Petr Horáček's Blog, page 6

Children’s Art and Children’s Book Illustration

I’ve been travelling a lot since I returned from Prague two weeks ago.

For example I visited two of my favourite schools. The first one was Portway Infant School in Andover and the second was Rowan Preparatory School in Claygate.

Portway Infant School in Andover invites children from other schools for a day when I’m there. It’s always good fun and also a very busy day. I read books, we talked about illustrations and we do art. Hot dogs are served and the day finishes with an art exhibition.

The theme this year was Puffin Peter.Here are some of the pictures.

In this collage Blue Penguin meets Puffin Peter.

Here is Puffin Peter waiting for Puffin Paul.

I love pictures done by children and I always get some drawings to take home. This amazing drawing was given to me in Claygate.

Rowan Preparatory School in Claygate is another school I visit every year. It’s always nice to go to a school with friendly teachers I know and children who can’t wait to hear stories and to do some art. Over the years some of the children leave primary school, but then they come to collect their younger siblings at the end of the day. It’s nice to see them again.

Rowan Preparatory School in Claygate has a good collection of my pictures. This is the latest one based on “The Greedy Goat”.We painted all the “nice” things The Greedy Goat would like to eat …and more. I especially like these two birds sitting on the goat’s back.

I also did two events at The Royal Horticultural Society’s  Malvern Spring Festival. That was different, because you never know who will come, but it was all well organised and great fun.

Here is another masterpiece done by Markus aged 8 I want to share with you. It’s a copy of an owl from my book “A First Book of Animals”.

I had also a great day in Hereford, taking part in the Hereford Book Festival for Schools 2017. It was a day of reading and making books with more than 100 children from four different schools. I was lucky, because I had great help from librarians, volunteers and also from students of illustration from Hereford School of Art.

One more picture I want to show you. The author is 7 year old Amy from Hong Kong. I love it.So the last couple of weeks were about children’s art.

Now one announcement:

 The Children’s Book Illustration  is sadly closing down.  They were often the only place where you could buy original artwork done by some of the best illustrators around. Their last day of trading will be on Saturday 17th June.

Have a look at  The Children’s Book Illustration website. You may find something you would like!

Travelling With a Book

Over the last few months I’ve been working on and off on my new book “Dlouhá Cesta” (The Long Journey).

Although I’m Czech and I’ve written and illustrated over 35 books, I’ve only had a couple of books published in the Czech Republic. I don’t know exactly why my books are not published in the Czech Republic, but I would like to do something about it.

I can’t make deals with other publishers about my existing books, but I had an idea.

A year ago I met a couple of enthusiasts in Prague who like my books and I like their enthusiasm, so we decided to do something together. We’ve decided to do a book together.

This book is going to be published in Czech in the Czech Republic.

The story is about a garden gnome. He looked like any other garden gnome, but he had a desire to walk. He walked through the garden, through the gate, over the field, into the wood, he climbed a hill and went down the mountains.

He visited many places and everywhere he went he planted a little plant. The place become a better place, or at least a bit nicer. There is more to it but the rest of the story is in pictures.

I travelled to Prague to deliver the book last week. It was quite special.

I had a really nice time illustrating it and now it was the time to give it away.

I hope all goes well.

The book should be ready for Christmas.

Painted Puffin

I’m in the middle of illustrating a book and I was planning to write about it. However I’ve changed my plans, because this week was strangely about Puffin Peter.

I was getting ready for visiting Canterbury Nursery School in Bradford. The nursery asked me to mention and perhaps do a workshop about ” Puffin Peter”.




I like the character Puffin Peter, so I was up for it. Then I got another email from a school I’m going to next month and that, funnily enough, also wanted Puffin Peter.

Well, I’ve decided to paint a couple of puffins, bring them to schools and making big pictures with children.

My only worry was, that children at the nursery may be too little to paint and draw and help me to finish the painting. How wrong was I.

Just as I was about to leave the house, I had an email from Sekolah Ciputra in Surabaya, East Java in Indonesia.



How exciting! The children were writing to me about how much they enjoyed reading …..PUFFIN PETER! The email was really nice and attached were all these beautiful pictures of puffins done by the children. It really cheered me up.

Thank you to all the children in the kindergarten at Sekolah Ciputrafor sending me all these BEAUTIFUL paintings! I was also asked if I can share them around, so I’m doing so.

I’m now back from Bradford and it was a really busy and also lovely day. I saw lots of very little children. 200 to be specific. Some of the children were only two years old, but most of them three or four. I did six talks and two workshops.

We painted a picture with Puffin Peter.



This is how I started. The puffin looked lonely, so I asked the children to draw some fish.

And they did. This is the finished picture. Pretty good, don’t you think?

It was a lovely day in Canterbury Nursery School in Bradford. I met lots of nice teachers and a caring headmistress. Somehow, she managed to buy and give a book to every child! Can you guess what book it was? That’s right, Puffin Peter.

FCBG and painting

It has been a busy, but also fun couple of weeks. Last weekend Nicola Davies and I were invited to the  The Federation of Children’s Book Groups conference

It was so nice to see so many familiar faces. People I know and people I’ve met over the years. They all have one thing in common – they all love books.

We had a lovely evening , we talked books and we laughed a lot. I found the whole weekend incredibly inspiring.

On Sunday Nicola and I did the the last talk at the conference. We talked each about writing our books and finished talking about “A First Book of Animals”. Here I am rolling up my sleeves, as when Nicola’s talking I’m painting.

Here I must mention very exciting news. “A First Book of Animals” was shortlisted for the  School Library Association’s  INFORMATION BOOK AWARD 2017 !

..and The English Association’s 2017 ENGLISH 4-11 PICTURE BOOK AWARD !

I always enjoy events with Nicola and this one wasn’t different. The atmosphere was great and listening Nicola reading from some of her books was a real treat.

We managed to do quick campaigning as well. When you’re at a place like this and when you talk to people who are absolutely devoted and work so hard to promote books, literature and reading for children, it’s incredibly upsetting to hear that some other people are making similar efforts to close libraries.

I also started working on a book which was on my table for too long. It’s called “A Long Journey”.The book is about a garden gnome, who decided one day that what he really needs is to go for a walk.For a very……VERY LONG  walk.

I was looking forward to doing this book for so long. I’m having a great time working on it now.

Printing the birds was a bit”fiddly”, but good fun.

That is all for now. More about the Garden Gnome next time.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Wales

A week ago I spent a couple of days in Wales. One of my books “When the Moon Smiled” was translated into Welsh and published by BookTrust Cymru’s Pori Drwy Stori programme.

Pori Drwy Stori includes the Boomerang Book Bags which are given to every school in Wales and encourage small children and families to enjoy books and to read for pleasure. Every pupil in reception classes in Wales will get one of my books!

“Whne the Moon Smiled” is one of my first books. It was published in 2003. I always liked the book and it’s nice to see that it is still appreciated by others. My publisher Walker Books is planning to publish the book again in a board book version. I think it would work pretty well. I’m looking forward to seeing it!

Wales is beautiful, so I started my trip a day earlier and went to see friends I hadn’t seen for while. They live in the Mumbles. The weather was gorgeous and we had a nice walk by the sea.

Word that somebody who can draw is staying over night traveled fast, so my breakfast the next day was turned into a mini drawing session.We drew lots of animals, but mainly dolphins.

My next stop was Merthyr. In the evening I’ve prepared four big boards for upcoming workshops. The impressive hall in the Red House next to Merthyr’s library was changed into a big studio.

I like to work on a big scale and I like to get messy. It looks more like a factory rather than a studio. Painting four pictures at the same time saves time, but it’s also rather tiring.

During my stay in Wales I was accompanied by the lovely, BookTrust Cymru Coordinator Faaiza Bashir and very nice Rachel Lloyd who is BookTrust schools’ engagement manager and met with Helen Wales who works as the National Development Manager. It was a really nice couple of days meeting and working with great people and lovely children.Over the time I did four talks in which Rachel read the book in Welsh. It sounded great. I wish I could speak Welsh!

 

Traveling from Merthyr to Wrexham was also fun. There was still snow on the hills, but Spring is coming fast.

In Wrexham I talked and worked on two big pantings with the children from Victoria Community Primary School in the morning and in the afternoon with children from Alexandra Primary School. The children were 4,5 and some of them 6 years old.

Look what we did together!

 

Book cover and Bookaroo

I’m still travelling around schools, but it’s ok . The sun is shining and the days are longer.

The London Book Festival was on and I  managed to pop into London and meet with friends I know from the Indian book festival  ”Bookaroo”.

Sitting by the table is from the right, me, Venky, Marcia Williams, Swati and Jo Williams.

 Jo, Swati and Venky are the main people behind the wonderful Children’s literature festival Bookaroo.

They are all working extremely hard to promote children’s books and reading in India and the main reason for them to be in London was the fact, that Bookaroo was one of  three shortlisted festivals for an award!  It’s a great achievement and so well deserved too.

And the latest news is that ….THEY WON!

 

Children’s literature festival Bookaroo on Tuesday won the International Excellence Award in the Literary Festivals category at the London Book Fair, 2017!

 

It’s so exciting and I just hope that the achievement will also bring attention of those who can help and support such an amazing and important literature festival.


Marcia Williams and I were at the Bookaroo festival  in Delhi four years ago, but we still talk about it to this day. It was an amazing experience to meet so many children and people excited about books and stories.


Last week I also managed to do some painting. A First Book of Animals is going to be published in America. The American publisher is changing the title of the book to “ The Song of the Wild. A First Book of Animals .” They would also like to have an orangutan on the book’s cover.

Publishers do that from time to time. My Dutch publisher changed the cover too. They used a crocodile from the inside of the book and the cover looks great.

For Candlewick Press I had to paint the orangutan from scratch.

So here is the first sketch.

Colour sketch.

Here is work in progress

Then I had a phone call telling me that they would like the orangutan to have a baby too.

Ok, there was still time and so…

The baby was born.

Talking about “A First Book of Animals”..here is more good news: “A First Book of Animals” is long listed for The School Library Association Information Book Award in non-fiction category. HURAY!

Books, schools and a walk

It’s been a busy two weeks. I went to a couple of schools and a book festival.

One of my favourite visits was to The Rowen Nursery and Primary School in Wimbledon; lovely children and  friendly teachers. The next day I was at another lovely school in Farnborough, Parsonage Farm Nursery and Infant School. Once again, I had a great day. This is the picture we made with the children.

I know I’ve done similar pictures with children before, but I’ll never get tired of doing them. Children always surprise me with new ideas and it’s great fun to see them having fun.

At the weekend I travelled to the Lake District to the National Trust Children’s Book Festival. This time it was more holiday than work. I did an event with Nicola Davies. I love listening to her talking about animals and all I have to do is painting as she talks. It was great fun. I also did one event on my own. I had a great audience and it was rather special.

During my talk I paint and draw. We give people raffle tickets and at the end we raffle the drawings and give them to children. This time, one little girl came to me and asked every time during the raffle, if she can have the picture, but I couldn’t give it to her, since it was a raffle. She didn’t understand. It was breaking my heart. All four big drawings were given away. There was only one picture left and then…..the winning number is……SHE WON IT! The girl won her picture!

You couldn’t have made it up. Everybody cheered.



The festival was also a great opportunity to catch up with friends, fellow artists and writers. The lovely Gill Lewis was there, talented Ed Vere, Philip Ardagh, Stephen Cole, Axel Scheffler,  Yuval Zommer, Will Mabbitt…

Will’s book “I can only draw worms” is so funny, that I’ve been reading it and showing it to everybody I’ve met since.

I also went for walks in the hills. It was marvellous. Definitely one of the nicest places I’ve ever been.

This fancy umbrella is NOT mine! I borrowed it from Gill.

Nicola and Katarina having a rest.

One of the view. It’s not a painting, it really looked like this!

Somewhere in between I found time to work on the new cover for “A First Book of Animals”. Well, the book is going to be published in America, but it will be called ” Song of the Wild. A First Book of Animals” and the American publisher would like an orangutan on the cover.

This is the unfinished orangutan.  Next time it’ll be finished.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

I’ve finished, wrapped up and sent the book to the publisher in South Korea. I did enjoy working on the book very much, although illustrating am already written story is for me more challenging than illustrating my own books.

I find it sometimes difficult to strip the pictures to the basics. To get rid of all the unnecessary details and still be able to look at the text from a different perspective and perhaps to add something extra.

I think this is all what a good picture book needs. A text that is in good balance with the pictures and vice versa. There is no need to always illustrate what is already said in the text and no need to say what is already visible from the picture.

Anyway the goats have now successfully crossed the river. The mean troll was punished and everybody’s happy!

All that is left on the table are bits and pieces and cut outs. Here is something I would like to call “An accidental goat”. The goat was cut out and the stripy paper underneath created something between a billy goat and zebra.



I’ve moved on to a board book. This is the second of two board books which are going to be published next year.

I’ve mentioned it before. Board book illustrations look simple, but they take the same amount of effort and take as long to do as illustrations for a picture book.

This board book is going to be a “lift the flap” board book. It was fun to keep the animals simple but recognisable.I had fun printing the parrot  and painting the ostrich. Here are some sketches  and this is how the ostrich was born.

I found a great old photo of a wild photographer dressed as an ostrich. At least I hope that’s what he is doing.

I’m going to put my pencils down now for a bit. March is the busiest month of the year for anybody who has something to do with books. It has something to do with World Book Day I believe.

I’m visiting two schools this week and on Friday I’m of to the Lake District. I’m taking part in “The Wray Castle Children’s Book Festival 2017″. Look who else is going to be there! Come to see us if you can. It’s going to be AMAZING!

Who is the Troll

For the last couple of months I’ve been working on a classic story “Three Billy Goats Gruff”. I had wanted to illustrate the story for some time, so when I was asked to do so, I was excited and I thought that it would be “a walk in the park”.

Of course, it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I got stuck with the troll.

Who knows what the troll looks like? I always thought that a troll needs to be mean and scary to deserve to end up the way he ends up.The first sketches were SO scary, that the Korean publisher sent me the best feedback I’ve ever received- “There won’t be any point in publishing a book which the child would open only once”. I had to admit that they had a point.

In fact I started to be scared myself.

The publisher made a comment, that the troll needs to be scary, but not too much. He needs to look silly, stupid and a bit funny too. So I started to do more sketches.

Once or twice I thought I’m nearly there.I tried in colour.But even this troll was still a bit too much. The publisher wanted the book to be for very young children, so I had to smooth him up a bit more.

And so here is the final troll from under the bridge.

I hope he now looks a bit stupid,a bit sillyand scary enoughto deserve to end up in the river!

Parrots and whales

I’m looking at the calendar and I can’t believe how quickly time goes by.

I wrote the last blog before Christmas. Since then I have painted lots and lots of goats, some trolls, birds and parrots, whales and a lion.

Most of this drawings and paintings were wrong. The goats’ horns are too long, the troll is too scary, I don’t need the most of the birds and I’m not sure if the lion is brave enough.

I’m illustrating “The Three Billy Billy Goats Gruff” and a board book at the same time.I like working on “The Three Billy Billy Goats Gruff”, but it seems that my idea of how the troll should look is different from the idea of the publisher. I’m doing more sketches and I’m waiting for more feedback.

Meanwhile I’m skipping into the world of  board books.

I mentioned it before. Doing a simple picture for a board book doesn’t mean that it’s easy and quick. To be honest it takes me probably as long as a full colour double spread for a picture book. Many things go wrong and I have to change it again and again, but it may be just me.

So here is a photo of how it looks when you are printing lots of birds.

I’ll cut these printed papers into pieces and collaged a couple of birds out of them.

Here is a parrot.

And here is a whale. I like painting whales.

This one was painted for my book “Blue Penguin”, but the picture didn’t make it into the book at the end. It’s a shame, I like the picture.

Now talking about nice pictures of a whale. This whale was sent to me by Hugo Booth. He is nine years old and this is his illustration for a beautiful Czech story book “Zahrada” (Garden). Written and illustrated by Jiri Trnka.I absolutely love the drawing.

I had a look at my sketchbook for more whales and here are some.This is one of my latest sketches.

One more.

And a bird sitting on a chair at the end.

I’m now about to put the board book to one side and have another go with the troll.