Petr Horáček's Blog, page 3

Painted hare

It will be almost two years since my book ‘Dlouhá cesta – Long Journey’ was published.



It’s a book which I published in the Czech Republic, my home country,  with the publisher  ‘pinwheels’ and the great help of many enthusiastic picture book lovers. The book is now with my agent, looking for a foreign publisher. You can read about the publication of the book in the blog ‘Long Journey to Dlohá cesta’.’ Long journey’ is a life story and the journey of one garden gnome.



The theme of ‘a journey’ and finding the way back comes to me again and again. I tried to ignore it, because I didn’t wont to write a book with a similar subject so soon, but then I couldn’t help it. I felt as if not everything I wanted was said.



‘The Best Place in The World’ (working title) is a story about a rather inquisitive hare asking himself a question ‘where is the best place in the world?’.



I like to work on books which I carry in my head for some time. I can almost see the finished pictures in front of me and I can’t wait to finalise the text and start painting.I thought illustrating this book would be a walk in the park. I was wrong.

I was changing the pictures all the time.  I was frustrated to start with, but then I actually enjoyed redoing the illustrations. I enjoyed walking through the same path.



The artwork is now with my publisher and it’s quite possible that some changes in the text, artwork or both will need to be done, but so far I am happy. It was a nice couple of months with this hare.

 

Where to find a picture book

Last Friday I visited the friendly  Marnel Infant School in Basingstoke. I had a lovely day talking to the children, reading and painting. I like school visits. Children are funny and inspiring. At the end of the day a third of them wanted to be writers, a third illustrators and the other third wants to be both.

The school also organised a session for parents. One of the things we discussed was “how to find a good picture book”.

On my way to the train station I popped into a Waterstones bookshop.I noticed 20 bookshelves. 5 of them were filled with a variety of Gruffalos including soft toys, 5 of them were dedicated to Peppa Pig and 10 bookshelves were for “picture books”.The picture books section was a bit chaotic, but it is o.k., because there weren’t too many books to look at.

Since hardbacks take too much space on the shelves, only paperbacks are allowed. Looking for a paperback book squeezed into a bookshelf is adventurous. A kind of lucky dip. You can’t read the title, or the name of the author on the spine, so you start randomly pulling out. Everybody does it, so the alphabetical order at the end of the day doesn’t work.

I was amazed what books I pulled out by chance. Oliver Jeffers, Anthony Browne, Korky Paul, I even found a copy of John Burningham’s  ‘Mr Grumpy’s Outing’. There were other beautiful books I had never heard of. Later on I pulled out a copy of my book as well! Puffin Peter, how lucky I am.

I have absolutely nothing against  the Gruffalo and I don’t mind Peppa. I have been doing books for too long not to be bitter or surprised, but I feel sorry for people who think they can pop into a bookshop and perhaps discover and buy a nice picture book by a new author.

I am talking about the culture of selling books.  Do soft toys in bookshop take less space on a shelf than an out-facing cover of a new picture book? 

World Book Day is approaching and just as every year the media will for one day talk about books for children and the importance of books and how vital it is to read to children. Maybe a real author will be invited on the television! It will be over soon.

Wouldn’t be nice if World Book Day was at least every month, if the media, newspapers and magazines gave a bit more space to books? How refreshing it would be to see colourful pictures and illustrations in the weekend newspaper supplements instead of pictures of plates of food and endless car reviews.

So how to find a good picture book?  Ask people who are passionate and interested about children books. You can find them in libraries and in independent bookshops (if you still have one in your town), read blogs and support organisations such as  The Federation of Children’s Book Groups… I don’t know…

It was nice chatting to the parents who like books and I came home with some presents as well. 

I got a picture of this beautiful jumping frog.

Last Tuesday I was in the lovely Malvern Wells Primary School. The sun was shining and with the children we made this 2m long picture.

More school visits are ahead of me this month. I am looking forward to it!

who likes board books?

This is not the first time I have been writing about board books. The reason is, that I love making them and I care about them too.

I like the idea that a board book is the very first book a child takes in his hand. It is also one of the first visual art forms the child is introduced to.

For me making a board book is like writing a very short poem. I like the challenge of fitting a short story or a message into the rather small space of seven double spreads. Children are not silly and they are very investigative. I don’t like “lazy board books” with just random images without a proper story or a visual joke. My publisher and I spend lots of time making the board books work. I often design board books with holes and cut outs.

Every time I finish a board book I think that this is probably the very last one, because I can’t imagine getting another idea for another one. But strangely, I always do.

My next two board books will be published in 2020. Here is a quick preview.

The first one is about a submarine…and lots of fish.

The other one is about a spaceship …

and a star.

I loved working on the illustrations for these board books. I still have the covers to do, but that has to wait until after Christmas.

From now on I am finishing all the bits and pieces and slowly tiding up my studio. I like my table empty over the New Year. I am looking forward to Christmas and I am also looking forward to start working on my next book. The idea for it has been on my table for some time now. I can’t wait to start painting the pictures, but let’s do Christmas first!

I am wishing you all A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Being outside

Every autumn I travel to the Czech Republic.  I spend two weeks on my own in a beautiful cottage, on a hill by the wood.

In front of the cottage, is an apple orchard and a view from which you can see the whole country.

I am there on my own with pencils and brushes. I walk, paint, draw and I think of new ideas for picture books.

Recently I was talking to students of illustration saying, that all I know about drawing I owe to life drawing lessons. Everything I know about paint and colour I learned from painting outside.

I love to walk, pick a spot, fall in love with a place, watch it for a couple of hours, trying to understand it, witnessing it slowly changing as the day goes by.

In nature you find shapes and colours you wouldn’t be able to make up yourself. Making a note, sketching and painting is the way to learn.

These are some of my sketches and small paintings. They are different sizes and formats. I paint them for myself and I show them only to friends when they ask about them. More than finished paintings I like the process of painting. I often slip away in my thoughts and start thinking about picture books.

Every year I come home thinking that I haven’t done enough work, but all the sketches and notes suddenly start making sense a couple weeks later.

I love the cottage and the surrounded countryside. It is always hard to pack the rucksack and go back to civilisation, but by doing that I have something to look forward to again. I will be coming back soon.

Grumpy Duck

It’s just over a year since I published the blog – DUCK, DUCK and DUCK

Everything is written there and it made me smile reading it again. I remember the lovely time we had with Joyce at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank and  how much I enjoyed working on the book.

Joyce is a great writer and and she seems to carry hundreds of ideas with her everywhere she goes.

‘Grumpy Duck’ is one of them. It was written for me and it did feel as if I’d written it myself. Perhaps that was the reason why I enjoyed working on the illustrations so much.

 Thank you Joyce and thank you Walker Books for giving us the opportunity of working together and for making such a lovely book.

I hope you will enjoy reading it!

Puffins

The Czech Republic has no sea and no puffins. Being born in Prague I’ve lived almost 30 years without knowing what a puffin is.

The very first time I heard about puffins was when I was asked to draw one for a charity auction. Lots of writers and illustrators did a drawing of a puffin. The drawings were auctioned and the raised money was used for the protection of these beautiful, interesting and rapidly disappearing birds.

This was my very first drawing of a puffin.



I’ve enjoyed drawing puffins ever since.

A couple of years later I wrote and illustrated a picture book called ‘Puffin Peter’.

The book was published in 2011.

Today I am drawing and painting puffins once again.



This time the book is written by the excellent writer and conservation biologist Martin Jenkins. Here are some of the finished illustrations.

I love working on the book. I’ve learned a lot about puffins I didn’t know.

The illustrations for this book are a bit more realistic than I am use to doing but that is part of the fun. I like a challenge.

The birds are arriving in the mist of the morning.There are quite a few of them.

And who is on this picture?

It is a little puffin chick leaving his nest for the very first time.



In the dark of the night of course.

 

Worcester Stands Tall

The giraffes are out and about.

If you walk around Worcester these days, you will see lots of giraffes created by lots of artists.

This one is called ‘Girafficorn’ and it is my favourite giraffe.  The artist who made it is Alison Turner and you can just about see her hiding behind her giraffe.

One of the giraffes you can see on the streets of Worcester is painted by me. It’s called ‘The Dreaming Giraffe’.

In November 2017 Claire and I went to the Royal Grammar School Worcester to do two workshops with students. We printed, painted and designed lots of giraffes. You can read a bit more about it here.

I asked the children to come up with two images of a giraffe: one standing still, sleeping, dreaming and the other one doing something silly like doing a somersault or cartwheels, dancing, jumping…

The pictures the pupils produced were amazing !!!Here are some of them.

In April I painted the large giraffe and collaged the pupils’ original images onto the final sculpture. Here are some photos of the work in progress:

It was great to work with the pupils from RGSW on such a great project for such a good cause.

Please read more about Worcester Stands Tall  and how you can support St Richard’s Hospice.

Drawing with Children

In the evening, through the open window moths fly into my studio. So I paint moths.

Summer is coming and it means lots of school visits and a couple of festivals. I like drawing with children. It is very rewarding seeing children being excited and proud of their work. I love the moment when children get completely lost in their pictures. Here is a page from a book written by Jack.

Jack is only 5 years old and he doesn’t know all the letters, but it doesn’t stop him writing books. The text says “Once there was a dragon called Petr Horacek”. It is good to have an exotic name. I can get in books!

Jack goes to Portway Infant School in Andover. Portway is a school which I visit every year. The school is slowly turning into my gallery. Pictures I have been making with children over the years hang on the walls. I love the friendly atmosphere of the school and I like the nice smiley teachers. Of course where there are nice teachers there are nice children. Once again, I had a great time at Portway this year. Thank you for making me so welcome.

Here is an another picture. This one is from ‘The Mouse Who Ate the Moon’.

Here is a spread from ‘Look Out Suzy Goose’.

We painted fish for ‘Puffin Peter’. Here is one of them.This painting is from Harry. It is inspired by my book ‘Blue Penguin’. I love the picture.As I was leaving Portway Primary School a  little boy came to me and gave me this drawing. He said: “This is a picture of your mum, so you will never forget her!”Thank you!

World of Books in Prague

I was in Prague at the book festival ‘Svet Knihy’ last week. I did a talk and book signing at the festival. The sun was shining and people caring books were smiling, and they were everywhere.

I was invited to the festival by Jitka Netusilova who runs an internet shop ‘anglictina hry.cz’  selling English picture books and games for children who speak or are learning to speak English. Jitka  is a friend and has been promoting and selling my books for a long time now.

Once I was in my home city I thought I would make a little holiday out of it, so I stayed for a couple of days.

But I had also a book to promote. It’s only recently that ‘Dlouhá cesta’ (The Long Journey) was published in the Czech Republic. ‘Dlouhá cesta’ is my very first book written in Czech and published by a Czech publisher – ‘pinwheels’.

So as a result of this I spent most of the mornings going around schools and nurseries talking to children and drawing a lot. It was fun, we laughed a lot and I met lots of nice friendly people as well.

When I got back I had a couple of nice emails telling me how much children enjoyed the talks and how they felt inspired. I was sent some pictures to prove it.

These pictures are from children who attend ‘TIP TOES primary school’ in Brandys. It was a nice morning and apart from picture books we talk about collage, wax crayons and watercolour painting as you can see.

I have more schools and festivals to visit before the summer, but I’m looking forward to it!

 

More Board Books

‘Who is Sleeping?’ and ‘Who is the Biggest?’ are my two new board books.

I have been making board books from the beginning of my career as an author nad illustrator. ‘Strawberries are Red’ and ‘What is Black and White?’ were my very first books to be published and they are still in print after seventeen years.  

I love making board books and I am lucky to be published by Walker Books who know how to make good board books.

I was once comparing writing a picture book to writing a novel. If a picture book would be like writing a novel, then board book would be like writing a poem.

Which one is easier?

In my board books I like to introduce a basic story, visual joke, a message. I often shape pages, use ‘lift the flaps’,  holes and cut outs in the pages.

When I am working on a picture book I very soon slip into my own world, where it is me, who has to be happy with the story and the pictures. When I am working on a board book it is different. I think about the child the whole time from designing the book to illustrating the pictures.

I like watching a child looking at new things, learning, discovering the world. It is fascinating to see how a child never rests and is learning all the time.

It is important to realise that by giving a child a board book we are introducing him not to a toy, but to literature and visual art. A board book is often a child’s very  first contact with art and literature.

This is why I think that good quality board books are so important.  Children are investigative and clever and they deserve more than just random colourful images. The board book should have a story.