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.

The Great Explorer Book Launch

I am delighted to announce the launch of my brand new picture book 'The Great Explorer'.

When: Saturday 4th of February

Time: 2-6pm

Where: The Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin.

I will be signing copies of the book and we will have teas and coffees and treats for the kiddies so please do drop in and say hello if you are in town.

The Great Explorer Trailer

My New Picture Book 'The Great Explorer' will be available in the shops on the 2nd of Feb. 

I'll post here during the week with the location for the launch which is taking place in Dublin on the 4th of Feb. 

 Here's a very dramatic movie-type-trailer I made for it!Watch it in HD looks much nicer.

Alphabeast app is go!

 

So excited to announce that our iPad Alphabeast app is now available on iTunes! Thanks so much to everyone who helped make this happen through fundit.ie. 

 The app was created by myself, James Kelleher and the brother Simon Judge and features all new illustrations from the world of the Beast. 

It's available for iPad at the moment but we are currently working on the iPhone and Android versions which should be available in January. Visit iTunes and search for Alphabeast to download.

The Lonely Beast Gift Set

Looking for a (reasonably priced) gift for a loved one? Well look no further! The Lonely Beast Christmas Gift Set now available on my shop with free shipping for €20. The set includes signed Lonely Beast book and choice of two signed mini prints. Free shipping too!

What's included:

A signed copy of The Lonely Beast book + a choice of two signed prints (28x24cm - same size as the book) printed on nice 350gsm textured paper.

Simply choose two from the three of the prints by indicating your choices as well as an inscription for your book and they will be winging it's way to you right away!

VISIT THE SHOP BY CLICKING HERE TO PURCHASE

 

Sharks!

 

The lovely book 100 Facts About Sharks by David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty, Mike Ahern has recently been published and I was honoured to have been asked to supply artwork for two of it's 'facts' (see above).

If you haven't picked up a copy yet I urge you to purchase it soon! It may save your life one day. As well as the brilliant 100 Facts About Pandas.

Illustration course!

I'm delighted to announce a new illustration course that I have been invited to lecture at in Giddy Studios!
After the great success of the last courses and all the great work produced, Giddy Studios are opening their doors again to another intensive four weeks of illustration madness.

If the last course and the work that was produced is anything to go by then I cannot wait to meet our future students. It was an honour to be involved with such a talented bunch.

The course is great way to meet like-minded people and walk away with several bodies of new work.

Details for this seasons are as follows:

The Lonely Beast US edition

I just received some copies of the full HD Hardback version of the US edition of The Lonely Beast from the lovely folk in Andersen Press. With fancy dust jacket and everything! It's amazing to see it in hardback after getting used to the soft cover. I guess it's usually the other way round.

Endless Summer Campaign

 

 During the course of the Summer I worked on this great campaign with the lovely folks in Cawley Nea for Carphone Warehouse. They didn't want a dreary 'Back to School' campaign (I always hated seeing those signs during school holidays, invariably in July!) so the concept was to capture all of the fun of the Summer holidays and keep it going into the Autumn. The illustrations are based on doodles from the back of copy books, I still have a pile of mine and went to them for reference!

I will be doing live versions of the drawings on big canvases in the Carphone Warehouse stores in Galway, Limerick and Cork (starting tomorrow in Galway).

Click the Read More link below to see some of the places the artwork ended up...

Amongst Inspiration

I was honoured to be asked to be the first contributor to James Coopers lovely Amongst Inspiration shorts that he has just started producing. Thanks James!

From James: 'As an Australian creative based in Dublin, I have met & been inspired by a number of talented Dublin creatives working across all disciplines in Ireland's capital.'

Alphabeast App!

Alphabeast from Pilcrow on Vimeo.

Very excited to announce a great new project I am working on with Simon Judge and James Kelleher. We want to bring the world of The Lonely Beast to life on the iPad and iPhone as an interactive A-B-C app for kids called Alphabeast. I will be creating 26 all-new scenes featuring the beast and his friends so that kids can learn the alphabet, discover new words and have heaps of fun all at the same time. watch the video below to get an idea of what we are up to.

We need your help to do it on the youfundit site!! Your contribution will go towards the production and development costs of making sure the Beast finds a happy home on the app store. There are lots of great rewards for each contribution. You can read more about it here.

ESB Electric Picnic illustrations

If you're in Electric Picnic over the weekend keep an eye out for the Sparkhead illustrations etc that I did for ESB with the guys in IIBBDO. There's a big recharging area with swings, seesaws and running wheels!