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Elves and Shoes

The Elves and the Shoemaker is a popular tale written by the Grimm Brothers in 1806. It tells the tale of a poor shoemaker who gives the last of his wealth to an even poorer old lady and is left with only enough leather to make one last pair of shoes. That night a couple of naked elves come and make a pair of the most beautiful shoes...

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014

I just wanted to wish you all a happy Christmas and good health and happiness for 2014. Thank you for your support in 2013. I'll be back in the new year with a new illustration for you. I've been teaching myself animation over the last week with the view to bringing a few of my designs and illustrations to life in the future. My firs...

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Lazy Jack and the Donkey

Here is my latest illustration from my personal fairy tales project. The story is Lazy Jack by Joseph Jacobs. It is a humorous tale about a particularly lazy boy who sits around at home all day doing very little. As expected his mother gets tired of his behaviour and sets him up with a job at the neighbour's farm.

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Star Talers

So this fairy tale is a short and relatively obscure fairy tale by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The story tells the tale of a girl who looses her parents and heads off into the world on her own. Her generous nature sees that she gives away every last possession that she owns, including the clothes she is wearing (good job it isn't the mi...

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Jack and the Beanstalk (and a Golden Egg laying Goose)

It is only my second illustration and I'm already claiming artistic licence! Okay, in the popular story by Joseph Jacobs, Jack carries down a golden egg from a hen, but the goose registers better as a silhouette and Jacobs stole the idea from Aesop's Goose anyway. From a historical point of view it seems likely that Jack and ...

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My creative direction for 2013/2014

It has been a good 10 months since I last posted an update on here, so firstly please accept my apologies for the unannounced break. Heavy work commitments and generally being busy sucked all ability to think creatively. On the occasions I have had a bit of time to breathe again, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the creative...

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Why Oliver Jeffers is awesome!

I posted just last week about how Oliver Jeffers creates the penguin in his book Lost and Found. I'm a big fan of his work, not only is he is a talented artist, he is one funny guy as this 2 minute video shows...

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Oliver Jeffers on how to draw a penguin

I'm a big fan of Oliver Jeffers' children's books ((Oliver Jeffers' book Stuck has me in stitches every time I read it to my children and the Heart and the Bottle was one of the first really good interactive children's books launched on the iPad.)), so I was pleased to stumble across a post by Oliver on the Guardian website where...

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