Petr Horáček's Blog, page 5

And the Winner is …The Greedy Goat

Last Friday morning I was in Sheffield, attending the Sheffield Picture Book Award ceremony held at the Crucible Theatre. The theatre was packed with children from 302 schools!

There were a number of books nominated in different categories. ‘The Greedy Goat’ was one of them.

The whole event was so overwhelming. It was amazing to see so many excited children, meeting up with fellow writers, artists and meeting  librarians and the organisers of the event. The atmosphere was great.Here are all the nominated writers and illustrators together.

I don’t know why, but I assumed, that if my book had won, I would know it in advance, so I just sat comfortably in my chair enjoying the show and waiting for the winners to be called out.

How surprised I was when the winner of the Toddler books category was announced. It was ‘The Greedy Goat’!   

 

The whole event was very well organised and it was nice to meet so many children and people who love and are dedicated to picture books.

The award itself is rather special, since it is decided by the votes of children.  ’Nibbles the Book Monster’ was announced as the overall winner! Congratulations!

After the ceremony, there was still enough time for the authors and illustrators to visit some of the local schools. I did lots of drawings and reading. We had fun and it was a nice day in Sheffield.

Thank you to everybody involved in organising such a great event!

One more announcement;  ’A First Book of Animals’ was recently published in America. The book has a different cover and also a different title. It’s called ‘Song of the Wild’.

We have already got a couple of nice reviews. One in New York Times and another in Kirkus Review. How exciting!

 

 

 

Buddy is a dog

For the last couple of months I’ve been working on a book, which was commission by the China Children’s Press and Publication Group. The book is called “Runaway Buddy”.

Buddy is a dog.

I like sketching and drawing dogs, but I have never written a book about a dog myself. I don’t know why. Perhaps I consider it to be a bit difficult. There are so many dog owners and I know that almost everyone of them has an idea and ambition to write a story about a dog. I know that, because I’m often asked to illustrate it.

Some of the stories are better than others and I’m aware of the fact, that the stake is too high. I have to wait for a very good idea of my own. Until then, I’ll be illustrating “dog stories” by somebody else.

In this book Buddy leaves his house in search of something better to eat.

Buddy walks and sees a lot before he realises that he is missing his home, but finding the way back is not as easy as it seems.

I still have lots of work to do, but I’m enjoying it. Drawing dogs is fun!

 

Next week I’m going to Sheffield. One of my books “The Greedy Goat” is shortlisted for the “Sheffield Children’s Book Award” and a week later “A First Book of Animals” is nominated for “Information Book Award 2017″ by School Library Association! How exciting!

I’m looking forward to meeting up with people who like books!

Talking about people who like books. This photo came to me all the way from the Czech Republic.

Children from the pretty town Vsetín, together with their librarian Mrs Kindlová made this picture. It’s completly filled up with characters from my books.

It’s a masterpiece. Thank you very much!

 

Being Back

It was that time of the year. I went to the Czech Republic to do some work and hopefully to bring back a new book.

For two weeks this amazing place turned into my studio. I was walking in the woods, picking mushrooms, painting and trying to write new ideas for new stories.

It always takes some time to settle down and make ideas to come to me..

I relax by painting outside

in the orchard,

or in the woods.

Unfortunately writing new stuff wasn’t easy. Having writers block could be frustrating, but not if you are surrounded by so much beauty.

I rewrote some old ideas and I did a couple of pictures just for fun, hoping that something will come into my head.

Here are some of them.

What is going on between the cat and the bird? Unfortunately I don’t know.

Then I sketched this rather strange looking cat. I was convinced I’m drawing an ocelot, but since I had no internet access I couldn’t be quite sure…

 

O.k the cat looks nothing like an ocelot, but I still like it.

This is the last picture I did at the cottage. The zebra is illustrating well how I felt whilst I was in the countryside on my own.

It was like a nice dream.

Oh, one more picture. This horse was a present from Vitek Kadlec who is 6 years old. I love it.

Thank you!

 

Changing a picture

I was recently writing about final touches and finishing a book. As I was about to post the blog I had a request from my publisher.

After a discussion about the finished artwork, we decided to change one picture in the book.

In this spread the animals are enjoying the rain. They are happily running around, making noises and also…jumping in the pond. The pond was on the previous picture, so I decided to skip the pond this time. The main reason was, that I wanted the text to be clearly visible.

I must admit, Joyce Dunbar, who is the author of the book, and my editors, were right. We do need the pond. It was time to take my paint box out once again.

In this sketch all the animals and the pond were supposed to be in the background, but it didn’t quite work.

I did it again.Here are all the animals jumping in the water, but it looked more like a river rather than a pond.

I didn’t need to change this picture too much. Planting grass and bulrushes did the job.

So finally, the book is finished. I’m happy with the changes. It’s in the post now!

I can’t wait to see the book in the shop!

 

 

One more Tiger

This tiger is from the book I did with Nicola Davies “A First Book of Animals”.

Children love drawing tigers, butI found it quite challenging. I now have to practise, because my next book will probably be about a tiger.

The idea for the book came to me some time ago. I was unable to finish the story so that the publisher was happy and the book ended up in my drawer.

However, I haven’t stopped thinking about the book. To me it is a sign that I should have another go.

The story in the book is a bit serious for a picture book, so writing it is a bit challenging.

I have put the text to the side for a bit and I’m concentrating on getting the tiger right at the moment.

Here is one of the sketches.

And one better one.

The tiger is in the cage.

Here is a bigger version.

The pictures are just working sketches, but I will get there at the end. It’s early days.

Still, I can’t get rid of the fact, that children paint the best tigers!

End Paper

I like the feeling when I’ve just finished the very last illustration for my latest book. I enjoy the moment for a bit, but I know very well, that my work on the book doesn’t end there.

There is always a cover, title page and the end papers to do.

Covers are definitely team work and they have to go through big meetings and then to me. Covers are a big science.

End papers are more fun and I feel I have more control over them.

The purpose of the end paper is to look pretty, but then again, it should capture the essence of the book.

I like end papers. Here are some of them.

This one is from my book “A New House of Mouse”.

“When The Moon Smiled”

“Suzy Goose and the Christmas Star” These leaves are from the latest book with Little Mouse “The Mouse Who Wasn’t Scared”. It’s going to be published next January by Walker Books.

This end paper is from the book called “The Mouse Who Reached the Sky”. The book is full of cherries, so the juicy red colour would be perfect.

Green end paper from “Puffin Peter”. I was inspired by the picture of puffins diving under the water.

Another green end paper. “A First Book of Animals”. We used paper I printed to create wings for beetles.

“The Greedy Goat”. The Goat likes eating flowers.

“Elephant” – of course.

“The Fly” – what else.

“Blue Penguin”. Lots of snow and ice.

One of my latest books which is not published yet “Dlouha Cesta (Long Journey)”. Is about a gnome who went for a long, long walk. I was imagining, that he walked across my table as well.

And the very last is from the book I’m just finishing. Joyce Dumbar’s “Grumpy Duck”. It’s a lovely story with animals, one BIG cloud and RAIN.

Getting a present

It was my big birthday recently and I got lots of nice presents.

When your friends are artists you can be sure that some of the presents are going to be paintings.

It was very exciting opening these neatly wrapped, flat looking presents



These three beautiful prints are from my friend Piet Grobler. They are from his book “Carnival of the Animals”.

I love the elephant.

Then I looked at the mules and I love them too!

And the tortoises. I love them all!

This painting is from my old friend Jakub Stretti. It’s a sketch from France.

It’s rather special to me, since I used to travel and paint with Jakub when we were teenagers and we also studied together at the Academy of Fine Art  in Prague.

This pastel is done by Petr Faltus.  Another friend I studied with and who I’ve known since my teenage years.



And then I got this print from my friends Martina and Alan.

It’s an original print by Jiri Šalamoun. Martina and Alan are not artists, but they know what I like.  Šalamoun is one of my favourite artists and illustrators.

I’m struggling with enough wall space, but all these pictures are now framed and ready to be hung.

Oh yes, two more pictures I wanted to show.



This little mouse is from Edith, my eight year old neice. Very nice.

And this masterpiece is from Vincent who is thirteen years old and who teaches me from time to time how to fish.

It’s me fishing in the picture. A rather good drawing, but what else you would expect from somebody called Vincent?

I finished the book!

I used to be good at writing blogs regularly. Was I less busy?

I like writing blogs, since it gives me a chance to look back at what I’m doing.

The truth is, that I’ve got out of the habit recently. Summer is divided between work and holidays and there is little time to do extra work.

The last blog was  about “Grumpy Duck” the brilliant book written by Joyce Dunbar. Since then I’ve finished all the illustrations! Well, almost. I need to do endpapers and the cover, but I can’t wait to share some of the pictures.Here is Grumpy Duck talking to a dog.And here she is with a tortoise.Duck is getting more and more miserable and the cloud above her head is getting bigger.

Being miserable could be catching, but a bad mood won’t last forever.It wasn’t just work last month. I was in Greece for a holiday as well. If you paint in the olive orchard in Greece in the middle of summer, you have to work very fast. It is very, very hot.

The best place was to paint on this little, empty beach.It was lovely and I want to go back!

Duck, Duck and Duck

It’s almost a year since I met Joyce Dunbar. We were tutors together on a course for writers and illustrators of picture books at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank.

The whole course was incredibly inspiring for everybody involved.

But just for me being able to work and spend some time with such a nice person and talented writer as Joyce is,  was a real treat.This photo of Joyce and me brings nice memories. It was taken by the brilliant  .  Claire’s beautiful photographs were hanging all over The Ted Hughes centre.

Claire was the fastest working photographer I’d ever met. She arrived with her old beautiful film camera. We had a chat and she took a couple of pictures with her Leica.  A couple days later she showed us the results.  Every picture was a masterpiece!

At Arvon we worked hard, but we also had so many laughs. I was very excited when later in the year I heard from my publisher. They were telling me, that Joyce had written a picture book for me!

The book is going to be called “Grumpy Duck”. It  would be my very first picture book published in England which is written by somebody else other than me. I usually illustrate my own picture books, but illustrating a book for Joyce is a real honour for me.

Although I wanted to start illustrating the book straightaway, I had to wait and first finish a couple of things which were on my desk for too long.

So finally here are the first sketches of the duck. It’s an Indian Runner Duck….kind of.The duck in the book has good reason to be grumpy. Her pond has dried out. A dried pond would make anybody miserable.Here are the first colour sketches of the Grumpy Duck.

This Duck was so colourful, that it was hard to see her.

I tried to paint her white again.  It was better.

And here is the first finished illustration of the Grumpy Duck.

In the book is going to be full of lots of animals. Some of them grumpy, but all of them happy in the end.There is also going to be a cloud. A big, BIG cloud.

 

 

Hay and joint drawing

I was at the Hay Festival last Sunday taking part at the “Illustration Hot Desk in the Make and Take Tent”. I showed some of my illustrations and sketches, talked to people and did drawings for children.

The line-up at Hay was great, as always and it was a good opportunity to catch up with some friends and fellow illustrators.

I went to see Nicola Davies and Cathy Fisher’s event. They were talking about their collaboration on the book “Perfect”. Nicola always does a good talk and it was a real treat to see Cathy painting live. The event was a great success and their audience was superb. 

Talking about collaborations with Nicola Davies.  Our book “A First Book of Animals” was shortlisted for “The Royal Society’s 2017 Young People’s Book Prize” last Friday. How exciting!

At Hay I also talked to Chris Riddell. He came to the “Tent” and we did a joint drawing. I don’t get nervous easily, but drawing with the Children Laureate was a bit too much for me. My hand was shaking.

We did this drawing and I don’t think any of us knew exactly what it was about.  Still, it was fun.

Chris then did a portrait of me

and I returned the favour.

If you think that we look a bit different, let me just explain, that drawing on a flip chart in front of people, standing sideways doesn’t make it easy.

I decided to stay for another treat – a talk by Oliver Jeffers. He is not just a brilliant artist and book maker, but also a great entertainer. The event was brilliant.

I’ll be back at Hay next Sunday to do two workshops in ” The Scribblers’ Tent”, so come to say hello if you are around.

Before then, on Saturday I’ll be at the “Ilminster Literary Festival” and I’m looking forward to it already!

One more exciting news – Jessica Ennis-Hill was reading “Puffin Peter” on CBeebies and she read it very well!

I realised that this blog is lacking a masterpiece, so here is one. This picture was done by Alexandra age 4. It’s a self portrait with a Yorkshire terrier. I love it.