Sheena Dempsey's Blog, page 5

New York Times

   So, not to come across all boasty but this is too exciting not to put up.  Bye-Bye Baby Brother! has somehow made it into the New York Times over the weekend. It's pretty much made my week.  

Dublin Writers Festival

    I just got back from Dublin, where I did two workshops in The Ark as part of the Dublin Writers Festival. (The Ark is a fantastic children's centre in Temple Bar). One event was a storytime with Bye-Bye Baby Brother! Afterwards we did lots of fun drawing activities:

           The other was a drawing workshop for older kids with The Powers. As The Powers will be a multimedia project with a book, a blog written from the point of view of the main character, an animation and song, there's great scope for fun things to explore. Here's a couple of pictures that will be on the blog when it launches:


    Then, in the afternoon I had a lovely signing in Dubray Books, Grafton St. This is a great picture of a little fan of Bye-Bye Baby Brother! called Muireann, who apparently likes the endpapers of the book where she likes to count the "buggies". She's rocking those pigtails:

Pirates Ahoy

Last two pieces I'm posting from The Powers - a deadly pirate ship as seen through a telescope plus a catastrophic turn of events in the penultimate chapter. Click for a more detailed view. 



Incidentally, if you know any 7-10 year olds, bring them along to this event at The Ark http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com/event/the-powers-workshop-with-sheena-dempsey  next Saturday. It's part of the Dublin Writer's Festival and I'll be talking about how I went about making the drawings for the book among other things.

Not so Super Super-heroes

    Another piece from The Powers - a deadly pirate ship as seen through a telescope.  
   Incidentally, if you know any 7-10 year olds, bring them along to this event at The Ark http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com/event/the-powers-workshop-with-sheena-dempsey  next Saturday. It's part of the Dublin Writer's Festival and I'll be talking about how I went about making the drawings for the book among other things.

Dog versus cliff

    This is a drawing from the book by Kevin Stevens that I'm illustrating for Little Island. I'm almost finished final artwork and it has been a really enjoyable (but challenging) process. This is the bit where the beloved family pet, Pucker, is on the verge of plunging to his doggie death.

Bruno, Titch and a Fat Frenchman

More peeking of the sneaky kind

A portion of a spread from Bruno and Titch. 

I am a fan

     Here is a brilliant talk that Kevin Waldron gave at OFFSET last year by the way. I've just watched it for the first time now, it's a fascinating insight into his process, diverse influences, methodology etc.
Highly recommend.

Sneak peek

                   Much as the term "sneak peek" kind of annoys me,  here's one of the title page that I previously posted as  a rough. That typeface won't make the final cut. I'm playing around with colour and trying to establish an interesting palette for the rest of the book. Fun times.

Meet the Powers

                I think it's safe to mention now that I'm working on illustrations for a very funny chapter book which will be out in October 2013. A fantastic Irish publisher called Little Island are publishing it. The story is about a family of inept superheros called The Powers who are a thorn in the side of the Irish nation. It's written by an American author called Kevin Stevens and I'm really excited to be working with Little Island and also to be working in black and white, which makes a nice change from colour. Click to get a better view of these hapless folk.