Petr Horáček's Blog, page 21

Cake and Koala

Easter was good!  It was nice not to do much.  I went for walks across the frozen Somerset Levels. I also ate most of this masterpiece created by my mother in law. I’m not proud of it, but at the same time I can’t help it when I see cake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also did some work. Here are some of  the finished pictures for a book called “Jump and Fly”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was also drawing and sketching a koala bear.

 

It was fun. I was thinking about writing some stories with the character. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that is it. The sun is shining out side. I can’t believe it. Time to get out.

Cover and Easter Picture

I finished a book! It will be called “The Mouse who ate the Moon”.  The book is a free sequel to  “A New House for Mouse”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s eight years since “A New House for Mouse” was published.

“The Mouse who ate the Moon”,  as  “A New House for Mouse” is a novelty book with cut outs and shaped pages, so my designer and I knew, that we wanted to have a cut out on the cover as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louise, the clever art designer from Walker Books I work with, sent me her idea of the cover and I sent mine.

As you can see they were very similar.  We agreed, that it would be good to have the cover blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is the cover. O.K. I’m probably rushing it a bit, since we haven’t had the final meeting yet, but I’m quite confident that it will look rather similar to this one.

And now some pictures from my little sketchbook. This one is loosely related to Easter.

Look, the Dodo has been hatched !

 

Happy Easter!

Birds

In one of the schools I visited recently,  I was asked what is my favourite animal. I said bears and there was a surprise. The children  expected me to say  goose, puffin or some kind of other birds. Apparently I do lots of pictures with birds. I thought about it and realised that there is some truth to it. I do like drawing birds and I like bird characters in my books.

In the past I did three phonic books for HaperCollins. I’m currently working on another one. Three out of these books are about a bird.

The Lonely Penguin

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Day Out   

and a work in progress – Jump and Fly. 

Here are more birds from Jump and Fly.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m doing pictures of birds. I was also asked to donate a picture for charity helping families called “Wise Books“. They asked for a picture of…an Owl. So yes, I drew a bird once again. I enjoyed it. Here it is.

And just to finish, here are two more pictures from my sketchbook.

A White Crow on Trafalgar Square.

One more school and lots of deer

I’m getting on with the illustrations for my latest picture book about a little mouse.

It’s going well. I’ve nearly finished. I now have to sit down and go through the pictures, try to look at them from “a different angle” and do a bit of final touches. I will also need to move on with the cover.

I also visited one more school. Duke of Kent School in Ewhurst Surrey. It was a rainy day, but I did enjoy the visit. The school was in the hills in the woods, the children were clever and teachers friendly. I was well looked after by Laura and Katherine who organised the book festival at the school. They made me welcome and the day was fun.

  Children did lovely pictures for a mural.

This is a very colourful dolphin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rabbit Fairy. The picture is not upside down by the way. It’s the fairy who is flying upside down.

 

I also got lots and lots of drawings from children to take home. I love the pictures. Unfortunately I can’t remember all the children’s names, so they have remained anonymous.

Flowers for me. Cat on a skateboard.

Hot air balloon.

Lion.

And a picture of deer.

I love this drawing very much. On my way from Worcester, I was looking at deer from the train. I saw lots of them. They were the colours of trees and dead grass. Actually it’s quite difficult to see them if you don’t know what you are looking for. Here is one deer from me.

 

Oh yes and a card from Ciara.

 

 

World Book Day

 

 

World Book Day is over. It was a very busy week. I visited four schools, did eight workshops and slept in four hotels. On Monday I was in a very nice school in Middlesex. Cannon Lane School Pinner. I did some talks and also a workshop with very little children, who turned out to be brilliant at art. We made a nice big picture together.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I took part in a conference for art teachers in Winchester. The conference was called “Adventures Drawing”. Doing talks for adults is slightly different from doing talks for children. In preparation for the conference I was inspired by the theme “Adventures Drawing” and it was  good opportunity  for me to dig out old sketches and sketchbooks.

I also did some workshops based on my books “Puffin Peter” and “Elephant”.  

Who would ever think, that one day I’d be in charge of class full of teachers. The workshops were fun and I enjoyed watching adults turning in to children, having fun and playing. They did a great job. It was very inspiring.

Here are some samples of their work. 

On Thursday ‘World Book Day’ it was Stephenson Lower School in Bedford. With the children we made probably the biggest picture I’ve ever done.

There were about sixty children working on it and the artwork was excellent. Have a look. 

 I’m not quite sure who it is, but I have a bad feeling that it could be me.

Now this is definitely not me!

Great giraffe!

On Friday I was doing “Booklinks Pop Up festival” in Hackney. I visited Brook and Southwalk schools. The children were lovely. I read some of my books, drew and together we did lots of drawings of black & white animals. You would be surprised by how many animals are black & white.

Children’s Book Illustration

World Book Day is coming. This time of the year is always busy with school and library visits. I’ve already started by visiting lovely Hazelbury Infant School in Edmonton.

Over the next few days I’ll be all over the place, starting in Middlesex, going to Winchester for two days, Bedford and finishing on Friday in London.

I’m actually leaving in the minute, so this blog is a bit of a cheat. It was written by Linda Owen-Lloyd instead of me.

Linda is an owner of  Children’s Book Illustration the online gallery that sells some of the best original artwork and prints from contemporary children’s book illustrators and artists. Have a look, since there is so much to see!

I have some new artwork in the gallery for sale and this is the news letter Linda released last Friday. I’m still blushing.

 

 

 

Mouse on a banana

The Imagine Children’s Festival at Southbank went well. I did two events last Wednesday and I had a great time.

I like events like these, since they are always well attended by people who like picture books. It’s nice to see not just children, but also adults being excited about a good story.

I showed lots of pictures, read some of my books and together with children we made little picture books. The children did a great job. Have a look at some of the books:

This beautiful book was done by Amélie age 8.

And this master piece is done by her little sister Matilda age 5.

Last week I also finished the picture of the mouse sitting on the banana.

This is the final picture. 

And one more. A sketch from my sketchbook. It’s another picture of a mouse on the banana.

And that is that for this week. No more mice and no more bananas for some time.

Imagine and Chick

 

This week I’ll be taking part in the Imagine Children’s Festival at  Southbank Centre.  The festival is very popular and always great fun.

It’s already started and it’s running until next Sunday the 24th February, so plenty of time to pop in if you can. I’ll be there on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to it!

This week I was mostly working on the book about the mouse. I really enjoyed it, but at the same time I wanted to go out.  We had sunshine after many, many days. I was just about to show you how the book is going and I realised, that I haven’t taken any photos. It’s too dark now, so I will do it next time.

I also recently sketched another phonic book.

Yes, it’s about another little bird.

 

I like drawing birds. I should do a blog about funny birds. I have plenty of them in my sketchbook.

This week I also started to paint a big picture. It is based on this little painting.

 

It is not easy turning a little sketch into a big canvas. The picture will be for a friend who has just opened his new bike shop – Barbourne Bikes in Worcester. I have a bad feeling that it will take me some time to get it right. I’ll inform you how it goes.

 

 

My Bloody Valentine and a Banana

This blog isn’t  about St. Valentine. That would be wrong. It is about music and drawing.

One of my favourite bands, My Bloody Valentine, released a new album.  Anybody who likes My Bloody Valentine has had to wait  20 years for this album. The album is called mbv .

I used to listen My Bloody Valentine when I was twenty years old and I still like them. The release of the new album brought back memories. I use to listen their music and draw. I was inspired by distorted guitars, melody and singing well hidden under the layers of strange sounds. To me the music had texture. I could almost see it. I use to think about drawing colours.

At the time I would use waterclours, acrylics, coloured inks, pencils, sometimes oil paint and aerosol paint as well. Simply anything I could put my hands on. I didn’t show the drawings to anybody, but I kept them. I still have a big stack of them.

I look at them from time to time.

After such a long time they look almost like drawings done by somebody else. Somebody who’s work I quite like.

Here is one more.

A few years later I painted a few canvases inspired by my drawings again and

here is one, which goes quite well with My Bloody Valentine.

I would like to think anyway.

It wasn’t just music this week. I was also doing some illustrations. I mainly painted bananas. Here is one unfinished.

Two different pictures and Bertie

I’m working on a new picture book.  It will be a novelty book, so I’m spending lots of time trying to work out all the holes and cut-outs.

On this page will be a hole and inside the hole will live a little mouse.

This little mouse.

Working out all the holes and cut outs may look easy, but it’s not. The mock up and the pencil drawings look OK, but once you start painting, you may realise, that it somehow doesn’t work. The picture is too dark, or too light in the places where is the cut out. The next page may not quite fit with the colours of the previous page. Then you have to start again. And that is exactly what I was doing this week. Painting, cutting and starting again.

I’m also working on a board book. The theme of the board book is a square and all the animals inside the book have to fit into the square.

It’s not always easy either.

 

I don’t mind skipping from the picture book to board book. The work is so different, that I can actually relax by swapping from one to the other.

Now the BREAKING NEWS. The breaking news is, that we have a new neighbour. ‘Alison next door’ brought home Bertie.

This is Bertie.

         Isn’t he beautiful?