
More swimming lessons

More doodling. The parents move about a bit less than the swimmers…

And little boys’ hair sticks up after a swimming lesson.

More swimming lessons

More doodling. The parents move about a bit less than the swimmers…

And little boys’ hair sticks up after a swimming lesson.
I love books. I love altered books. I love black ink.
It was only a matter of time…

Watching my boys’ swimming lessons last week

I drew in an old book with a pen

And later I added my beloved ink
I think I could enjoy doing a lot of this. And I haven’t yet included another secret love of mine… collage…
There are 15 Days to go until the Crowd-funding deadline for The Story Box Library is up. If they don’t reach their target, they don’t receive any funding at all.
If you love children’s books, you might like to check out their site and their Pozible funding page. At the moment there are some gorgeous Australian book illustrations (prints and originals) up for grabs as rewards for those who pledge towards the project, but you also get a subscription to the site with your pledge. The site will be a great resource for parents and teachers. (Check out the videos while you are there.)
Here’s what I just bought!
And this is my reward!
Come on, get on board.
This is an invitation to attend the launch of the publication Donkeys Can’t Fly on Planes. These powerful stories were written by students from refugee backgrounds at Latrobe English language centre and Traralgon (Liddiard Road) Primary School. A wonderful community collaboration.
Date: Tuesday August 20, 2013
Time: 6pm
Venue: Art Play, Birrarung Marr Park, Melbourne

I produced this image of a Sudanese family for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development last year, as part of a frieze to promote reading to children in the early years.
This is Nicki’s gorgeous new web site, which shows off her breadth of work. Her graphic novels and comics work are particularly strong. I just love this piece Comic Fatigue. (Postmodern or just Loony Tunes madness? …Or was Loony Tunes a form of postmodernism?) And I really, really loved her graphic novels The Great Gatsby and Hamlet.

I’m often drawn to the idea of doing a graphic novel… but then I look again and imagine drawing all those pages, doing all that very difficult composition and hardest of all CHARACTER CONTINUITY x one billion! …And then I change my mind. Hats off to all you amazing graphic novelists. You are awe inspiring.
While I’m on the subject, if any of you out there are crazy enough… Oops, I mean spirited and passionate and motivated enough to want to launch into comics, I can highly recommend Scott McCloud‘s books Understanding Comics and Making Comics as a brilliant starting point.
For further inspiration on art, writing, comics and perhaps life… try reading What it is, by Lynda Barry.

New book by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre – watch the video here
Find out more about the creators here and here and here.
Admire Sarah’s excellent poster below! Click on it for a link to her post about the lobby for school libraries.
Oliver and the Seawigs. This is a lively and appealing video promo. So effective that I immediately went and pre-ordered my copy of the book. Well… alright, I admit I was an easy target. But nevertheless I think video skills are a probably a good thing to develop to promote books these days.
Here’s one place you can learn how… I’m not sure yet. But I might… Video Idiot Boot Camp

Alice gets in on the action – sneak peek at one corner of spread 22-23
Funny how when you draw something upside down, your eye can lose its usual sense of proportion. This is the last in a series of head-stand sketches for Thunderstorm Dancing. In some of the earlier sketches, when I turned the picture the other way up after drawing, (so that the child was seen with with head upwards) I was amused to find that her head was enooooormously too large, and sometimes her body was extremely shortened.
However, I didn’t try drawing this picture the other way up. I felt the only way to get the right balance, weight and feeling was to draw her as she is to be seen on the page.
Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers – Salon.com.
This is cheery news, but I did think it amusing that the author uses the word ‘anecdotes’ where he presumably means ‘antidotes’.
Read on readers!