Petr Horáček's Blog, page 13

World Book Day Week and Mal

We had World Book Day last week. I went to five schools. The first one was a really nice small school in Ombersley not far from where I live.  Then I went to three schools in Blackheath and finished on Friday in Worcester where I live. Quite a busy week, but it was fun.

Thanks to Speaking of Books my events were well organised and it all ran smoothly. I’ve met up with lots of excited children and friendly teachers.

Aa usual I got lots of presents from the children. I love the drawings.

 

Here is an (co) illustrator of one of them. Edith Harrison (who happens to be my niece ) and a picture from one of my books Look Out Suzy Goose.

On Friday in Perdiswell Primary School in Worcester children and the teachers were dressed up. I like that. The children take they dressing up very seriously, but not as seriously as the teachers. It’s a kind of healthy competitiveness between the adults and everybody at school are jolly and it’s all great fun. I think dressing up day should be at schools at least once a week.

I also happend to be in one class full of mice. It was great and very appropriate, since we were reading “A New House for Mouse” and ” The Mouse Who Ate the Moon”.

This little girl’s mum sent me a photo of herself dressed as Little Mouse (the character from “A New House for Mouse”).

This is Darcy dressed as a Puffin Peter. Prety impressive too!

At schools we also made murals. Here is one of them.

It was a busy week and I was thinking a lot about Mal Peet who died last Monday. Mal was a great guy and great writer. I remembered the times when we shared our experiences of school visits.  Mal told me how he went once to do a reading a prison. Every time he tried to get through the strict security he always got sent back, because he always forgot something “dangerous” in his pocket, like a wrapping from chewing gum for example.

Because of that, he was late and trying to apologise he started his talk by saying “Sorry guys I’m late,  you wouldn’t believe how difficult it’s to get in here”. The prisoners shouted back: “Yeah mate, you wouldn’t believe how much more difficult it is to get out of here!”

Mal was always good fun and a really nice bloke to be with. Julia Eccleshare wrote a lovely obituary.

 

 

 

 

Schools and Nurseries

For many authors, illustrators and for anybody who has something to do with books and publishing, these couple of months are the busiest time of year. I’ve already started to travel around  schools, doing readings, showing pictures and sketches from my books and doing workshops.

My school visits and workshops are brilliantly organised by Speaking of Books.

Last week I was in Stoke on Trent. I went to five schools and on Thursday I visited NINE nurseries in one day. Modesty aside, I think it’s quite an achievement!

I like talking to children in nurseries. They are fun and you know straight away if you’re doing well or not. The little ones let you know.

The purpose of my visit to Stoke on Trent was to promote and inspire reading in schools and nurseries. It’s not difficult to make children excited about books I thought. Every child likes a good story, good pictures and every child likes to play. I was thinking a difference could be made if  parents would take part as well. I’m talking about parents who find it easier to give a child an i-pad to play with or just press a button on the telly rather than open a book and read to the child.

In fact you can spot a child who is read to and a child who spends more time with a television. A child who is used to books can sit, concentrate, participate and be involved much easier and quicker. For some children concentration is a big effort. A book doesn’t flash and it doesn’t make a noise. A book needs time.As usual I do lots of drawings with children. I can’t have enough of children’s art.Here are some the masterpieces.Just look at this beautiful horse. Isn’t it amazing?I got some drawings to take home with me.A cheetah on a skateboard.The rest of the week I was got on with my book “My First Book of Animals”. I’m pleased to say that the gorillas are now finished.I also finished a picture of a viper. This is how I did the illustration.

First I painted and printed the skin of the snake,cut a stencil for the patten and here is the final picture.

That’s it for this week. I’m in five different schools next week, so I’d better get packing.

Flamingoes are finished

 

I spent a couple of days getting ready for a meeting with my editor Denise. We planned to discuss new ideas for two board books and some ideas for picture books.

It’s always nice to see Denise and I was looking forward to showing her my new sketches. As soon as we started to talk about the new ideas I learnt, that we have to postpone the board books. New Health and Safety measures are going to be introduced, so there is no chance I can make any board books with holes and cut outs at the moment.

We are living in dangerous times where a novelty book can seriously hurt you.

So that is that for the board books – done. Then my new idea for a picture book about a Big Dog who is looking after a big garden.

“Hmmm, I don’t like this one”, said Denise. “O.K”, said I with a broken voice. That is that for the picture book – done. It was cold and it was raining. What a miserable day it was, but, still nice to see Denise and there are more ideas in my sketchbooks.

Then I had another meeting this week. Lovely Nicola Davies came to visit us. She just flew in from U.S.A where she was getting another award. This time for her and Emily Sutton’s book “Tiny”. Congratulations!

I’m working with Nicola on our new book “My First Book of Animals”. I invited Nicola, because I wanted to be sure, that all my sketches for the book are O.K. and I wanted to discuss all the details I may miss out. It’s so inspiring to talk to Nicola, because she knows so much about the animal world.

It was a great afternoon and it helped me a lot to have a chat about all the pictures.

So how am I doing so far?  Well, I have lots of things ready. I have all the sketches, I’ve measured and cut the papers, printed some of the backgrounds..now I need time to do the pictures.

Sailfish is ready

and the flamingoes as well.

Here is the sketch,

work in progress

and the final picture.That is all for the the week. I’m now packing for my trip to Stoke on Trent, where I will visit five schools and nine nurseries in four days. Surely, it must be a world record!

Painting Sailfish

I’ve started working on the final pictures for a book by Nicola Davies  called “My First Book of Animals”.

It’s so inspiring that I would like to do nothing else but paint and draw all these exciting animals.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like this. There is always something else I have to do as well. Little pictures I promised to do some time ago, school visits (quite a few of them in fact) and I was also at the Imagine Children’s Festival at Southbank centre in London.

I did two talks and two workshops. Imagine Children’s Festival is a great event and I’m pleased to say that it all went very well. It was good fun. The children (and their parents) were nice and friendly and also keen to do some good art.

We made little concertina books based on my book “The Mouse Who Ate the Moon”.

I was signing books and one of the dads came and asked me a favour. He told me that one of his son’s favourite books was my Animal Opposites. He told me that it is read so much, that the book got a bit battered. Then he produced a copy of Animal Opposites that is definitely well loved. Some of the pop ups were torn a bit, but the pop up peacock was completely missing, so I was asked if I could draw a new peacock into the book. I did …my best. I always like to see my books being well read and used.

Back to ” My First Book of Animals”. I thought I would start with a picture of gorilla with baby. The reason is, that I consider this picture to be one of the most difficult pictures in the book, so I wanted to get on with it. I fact I enjoyed drawing the gorilla. The picture isn’t finished, but I think it’s going o.k. so far.

Then I painted a sailfish. In this case I choose the sailfish because I really like this fish and I couldn’t wait to have a go.

I did the picture twice. The second picture was much better than the first one, but it still needs a bit of work.

And I started flamingoes. It’s a work in progress….well the whole book is a work in progress.

A couple more things to mention. Spending three days in London this week was great. There’s so much going on, but the high light for me was exhibition of Marlene Dumas in Tate ModernIt’s so nice to see an exhibition of somebody who can still paint and draw. Great exhibition.

Another highlight for me was an exhibition of MA graduates from Anglia Ruskin University and Cambridge School of Art. I wished I could spend more time in the exhibition, but I was running out of time. What I saw was very impressive. Lots of great illustrators. One of them is my friend from the Academy of Fine Art in Prague - Zdenka Pozarova. Great to catch up and congratulations!

And one more thing. It was St. Valentine’s Day and I received this nice review of Jonathan & Martha. It’s funny how this books always get mentioned at this time of the year. Thank you myfriendlucy.

Books with holes

Books with holes – I’m talking about my board books of course. I’ve been sketching and making mock ups so that I have something to show to my publisher.One of the books should be about a bird.

I also fancy doing something with mice. I know I’ve done a couple of board books with mice in the past, but in this book there should be not one, but three mice.

To me a board book with holes and mice in it makes sense, somehow.

Talking about mice..I was also asked to do a picture of mice on a red chair.I suppose that’s enough of mice for one week.

My friend Carl had a birthday this week. He likes cycling, so I did a little picture of a cyclist being followed by a moose. I named it “Sweedish cyclist”. 

Good meeting.

Since I wrote my last blog, I’ve received an email from Manor Green School  with a better picture of the hanging mural. So here it is once again, so everybody can see what we did together. Penguins on parade!

This week I had a meeting with editors and with Nicola Davies. We were discussing our new book “The First Book of Animals”.

I was quite nervous, because it was the first time I was presenting my sketches for the book and was worried about what everybody would say.

I really enjoyed sketching the book. Nicola’s text is great and it’s full of interesting facts. Very inspirational, so doing the research and painting the animals was real fun.

I was quite surprised, that at the end I counted almost seventy pictures! It’s quite a lot I think, since I started sketching only before Christmas.

The meeting was great. We all worked very hard, trying to choose the best pictures and make the best selection of  animals (not every picture and animal will fit in to the book unfortunately).

At the end we had almost finished the lay outs for the book. It was going much better than anybody thought it will. Yes, there is still lots to do, but there are already some pages on which I can start working.

Painting small colour sketches is relatively easy, but now I will have to do a good pencil study of each animal, because Nicola wouldn’t let me get away with any mistakes. She’s already noticed that I can’t draw whales properly and I don’t know how an anemone looks. I even did a terrible mistake of calling an anemone a plant! It’s something you should never do in front of a biologist. Anemone is an animal of course. I tried to correct myself quickly, but I still got a stare.

This is actually what I’m looking forward to as well. To learn more about the animals. Nicola knows practically everything and it’s interesting to listen to her.

I was also sketching some ideas for board books. I got a bit stuck, so I decided to do a bit of painting instead. Here is painting of a big puffin. This picture is inspired by a drawing done by a little girl called Flo. I’ve already painted it once, but this painting is going to be even bigger.  It’s not finished!

 

There is a penguin in the school

I went on my first school visit this year. Manor Green School in Maidenhead is a new and modern school. The staff and teachers I met on the day were very nice and very friendly and the children were excited and enthusiastic, ready to hear some of my stories and ready to do some art later on that day.

I did two talks in the morning. One for the children in the junior school and one for the secondary school. It went pretty well and some of  the children attended two of my workshops in the afternoon.

The school had previously asked if I can include some penguins in my workshop, so with the children, we created a big picture full of penguins.There were penguins flying, skating, wearing jumpers and funny hats…. Sixty children were involved in making the mural! We all had great fun and I loved the drawings the children did. I got some of  the drawings to take home.This is a penguin going to a fancy dress party. A picture full of sunshine. A penguin from Ryan.A happy picture with two butterflies.

 Another picture with the sun shining from Lee.

 Soroush gave me this drawing and as I remember he also painted a very colourful penguin flying in the air using three balloons! 

That day we also opened a new school library and guess what

inside was a penguin, reading a book about Puffin Peter.

It was nice to see the children being so excited about their new library.

 This is me being also excited and trying to fit into one of the seats between the bookshelves.

It was a busy and very nice day at Manor Green. Thank you for inviting me!

Last week I also continued working on the sketches for Nicola Davis’s book.

Here is a sketch of a gorilla with a baby,a kangaroo with joey,

seahorsesand a snail. The book is going to have lots and lots of pictures of animals.

One more thing to mention. “Draw In” exhibition which takes place in Port of Tyne Gallery, The Customs House, Mill Dam, South Shields, Tyne and Wear NE33 1ES

Artists and writers were asked to nominate one of their friends and to do a portrait of themselves and a portrait of their nominated friend. It should be done from memory.  The nominated friend then will do the same. I drew Tony de Saulles

and Tony drew me. Here is the list of the other people who are taking part:

Emma Holliday / Sav Scatola

Valerie Laws /  Malcolm Gerrie

Petr Horacek / Tony De Saulles

Ethen Byrne / Faye Leydon.

Lou Sumray / Jason Sumray

Sudeshna Chattopadhyay / Kriti Chattopadhyay

Charlotte Johannes / Tom Adams

Nick Holmes / Esme Patey-Ford

Suzy Varty / plus name to be confirmed

Carol McGuigan /  Topsy Qur’et

Suzy Varty & Bridget Woodhall

It should be a good exhibition. The private view is 23 Jan 6pm – 8pm  and the exhibition will last until 1st March 2015.  Go and have a look if you can!

Cards and Animals

Personally I don’t ‘get’ Christmas cards. That means I don’t understand what is the point of handing a Christmas card to somebody I speak to almost every day, or what is the point of buying a card and just write your name in it and send it. Still, my wife and I send tons of Christmas cards every year and as a result we get tons of Christmas cards back. Over Christmas the cards are everywhere – on the mantelpiece, on the doors, over the picture frames … Well, they are nice – I must admit.

When Christmas is over I finally have a chance to look at them properly. I find it difficult to identify who is who just from the signature and I’m pretty sure that some of the people I don’t actually know, but I like to read the personal messages and most of all, I like the pictures.

My favourite are of course handmade cards and those which are designed by children. Here is this year’s top list.

A card from my clever niece Edith Harrison.

 

This card is designed by talented Sophia Burleigh.

This one is painted by Markus Simojoki.

 

This card came from “Speaking of Books” and is designed by Ellie’s 7 year old daughter.

I love them all, but my favourite card of Christmas is a picture done by Lucien Coole.  I love the picture and it had its proud place in the middle of our mantlepiece (it’s now moved to my studio).

Apart from admiring other people’s work I did some pictures myself this week.

I’m having a great time sketching a new book called “My First Book of Animals” written by the amazing Nicola Davies.

In the book should be pictures of jellyfish,Monarch butterflies,Blue Morpho butterfly, wasps,

koala,ostrich and honeybird ….and even sailfish!

I love doing the research and sketching the animals.

Next week I’m going to visit Manor Green Special School in Maidenhead. It’s my first school visit in 2015, so I’m looking forward to it.

Happy New year and two paintings

Christmas was great! Alright, maybe too much eating and drinking, but I can handle it. I’m a man! In between all the socialising I also found time for the occasional walk.I love walking through the frozen countryside.Look at the frozen leaves of beetor this frozen ground.I decided not to work on books over the Christmas holiday, but I still did some painting.This picture was inspired by one of my recent sketches.

 This sketch of an old lady was inspiration for the next picture.

It’s nice just to paint for fun.

And one more art installation I made just before the end of 2014 . What you need is six Lindt Lindor Truffles (keep the wrappings) and one Ferrero Rocher for the star. Yes, ….I know.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Shopping and Zebras

 

Sometime ago I mentioned, that I’m looking forward to my collaboration with Nicola Davies. Last week I delivered the final illustrations for my latest book to my publisher and at the same time I collected Nicola’s finished manuscript of our book.

I thought I won’t start anything new before before Christmas. All I wanted to do was just write Father Christmas a letter and send Christmas cards to friends. Then I looked at Nicola’s text and poems. IT’S BRILLIANT!

The book is going to be called “My First Book of Animals” and it will have as many as 100 pages – fifty double spread pictures.

I’m so excited, I can’t wait to start working on it. First I thought I will make just pencil notes…

but then I started to read all about animals of different sizes, and colours…

I couldn’t help it and I started to paint.

Orangutan with its baby in the tree nest.

Tiger in the night.300 000 different beetles!

Spider in the bath.

This is one of my favourite poems in the book.

Did you know that the Tsetse fly doesn’t like stripes? I did this sketch and then I remembered that I must have somewhere spare drawings of Zebras. I opened a draw and this is what I found – lots of zebras.

I’m really looking forward to reading more about all the wonderful animals and do more sketching.

I also thought that I should get properly ready for next year and stock-up on materials – paint and papers.

I’m lucky. I have a nice neighbour Alison, who has a nice brother Alexander and Alexander has a nice Art shop – Alexander Paper Supplies.

I went to do the shopping with all my family and was very impressed by how we were welcomed! Look, there was even a welcoming sign with coffee and biscuits ready!

On the picture is Alexander, my daughters and my wife Claire (she is the smallest one) and me.

Alexander, with help of his sons Alexander, Oliver and a couple of employees, has been successfully running his business for 20 years. He is so enthusiastic about his job. He took us to his warehouse full of amazing machines and showed us everything and he also took as for lunch! What a day.

If you decide to stock-up on materials in Alexander Paper Supplies  I can’t promise you a free lunch, but I can guarantee, that you wan’t be disappointed. You will be treated well and you will get any advice you may need from Alexander or from his nice dad Bill who, as Alexander said, is giving advice to anybody no mater if he wants it or not.

Well and that is it for now. Time to celebrate Christmas!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!