Gap Year Ends in Massive Rabbit Caper

About a year ago I decided to have a spell of time away from illustration, as I suddenly had the feeling I might prefer to eat my own kidneys than ever draw another picture. I had been doing it for quite a while, so I suppose a change was long overdue. I’m happy to say I didn’t spend the days lolling about in a dressing gown watching television (luckily I own neither), although now I’ve typed that, I find the idea disturbingly attractive. I may do that next time. But as it turns out, not earning money is rather inconvenient if you want to eat, replace shoes, fix broken windows, etc.

Luckily, a pleasant job popped up courtesy of writer Kieran Larwood. The publishers were keen on using double page spreads for the illustrations, which meant I could get my teeth into some tasty environments. I was still a bit fragile in the visual image department; the only subjects I could contemplate  drawing without utter despair were trees, so the first few pictures were basically woods with little figures in them somewhere. Gradually I could ease myself out of my twig-based comfort zone and attempt some rabbit-on-rabbit action. To make life even more bearable, I was allowed to use pencil, which was scanned and beefed-up with a spot of Photoshop craftiness. Here are a few of the pictures…

The book is called Podkin One Ear, published by Faber & Faber in October.

Coming soon to this blog: A Miscellany of Mythical Beasts, in which I do some paintings of trees that happen to have mythical beasts in them, and What I Did During My Year Off.