Baby Goes Baaaa! - creating the artwork

By Lynne Chapman

I started on the pastel artwork for my latest book Baby Goes Baaaa! last week - yikes!

Fortunately, it's all going pretty well so far. It's taken such a long time to get to this stage that I'm really enjoying getting down to it.

To keep on schedule, I have to do one page a day, but that's not as tricky as it sounds, as none of the images have backgrounds this time - we are going to drop bright pastel colours in later.

Here are the ones I've managed so far. Egmont has kindly given permission for me to blog the entire process so, if you are interested, you can see in-progress images and read more about the project every couple of days on my blog An Illustrator's Life For Me!

Wish me luck for this week - I'm working on a baby hedgehog's first kiss today...

SketchJam in Sheffield

By Lynne Chapman
Last week, we had another go at the SketchJam idea. It was rather louder on the ear than the old fellas we drew last time: this time it was a rock band!
I'm not really one for rock music these days, but it turned out to be brilliant fun, and I was amazed at all the rock classics that I knew. I'm not really one for rock music these days, but it turned out to be brilliant fun, and I was amazed at all the rock classics that I knew.

When the music eventually wound up and I finally made a dash for the loo, I looked at my watch and realised it was midnight - we'd been drawing for nearly 3 hours!

There are more drawings on my blog if you're interested.

February Sketchcrawl in London

By Anne-Marie Perks

Clare Tovey, Anita Loughrey, Bridget Strevens-Marzo and myself, met at the Museum of Childhood as growing throngs of school children collected at the front entrance. All the children, teachers and parents added a wonderful energy to the venue, making it at times hard to choose between sketching the constantly moving children or the incredible exhibits throughout the museum. I was mesmerized by the old wooden rocking horse above because of the lovely organic line formed by the shape of the horse and the beautifully crafted details still visible in the wood on the horse's anatomy.

I wanted to spend more time in the 'costume' area of the museum and will definitely go back. This amazing silk dress had intricate embroidered flowers and birds all through the bodice, sleeves and skirt. The small bespoke leather shoe went with it. Next to this exhibit were a range of shoes from different ages the children could try on.


Above is a couple of examples of 'handmade' toys from history. I made rag dolls as a child and with my own daughters, so loved the plaited wheat dolls. As I was drawing the cat, children were sitting all around me drawing the same toys from the same case guessing which was the oldest toy. I can tell you it was the small flat wooden doll from Egypt.

The following three drawings were done by Anita Loughrey, and this was her very first sketchcrawl and the first time she had done any observational drawing in years. I think we may have a convert!
Above, a big red train, 1920 - 1930.

A sampling from all the great teddy bears from different ages. Each bear had great distinctive faces.

Fantasy Flyer, Anita's first drawing of the day. As we passed our books around at lunch we spoke about the great comments said by the children and the unveiled excitement that showed through their body language, movement and noise level in general inside the museum. It was a great day and we are looking forward to the next one!

Not shown, but hope to follow up with images from Clare Tovey and Bridget Strevens-Marzo.