Last weekend I was invited to paint a mural at the Discover centre as part of The Big Draw, the world’s biggest drawing festival.
This year’s theme was ‘every drawing tells story’ so I drew an enormous ‘Batholomew Bear’, surrounded by lots of bees and flowers, to help highlight the current plight of bees.
We didn’t have long, only 2 and half hours to get it all finished! But thankfully I had done lots of planning beforehand, and had lots of help on the day with children drawing bees and flowers, and my agents and wife lending a hand with the painting…
If you want to draw or colour in your own bees, there are some worksheets to download here.
And if you missed the event there’s a time lapse film below so you can see how it was made.
Michael Rosen has made some fab films introducing his book Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed. Click to links to find out more about Malcom, Crackersnacker and Uncle Gobb and their genies!
Last week I was invited to speak at a ‘Power of Reading’ conference, run by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. It was really inspiring to meet all the teachers there, and see the valuable work CLPE does. Thank you for inviting me, and for the warm welcome!
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a charity that provides training and support for primary school teachers and others that work in primary schools.
Thanks to all who came to the recent event with Michael Rosen at Pickled Pepper Books– what fun we all had!
Orginal artwork from the ‘Rover’ books will remain on display in the bookshop through October. Last heard the bookshop still has a handful of books signed by Michael and myself (although these are going fast!)
Recently I’ve been getting a few questions about how I make my illustrations, so I thought I’d post these magazine articles where I talk a bit about my process. The first is for ‘Books for Keeps’ where I talk generally about my picture making, and the other is for ‘Advanced Photoshop Magazine’ where I talk more about digital media, (specifically Photoshop!) This article also features the amazing Oliver Jeffers, and Leo Hillier, two of my favourite children’s book artists. Click the images to download printable pdf’s…
‘On Thursday 2nd July Chichester High School for Girls had the illustrator / author Neal Layton visit the library. We were joined by three local primary schools who we have been working with on a transition project.
‘Neal’s talk was fascinating. He talked about the books he had written and illustrated the materials he uses and even did a live mixed media illustration for the audience. He also discussed imagination and creativity with the pupils and gave them advice about how to illustrate themselves. He ended his talk by showing an amazing film of him illustrating a whole book in one minute flat. The school really enjoyed the event and it gave them a great opportunity to visit CHSG and see what a lovely, friendly place it is and how much we have to offer them. Two of the teachers enquired whether we were going to do the project again next year and if they could sign up!’ – Kate Angus
Delighted to be included in the impressive line up at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival last week. Great to work alongside Cressida Cowell again, a big thanks to the organisers, and all who came along to the event!
