Tokyo Exhibition

By John Shelley

I'm back in the UK now after spending the summer in Tokyo (some may remember I used to live there for over 20 years). It was very good to be back and the show was a great success. Part of the exhibition was the original artwork to my Jack and the Beanstalk book [Jack to Mame no Ki], which has just been released in Japan, but as these were not for sale, the gallery made a series of 2 very fine limited edition "Neograph" prints from the book.
Neographs are double printed: a light silk screen is run over high resolution giclée print, resulting in work that is virtually indistinguishable from the original.

Also, in addition to book artwork I filled the remainder of the wall space with small images developed from sketchbook ideas, most in black and white, the theory being that in these hard times small images could be sold at an affordable price within most people's budgets. Also small means they fit easily on compact Japanese apartment walls! Here are some of the small images, many were sold during the show, but a few are still available via the gallery online shop.

Red Town

Bird Tree

City Spiral

Tall Ship

Underground Town

These were a lot of fun to draw, being a step away from commissioned work and thus with more freedom of expression. In most cases I simply took an original sketchbook drawing, traced it off on a lightbox and coloured. The down side is that the redraw often loses the immediacy of the original sketch, but these worked pretty well.

I would love to develop some of these into picture books, but therein lies the pinch - the pictures stand alone at the moment and tell their own story. Associating them with a plot is always a challenge.

Getting back to Drawing: SketchCrawls

By Lynne Chapman

Lots of us illustrators don't really draw any more. We draw as part of our work, we might sketch as part of research for a book, or to create a character, but many illustrators haven't gone out with a sketchbook, just for the joy of it, since college. 


I rediscovered sketchbook drawing a few years ago and have never looked back. The fun and freedom of exploration and experimentation, of drawing for no other purpose than being in the moment, is exhilarating after years of drawing illustrations to commission.

I now run a group called SketchCrawl North, which has members from Sheffield, Hull, Manchester etc. We go out for day trips to various locations to share a love of drawing, and to inspire and learn from one another. The excellent film Mark Lomas has made, of our recent SketchCrawl at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, really captures the idea. Take a look:

Contact me if you fancy giving it a go with us. If you love drawing but are too far from us or from an existing group, try getting together with a couple of friends and starting your own SketchCrawl group. Here are some tips to get you started and help you organise a day.

Other things that might be of interest are my top tips on how to draw people in public places, and my film about my sketchbook work, on the film page of my website. Power to your pencils!

Creating the artwork for my new book

By Lynne Chapman

I'm a bit behind with my 'Swap! artwork, so no more time for filming: it been head-down-time this week.

This was my desk on Friday night. I have decided to treat myself to some bigger, bolder bits of artwork for the next few days, having focussed on vignettes for quite a few days now, which are so fiddly. The joy of these bigger, simpler images is that you cover vast areas of the paper really quickly, so get a great sense of achievement.

Of course, having blocked in the main areas, I still have to slow down and fill in all the detail, but at least I have the sensation of having got lots under my belt to start with.

I'm working on two at once like this when I can: it helps to speed things up when the images contain similar content. If you want to learn more about how I create my pastel artwork, take a look at my YouTube channel or the films page of my website.