Petr Horáček's Blog, page 19

Too much talking

I haven’t spent much time in my studio this week. I started the week visiting the nice Timbertree Academy in Cradley Heath, West Midlands. I did a talk and another big picture with the children. I do so many of them these days I’m sure soon every school will have one.

On Wednesday I prepared for the Beeline Festival of Storytelling for Children at the University of Worcester

On Thursday I did two events there. We worked with children inside a pretty tent. Michael Kerins was there as well.Here is Michael in action. He was briliant.

Here are the big pictures we did with the children.

I did two events on Thursday with Suckley School and the other one with Hallow School.

On Friday I did the same with Perrywood and Nunnerywood schools.

The workshops went well and children were brilliant. They always are and I love their artwork.

Sometimes I wish I could come out with these ideas myself. Here is a flying cat.

 

Lion in the tank with fish.

Tortoise with wings and something… I think it’s a flying frog.

My highlight was also catching up with the great illustrator and friend Piet Grobler. Piet is an award winning illustrator and he teaches illustration at Worcester University at this moment.

On Sunday I was at the Manchester Literature Festival proudly stepping in for Anthony Browne. It was a last minute change, so even though people knew that Anthony is not coming, there wasn’t enough time to change the leaflets. I did that myself on my arrival.

The event itself was in Manchester Town Hall. A beautiful building and a nice place to do an event. It was really well organised and the audience was great.

I’m off to another school tomorrow. The next one is somewhere in London. Just where are my train tickets..paint..books, still in my bag…? hmm I have to get organised.

 

 

 

So where am I?

It’s now more than a week since I returned from the wilderness. This week was rather busy with the Cheltenham Literary Festival and a school visit in Surrey and I’m off to another school tomorrow. In my thoughts though I’m still in woods in the Czech Republic.

I’m trying to go through my notes and sketches. When I’m looking back I have quite a few ideas in my sketch book, but it’s still early days to say if anything will come out of it. I quite fancy doing a book about a goat.

I mentioned last week the billy goat who came to visit me and ate all the plants he could. I did some sketches. They are not brilliant, but I had an idea for a book.

This week I was also looking at the board book I’m working on. It’s always hard to start working again on something you haven’t touched for weeks.

I feel that I’m almost there. 

I also wanted to mention the visit in Surrey. It was a lovely small infant school in Ewhurst. The teachers were nice and so were the children. It works like that often actually. With the children from year 1 and 2 we did a picture. It was based on my book Butterfly, Butterfly. Here you can see the work in progress. I started with a picture of Lucy and the butterfly.The children then finished it off. It’s always fun to work with the little ones when you encourage them a bit. We had butterflies in all the colours of rainbow, bugs wearing hats, snails on skateboards, spiders and even a monkey on a tree. How the monkey got there I don’t know, since it was supposed to be just about insects, but the monkey was little and it fitted in well.

I’m off to Timbertree Academy  in Cradley Heath in the West Midlands tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.

 

I was away!

Over the last two weeks  I’ve been away from emails and telephone calls. A friend of mine let me stay in his summer cottage in the Czech Republic. The place is  surrounded by woods and an apple orchid. It’s one of the nicest places I know. 

If you go out of the front door, you see apple trees, a meadow, hills with woods and a river. If you go out through the back door, you are immediately in the woods.

I love woods. I wish I could be paid for walking through woods. I could do that for hours. I could earn a fortune.

I walked, I picked mushrooms, looked at deer. It’s mating season for deer and they were everywhere. They made lots of noise in the evening.

The prettiest mushrooms in the wood you CAN”T eat!

Here are some  pictures of mushrooms. I took quite a few of them and when I came back, I found this old book in the cottage. It was published in 1924.

This picture is from that book.

I also did some landscape paintings. I love painting outside, but I don’t do it often enough these days.

I was also sketching and writing new stories.

It’s too early to say if they are any good, but I’m looking forward to work on these new ideas.

 One day a billy goat came to visit me and he tried to help himself with every flower and plant he could see.

I did write a story about him as well.

I had a great time at my friend’s place and I can’t wait to get back soon.

I came home only three days ago, but it feels like a long time. On Sunday I was at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. I did an event called “Book It! Breakfast with Petr Horacek”. Cheltenham is a well organised festival, the events are always well attended and the audience is great.  This picture was taken by Josie one of the mums there.

We all had a great time! Thank you Cheltenham for having me. The next thing for me is my Wednesday trip to Ewhurst Infant school in Surrey. I’m looking forward to it.

 

 

 

Catching up with work

It’s almost two weeks since I was trying to cope with the incredible heat in Bangkok. It seems ages ago. I’m now wearing a jumper, looking out of my studio window into the rain, watching leaves falling down. Holidays are over and the autumn is starting. It’s alright, I love autumn.

I’m trying to catch up with my work. Here is a picture of what is on my table.

Yes, I’m doing a book about a snail. It will be another board book. Just before I started I remembered a picture I did a long time ago.I still like this picture and I often show it to children when I visit  schools, trying to explain how I use collage and colours. I decided to paint the snail in my new book the same way.

It’s great to work on a new book. The thing I like the best. Listening to the  radio, drawing and painting. But I must admit, I’m struggling a bit. I’ve mentioned it before, a board book has only seven pages, but getting it right it can be hard work. So far I’ve changed each picture at least four times.

I’m getting there. Slowly. Last week I also managed to pop in to Foyles book shop at St. Pancras, where I signed 130 copies of my books for stock. As far as I know Foyles now has the biggest selection of my books and most of them are signed, so if you would like a book with a litlle drawing in it…

My publisher Walker Books made me thirty amazing, big pop ups, which now will be on display in all good books shops.

 Foyles promoting my latest book “Animal Opposites”.

It’s so exciting to see so many of my titles in the book shops together. So thank you Walker Books and Thank you Foyles.

The book is dedicated to lovely Clemmie. She send me this picture on the day of publishing. She found the book in her local book shop.

I think she likes the book.

Bangkok

I am back from Bangkok!

It was exciting, but also rather hard work. I visited schools and libraries, doing talks and workshops. The whole trip was organised by the British Council in Thailand. For me it was a great experience.

Everything started with the flight from Frankfurt. We didn’t quite make it the first time and with one missing engine we had to return and land in Frankfurt again. I was twelve hours late and managed to sleep for an hour before my first event.

I do quite a few visits to schools during the year, so I thought there is nothing which can surprise me, but I was wrong. The children are the same everywhere in the world, but being noisy in  class is o.k in Thailand. Also the level of English wasn’t the same everywhere. Luckily I was working with my new friends Prompen and Note. They saved the show the first morning.

They were not just good company, but also a great help to me. Prompen could organise everything and Note knew how to calm down overexcited children. We were a perfect team by the end of the first day.

If I said that children in Thailand can be rather noisy in class, when it comes to work, they work very hard. They try so hard not to do badly, but in the end we had fun.

 

 

 

I also did events in the Thailand Knowledge Park library.  Here is the poster which I like, because I look rather handsome on it.

                                                                                                                                  Or do I?

The event in the library was good fun.Who is pushing the elephant into the house?

Yeh, when children are happy, parents are happy too. It was good fun.

Disaster struck the last day in the library. I woke up only to realise, that I had completely lost my voice. I couldn’t say a word. Luckily as I said Prompen and Note were great. Together we put on a show, they did the talking, I did whispering, but mainly drawing. I did lots and lots of pictures.

Being published in Thai also helped.

I made another friend in Bangkok. The lovely librarian Asarin.

She very kindly offered to take me around old Bangkok. What a trip it was! In the incredible heat I traveled across the river there and back, seeing …well everything.

Oh yes, I did climb up Wat Arun.

It’s not much about going up, but going down is a bit tricky.

Well, it was all great. I must go back one day. Thank you to the British Council and everybody who helped and was involved with my trip to Bangkok!

 

 

 

Edinburgh and then Thailand

A holiday in the Czech Republic. We were in Sumava, South Czech. It’s a magical places.

I love woods. I could walk through the woods all day. It wouldn’t be too difficult in Sumava, since you can get lost in no time.

I love summer rain in woods..and then a nice cup of tea at a  friend’s house. Another magical place.

I did a bit of work. Not too much. Sometimes I’m just too busy looking around and eating Czech cakes.

I’m sketching new board books. One about a snail

and in the other one is a mouse running through the rain.

 

After the holiday I went straight to the Edinburgh Book Festival. I love Edinburgh and I love the book festival. There is always so much to see and it runs along side the amazing Fringe Festival.

Edinburgh Book Festival is also always very well organised and it’s run by really nice people. I can’t praise it enough.

This year I did a talk in Leith Library for a very young audience and parents. I was a bit worried seeing such young children, but they were great and the event went really well. I suppose it is partly due to parents who take their children to libraries. The children know what to expect. They came for stories. I was drawing and reading some of my books. This event was well organised by Scottish Book Trust.

The next day I did a workshop in the book festival itself. Again, a great audience and clever children. I was drawing, reading and we made little picture books based on my book Elephant. What will happen if you push elephant in to the house?

When I came home from the festival, a box with my latest book Animal Opposites was waiting for me.

 

My excitement didn’t finished here. My publisher Walker Books has made big pop ups for displays in book shops to help promote the book.

It looks great.

Well, it all happened a few days ago. Now I’m packing and in a very short time I’m off to Bangkok. The trip is organised by British Council in Thailand. I’m going to six schools. I will do reading and talking and I will also do workshops. It will be quite  busy, judging by the timetable, but I’ll be sure to make some time and see the city. I’m a bit nervous, but I’m looking forward to it.

 

“Animal Opposites” soon available in every good book shop!

Snowmen on the Beach

By the beach where I was walking lay a carrot. It was so obvious what had happened. I picked up the carrot and we built a snowman,who hadn’t made it to the beach, once again.

He looked as if he is enjoying his day on the beach.

 

The snowman did melt in the end, but he looked happy.

Summer is great. I looked through my sketchbook for some pictures related to the beach.Here is oneand one more.

 

As a student of fine art I use to draw on nudist beaches. I never found it strange and nobody ever told me I shouldn’t. Free life models. It is amazing what kind of shapes you can see. These days I don’t have the nerve I must admit, so these recent drawings are from memories.

 

Yes, as I said it’s amazing what kind of things you can see on the beach. Long live the summer!

Last picture

I got this photo from Natural History Museum. They made a stand with most of my picture books and board books.

It’s hard these days for publishers to get books into the bookshops and even more frustrating for authors not to see their books in book shops, so yes, this photo made me very happy.

On Wednesday I visited All Saints Primary School in Reading. It was a nice  little school and the children were very keen to do some beautiful pictures.

I was also finishing illustrations for  ”Treasure Island “. Here are the pirates surprised by the fact that the treasure has been removed.

And here they are again even more surprised by being ambushed.

These two pictures belong together as a lift the flap. The empty spaces in the picture are for the korean text.

Last picture!

 The good guys are leaving the island. Good bye!

Boats and In Watermelon Sugar

I made a short trip to London on Monday.  As a part of  the Pop Up  project I visited Grafton Primary School in Holloway. I was drawing, talking and reading stories to the nursery children. I like this age group, they are so funny and get so involved. We had a great time.

The rest of the week I spent behind my desk drawing pirates and boats. Here is one of my old drawings of the Titanic. I knew it must be somewhere and I found it.

 

The work I’m doing now is a bit more realistic and definitely more fiddly.

I’m nearly there. Two more pictures to do. I’m having a great time illustrating a picture book version of “Treasure Island” and if it wouldn’t be for the crazy deadline, it would be even better.

Last night when I’d finished working I ran my bath and put the radio on. This is my bath, my foot and my boat. The programme was “A Good Read” with Colin Murray and Bob Mills and Harriett Gilbert as the presenter of course. I was very plesantly surprised, since they were discussing one of my favourite books ever – “In Watermelon Sugar” by Richard Brautigan. You can listen to the programme again on iPlayer.

I love the book so much that I had to illustrate it,  just for myself.

I’ve never shown it to any publisher.  At the time I did 35 illustrations for the book. It’s quite a lot compared to the fact that the book is not very long. It’s now some time since I did the pictures, but I still like them and I wouldn’t change them.

Hearing other people talking about the book made me look at the illustrations again. There are more pictures on my website. I must read In Watermelon Sugar soon again. And again…and again.

 

Tresure Island

This week I did a talk at our lovely local school St. George’s. The hall was full of children and visiting teachers from Italy. Later on I talked to one of the Italian teachers and she mentioned the Czech illustrator Vojtěch Kubašta. 

Kubasta was a great illustrator and master of POP UP books. Mentioning his name brought back memories. All my friends and I had at least one of Kubasta’s books at home.

The rest of the week I’ve been sitting behind my table trying to meet a deadline. I’m working on a picture book version of Treasure Island.

 

This kind of illustration is rather different from what I normally do. Apart from a parrot, there are no animals. I don’t normally draw people so much.

I still use printing and collage as I normally do.

I must say, apart from the deadline, I’m really enjoying the work.  I like the challenge. It’s quite inspiring finding how to work more realistically and implant my style and collage onto rather different kind of work.

I started with pop up and I finish with POP UP. Tomorrow I’m taking part in POP UP festival. I’m visiting two schools in Holloway in London. I will be talking to nursery children about books and animals. I’m looking forward to it.