Mike Brownlow

Highlights High Five Cover

2012-01-11T10:40:00.000Z

This is a cover that I recently finished for Highlights High Five magazine in the States. Happy, smiley animals for a bright, sunny morning.

BICKIDS Competition

2011-10-20T15:14:00.000+01:00

Last month I had the pleasure of being invited to be a judge in the annual competition run by BIC -- the BIC PICTURE -- to find talented young artists amongst Britain's primary school children. My fellow judges were children's TV presenter Kirsten O'Brien, and colour expert Cecile Parenton, who heads the children's division of BIC. The winners have just been announced.

The theme was 'What I want to be when I grow up,' and the ambitions of the nation's children ranged from becoming a mad scientist to a roller coaster designer. If this small sample is representative, there'll be lots of footballers, astronauts, dress designers and chefs around in the future!

It's not as easy as you might imagine, picking winning pictures from a room full of shortlisted entrants, and there were several (good-humored!) arguments along the way. We had some really lovely designs to sort through though, and choosing an overall winner was especially difficult. Well done to all who took part. Congratulations to all the age group winners, and especially to Laura Burton who won the main prize. Laura wants to be a children's book writer, and with her winning picture she's made an impressive start.

I've pictured a few of my favorites here, but this is a link to the BIC Kids website, which gives more information: http://www.bickids.com/index.php?p_sa=actualite&p_actu=1 and to the Flickr site which shows more of the winning entrants: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebicpicture.

No Line!

2011-09-14T15:42:00.000+01:00

I've just received the proof copy of a book I wrote and illustrated for OUP earlier in the year -- a re-telling of the Elves and the Shoemaker. It was a bit of a departure for me because I decided to do away with a holding line, which for a long time has been the way I've preferred to work in Photoshop. I rather liked the result. The pictures felt fresher somehow.

I think a dissatisfaction with your own style is something that most illustrators feel at some point or other, and I've certainly jumped about more than most in an attempt to find a perfect formula. This approach made me re-examine the way I added shadow and texture, and I even found myself drawing the roughs in a slightly different way, aware that I could do more than usual with elements such as candle light... if that makes any sense. Anyway, I felt I was using a different part of my brain, which was enjoyable!

Michael Rosen Illustration

2011-05-16T12:04:00.000+01:00

I was recently asked to illustrate a story by Michael Rosen for a book that’s being put together on behalf of the Bristol Children’s Hospital. Contributors include Jacqueline Wilson, Alexander McCall Smith, Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Anne Fine, Nichola Bayley, Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Emma Chichester Clark, Nick Sharratt and several others. The story is called 'The Worst Cough In The World', and this is the illustration I came up with. Nice to work in black and white again. It's the first purely B/W illustration I've done in ages.

Dog Did It! out today!

2011-03-22T20:46:00.004Z

I'm pleased to announce that "Dog Did It!" is released today! It's written by Lynne Garner, illustrated by me and published by Piccadilly Press. The story is about a troll who eats too much green worm soup and tries to shift the blame for the ensuing series of farts onto his pet dog. But Dog doesn't like being the fall guy and plots revenge...

We're working on a sequel at the moment. Look out for previews at the Bologna Book Fair.

Here's a double-page spread of Boris the Troll guzzling his green worms. Yum!

Full-ongna for Bologna

2011-03-16T12:02:00.001Z

It's been a very busy period for me. I've been doing lots of work in time for the publishing extravaganza that is the Bologna Book Fair. Held this year at the end of March, it's the biggest book fair in the world devoted to children's publishing.

I've been working to produce artwork for three books. Two of them feature my little character Hugo and his madcap scientist family. In the first book they build a giant robot and in the second, a rocket ship. These will be published by Scholastic next year. The third book is a sequel to 'Dog Did It!' written by Lynne Garner and will be published by Piccadilly.

Here's a sneak peek at a spread from 'Hugo and the Robot', showing the family as they begin to cobble together a few bits and pieces they've found around the workshop...

Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T16:24:00.000Z

Festive Greetings to one and all!

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home

Library Closures

2010-12-03T13:45:00.001Z

Libraries are closing all over the country. Our town lost its small library two months ago, just one of many. Just as worryingly, there is a pervasive trend to reduce the number of books on shelves and replace them with banks of computers. This means a profound disenfranchisement for many people of older years who don't have computers, don't know how to use them and yet retain a deep love of books.

My mother is one such person. Recently when she visited the large library in the town close by, she went to the floor which had always housed the bulk of the books for years and was surprised to see only rows of computers. She asked where the books had been moved to and was pointed to the back of the room, where she found that a couple of shelves were all that remained of the library's repository of books. The rest of the collection had been sold off cheaply to make way for the computers.

Libraries seem to be seen as soft targets and councillors up and down the land, under great pressure to reduce costs, are slashing the amount of money available to the library service. This is cultural barbarianism. It's taken well over a hundred years to provide the country with its many libraries. It looks as though it will take but a few months to destroy a large proportion of them.

Jeremy Hunt MP and Ed Vaizey MP are the two ministers at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport who are responsible for over seeing the well-being of libraries. I urge anyone who reads this to write to these people, and to their own MPs and protest as strongly as possible about this disastrous policy.

Also you can contact Alan Gibbons and become a signatory to his Campaign for the Book http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43030635058. Alan is currently sending an open letter to the ministers and requires more signatures. People like Philip Pullman, Michael Rosen and Jacqueline Wilson have already added their names.

Other links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/library-closures-catherine-bennett

http://www.whoatemybrain.com/2010/12/thoughts-from-reluctant-library-user.html
http://davecousins.blogspot.com/
http://notesfromtheslushpile.blogspot.com/2010/12/bye-bye-libraries-bye-bye-civilization.html
Katherine Evans

Willow Foundation/ Stars on Canvas

2010-11-23T11:20:00.001Z

I was asked to contribute to the Willow Foundation Annual Exhibition and Online Auction. It's a charity set up by ex-Arsenal goalkeeper and TV pundit Bob Wilson and his wife Megs, in memory of their daughter, and provides special days for seriously ill 16-40 year olds.

They've asked people from the worlds of sport, art, design, fashion, music and entertainment to create a canvas in aid of the charity. In the Children's Illustration section, my little painting, (shown above, with a strangely orange background instead of the actual gold it's painted in,) will be sharing wall space with pictures created by Mini Grey, Keith Chapman (of Bob the Builder, Roary the Racing Car and others,) Sam Lloyd, Korky Paul, Nic Sharratt and Lynne Chapman. In the other sections, people such as Tracey Emin, Jamie Oliver, Zandra Rhodes, John Hurt, Jude Law, Giles Andreae (Purple Ronnie,) Tom Gauld, Blur, Razorlight, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry, Dawn French, Wayne Rooney and a whole heap more have all contributed.

All the details can be found here : http://www.willowfoundation.org.uk/starsoncanvas .
The exhibition takes place at the Catto Gallery, Hampstead Heath on 2-5th December. The online auction runs from 26 Nov to 5 Dec.

Go and break open the piggy bank!

10 things I learnt at the 10th SCBWI Conference

2010-11-21T13:21:00.000Z

I attended the SCBWI annual conference last weekend at Winchester. It was the first time I've been to one of these. It was made extra special this year as it's the 10th anniversary of SCBWI British Isles and the organizers decided to have a Group Book Launch for everyone who has had a book published this year. 'Dinosaurs of Doom' was released last month, so I qualified. Someone suggested that delegates should each write 10 things they learnt at the conference. Here are mine for what they're worth...

1) Group Book Launches are far more exciting than doing them on your own.
2) Group Book Launches are far less stressful than doing them on your own.
3) Group Book Launches have the potential to garner far more publicity than doing... hang on. I think I'm beginning to detect a trend here.
4) Group Book Launches are especially enjoyable when David Fickling is giving the address. He was funny, wise, and radiated boundless energy and optimism for the future.
5) Next time, remember to take a camera to a conference, then I can add pictures in a post like this. (You can see some great photos of the event at Candy Gourlay's site: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=332276&id=635152677)
6) Don't fret pedantically about research. Just make things up. Duh. (Pause for a quick slap of the forehead.)
7) It's never too late to embark on the inner quest for the Holy Grail that is your Unique Selling Point.
8) Maybe it's the mix of unpublished as well as published authors and illustrators that adds to the collective energy, but I've never been a member of a more enthusiastic, innovative and supportive group than SCBWI Brits.
9) It's easy to forget how much creative nourishment writers and illustrators gain from meeting up with each other from time to time.
10) I have SO MUCH to learn about Facebook and all the other digital ways to network.

SCBWI Badges Competition

2010-11-02T12:56:00.001Z

The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, (SCBWI), recently held a competition for members to design badges for the upcoming conference in a couple of weeks time. I've just heard that my three entries came 2nd, 3rd and the last one (my favourite!) was placed in the top twenty. Not too shabby a result, then. These are they, in the order the judges picked them. Looking at them a second time, the colours are very Farrow and Ball, which could be something to do with the fact that we're shortly going to paint our entrance hall, and I've been looking through a lot of colour swatches lately...

Dinosaurs of Doom Out Now!

2010-10-05T13:22:00.001+01:00

The Dinosaurs of Doom have been released onto an unsuspecting world! The book, complete with Mega Pop-up, rampaging armoured dinosaurs, mad scientists and general mayhem has just been published and is in the shops now! Thanks once more to Hannah Ray and all at Macmillan's Children's Books. Go Time Pirates!

New Book

2010-07-28T10:42:00.000+01:00

This is the cover of the book I've recently finished illustrating -- 'Dog Did It!' It's written by Lynne Garner and published by Piccadilly Press.
It concerns a small troll called Boris who loves green worm soup rather more than he should do, because it has disastrous effects on his digestive system. Boris continually blames Dog for the inevitable smelly emissions, until Dog manages to get his own back. So, all the big themes of literature are covered... friendship, betrayal and farting.
I was quite pleased with the hairy finish I managed to give the trolls. Last I heard it should be in the shops early 2011.

Little Robot Plush Toys

2010-06-07T14:44:00.002+01:00

I came across a cardboard box in the attic yesterday, and when I opened it I found a hoard of plush toys based on my Little Robot characters. They were manufactured a few years ago when Lego Media owned the rights, and were released into the shops to coincide with the launch of the TV series. Although you wouldn't normally associate robots with soft toys, I think they work really well, and had forgotten how cute they looked. Lego used their expertise as toy makers to create some lovely soft toys. Now that they've seen the light of day again, they're sat - looking rather pleased with themselves - on a shelf in my studio. The one below is Scary - my favourite!

Dinosaur pop-ups

2010-04-24T16:52:00.001+01:00

I've just received this from Corina Fletcher, the brilliant paper engineer who designed all the pop-up mechanisms for the Dinosaurs of Doom book that I finished a few weeks ago. She's printed out my files and dummied up the whole book to make sure that everything works as it should. And the good news is that it does, so no last minute tweaks needed!
To show you the levels of complexity we had to go to, the image below is the illustration I did for just one of the four back panels of the final 360 degree pop-up. A good deal of it is obscured by other features as well, but I had to put in this amount of detail because there are so many cut outs in the panels at the front. Part of the reason this was a long old job!

Please can I Play?

2010-04-19T12:06:00.003+01:00

This is an image I did recently. It's a sample double-page spread for a favorite book project of mine that hasn't found a publisher yet. Shame really, because the book deals with some of the anxieties that a lot of young children experience when they go nursery school or start school for the first time, and I'm pretty sure a lot of parents would find it useful to read to their nervous off-spring. It's called 'Please Can I Play?' and features a little penguin called Fran who is lonely and wants to find a friend to play with. But all the other animals are too big, or too busy or too grown-up to bother. At least at first. I'm sure it would make a nice board book. One day, maybe.

blackbird

2010-04-15T10:56:00.002+01:00

I've spent three days agonizing over the opening sequence of a book I'm writing. Finally cracked it last night when I went for a walk. I think. It's a constant source of bewilderment that you can stare at a piece of paper or a computer screen for hours without making any progress at all. Then you walk away, think of something else, and it's as if you've sneaked up on the problem from behind and taken it by surprise. Suddenly you can see where all the answers have been hiding themselves.

I also witnessed the little drama shown above when two dogs went for a blackbird. I've been experimenting drawing images without using a line to hold it all together. I'm quite pleased with this approach and will try to do some more in the same style.

1st blog

2010-04-09T12:53:00.002+01:00

This is my first blog, so hi to one and all. I mainly write and illustrate books for children and I'll try tell you something about what I do as I go along.

After nine long months I recently finished all the artwork for a book for Macmillan Children's Books called "Dinosaurs of Doom!" It's been quite a slog, but everyone seems very happy with the result. The book is out in the shops about October I think. It's the second in a series about the Time Pirates and it features time travel, evil scientists, lots of armoured dinosaurs wreaking havoc and a great big pop-up at the end! This is a picture of the cover.

Thanks to Corina Fletcher for her wonderful paper engineering and to everyone at MacMillan especially Hannah Ray and Jo Spooner.

So -- it's time to press the button and send my first blog into the big wide blogosphere. I hope it will find lots of little bloggy friends to mix with and not be too lonely out there. Bye bye little blog, bye bye.