Back home and home again

I’m back from my annual trip to the Czech Republic. I try to do this every year. Travel to my homeland, stay in my friends’ summer cottage, go for walks, paint in the woods, write new ideas for picture books, trying to chop wood and survive by cooking for myself.

I love this place so much. From the front door of the cottage you can see an apple orchard, hills and woods. The back door opens in to the wood.

The days there are almost always the same. A walk in the wood, counting mushrooms, painting in the afternoon and writing in the evening.

Some of the mushrooms look beautiful.I paint outside. I love the autumn landscape and the low light in woods is magical.Here is one of my paintings.If truth be told, I probably spend most of the time just sitting on a tree stump looking into the wood.

I also paint in the orchard (that’s when it gets too cold to be far away from the cottage).I love the evening. Playing music, sitting  by the fire and making up stories.This one is about a tiger.

 I tried to write about a frog as well.There may be also a story about a girl call Lucy.

Not everything I write there is usable, but I always come back with some ideas and material I can work with later in the year.Not far from this place I saw a white dear, honestly! I told my friend about it. He knew he lives there and he told me, that the first time people saw the white dear, they thought it’s an escaped goat who now lives with dear. Now, there’s an idea for a story, I thought.

I had an amazing time back in Czech Republic and it’s always very hard to come back and pick up working where I left it.

But it wasn’t just work for me. I had time to meet up with friends too.

I briefly met a little chap call Martin Hasa. He was only three years old, but just as his parents he likes books and he can paint. This picture is called “All the animals”.I like his picture very much.Since I came back I was busy finishing “My First Book of Animals” (still lots of work needs to be done in the next couple of weeks), did a window in a nice book shop “Jaffe and Neale” in Chipping Norton, popped into “Stream Festival” in South London and visited the really nice book shop “Alligator’s Mouth” in Richmond London.I’m now back in my studio. I’m learning how to draw a beaver so that it doesn’t look like a guinea pig. It’s not easy, you know.

I looked at my sketchbooks for a guinea pig, but haven’t found any. This animal is quite similar. It’s a bear though.