The Great Explorer Book Events

Some up-coming book events over the coming weeks and Months (some times have not yet been confirmed):


Wednesday Feb 29th: DuBray in Bray with local school for World Book day

Thursday 1st March: Easons Galway for World Book day

Monday 5th March: Workshop in Filmbase Dublin

Thursday March 8th: Easons O'Connel street Dublin event with Chris Haughton from 6pm (open to the public)

Friday March 9th: Panel discussion at Offset 1pm with Chris Haughton, Kevin Waldron and Rilla Alexander

Wednesday 21st March: Book launch and signing in Bologna, Italy - Time and  venue to be confirmed.

Saturday April 14th: Childrens' Drawing workshop in Pavillion, Dun Laoghaire.

Saturday 19th May: CBI conference 11am.

Saturday 17th June: Dalkey Book Festival drawing workshop.

Saturday 23rd June: Riverbank Drawing workshop.

Guided By Voices Project

I've had this idea to make poster type illustrations based on some of my favourite Guided By Voices songs and finally got around to starting them. The main reason behind the project is to experiment with hand drawn type and create quick illustrations in reaction to the songs.

I have the first five ready and have started posting the to a new Tumblr site. I will hopefully keep adding to them when I have time.

For those who don't know GBV I have included a link under each image to where you can hear the songs. The band are not to everyone's taste but those who love them (like me) border on obsessive over them (like me). I have roughly 1200 songs by GBV and Robert Pollard so the project could be pretty lengthy! Apparently he has written over 6000 songs...

Click here to see the site and click Follow for future updates. I'd love to hear from any GBV fans out there as to what they think of them.

Website Update

I have recently added some new work and projects that I worked on over the last few months to my website. Click here for an oul look.

Bishops Stortford Book award 2012

I am so thrilled to have won the third annual Bishop’s Stortford Picture Book Award. It's a huge honour as The Lonely Beast was up against some of my favourite illustrators and Authors.

The list included The Highway Rat written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler; The Totally Terrifying Three written by Hiawyn Oram and illustrated by David Melling; Sometimes written and illustrated by Rebecca Elliott; Good Little Wolf written and illustrated by Nadia Shireen; Lonely Beast written and illustrated by Chris Judge; King Jack and the Dragon written by Helen Oxenbury and illustrated by Peter Bently; The Tiger Skin Rug written by Gerald Rose; Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey written and illustrated by Mini Grey.

The Award ceremony was attended by an audience of over 150 children and their teachers who were involved in the voting process and I recieved a lovely trophy for the honour.

 Local teacher and illustrator Simon Bailey produced this fantastic watercolour featuring nearly 100 Beasts hanging out in the grounds of the school where it will be hung on the walls of the sports hall.


One of the biggest thrills was getting to spend the day with illustrator Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo etc!) and discussing nerdy illustration techniques as well as Nadia Shireen who's debut book is the amazing The Good Little Wolf.


Thanks to Sarah from Andersen Press for taking care of me during the day (I would have got very lost without her!)


You can read more about it here.