popular. I drew these pictures for myself and my son, Anton. When Anton was small the pictures had to be mostly funny because he was afraid if they were too dark and mean.

I did the last illustration a few weeks ago; I read quite a scary story but I kept in mind that although the children were afraid they were also fascinated by what they would see when they walked further on. 

Christina Bretschneider  

The next night came: Hallowe'en. Most people stayed safe inside their houses with their doors tightly locked. But not Janna.

When all her household was fast asleep, out she crept again, into the darkness. She followed the path the cold moon showed her, a silver path that led straight back into the enchanted forest.

From 'The Enchanted Forest' by Rosalind Kerven

Alan Marks

Lemony Snicket’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is about three orphans who are placed in the custody of their distant cousin, Count Olaf, who will stop at nothing to steal their inheritance. This was a personal project.

The Milo Adventure cover is about an Angry Druid who rises from the grave! This cover was commissioned by O’Brien Press.

Neil Price  

 

Hansel and Gretel at Halloween! 

This is one of two images I made to accompany the chapter entitled 'Abandoned Children', in 'The Golden Age of Fairy Tales', by Jack Zipes published in 2013. The numerous old stories on this theme are truly gruesome but at least in this one the children triumph! Although the other image was published, I think Gretel despatching the witch to cook in her own oven has more of a Halloween feel to it!

Irene Dickson 

 

Illustrator James de la Rue has a friend who wants to join in the fun!  

 

And Jane Eccles is, well...  a bit batty!

 

Jane Eccles 

 

Wishing you a fun and spooky Halloween, and more than a few treats, from everyone at Frances McKay Illustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The big day is nearly upon us so the good people here at FMI thought we would give you a slightly early present with a bumper crop of some fine festive images for your seasonal delight.

Happy New Year !

Happy New Year All !

Illustration by Henning Lohlein

Latitude Festival, and lots of ink

 
 

Happy Easter!

 
This illustration by Jane Eccles recently featured on Illustration Rally's Easter Rally.

Happy Easter from all of us!