The Cat and the Fiddle, Solva Mill and the Chinese Dragons.

Yesterday was the first of a series of launches for The Cat and the Fiddle, a selection of nursery rhymes. The Mill at Solva looked beautiful and Anna had dressed it to fit, with collections and gatherings of things that went with different pages in the book.

In keeping with the theme Rosie came too. She is such a star of the book and she was a star of the book launch too and enjoyed making sure that the floor was clean of crumbs.

So many people came, the Mill looked wonderful and there was a lovely buzz to the event. It is still possible to buy signed books from Anna from their website, and she will be ordering more copies of The Cat and the Fiddle as we sold all of them and more last night.  

Today is a day of sunshine and showers. I have walked to the sea and watched seals embracing, new pups on the beach and a rainbow. 





On coming home I found a parcel and in the parcel, dragons. Chinese dragons. The pages are so very elegant with the beautiful Chinese script, and it is always a thrill to see my words written in languages other than English, and so very wonderful to see such elegant script.

The next launch for The Cat and the Fiddle will be in Norfolk at The Centre for the Children's Book, on 6th October, then at The Imagine Gallery in Long Melford on 8th October. Meanwhile I have plans to run away with wolves next year.

Astonishing things.

1. Jon Mayle has made a clock that looks just like the clock on the endpapers of The Cat and the Fiddle. For me it is strange and magical to see this 'made real'. The clock will be exhibited at The Imagine Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk, for an exhibition themed around nursery rhymes, opening on 8th October.

2. Dropping Hannah off in town yesterday I heard someone talking about the van. It was a family on holiday. I stopped to talk before heading off shopping. The mother had made a cake based on one of the images in Tell Me a Dragon for her son's birthday. So lovely. The dragon curled around the sleeping child. I asked her to send me a picture so that I could put it here. She did.

Welsh Dragons.

 

Yesterday during the evening I went to Croesgoch School. They had invited me in as part of their World Book Day Celebrations. I have a great fondness for this school as my two children went there and the teachers gave them the best start they could have. They both learned to read in the school in St Davids with Gill Thomas, a wonderful teacher and lovely woman, but when they left Gill's class we moved them both to Croesgoch. Here they both prospered and grew and became fluent in Welsh. So funny to see them both yesterday, towering above all the younger children, and the teachers!

The school seemed very full during the eveing and as there were so many people there I did two sessions, with Tell Me a Dragon and Starlight Sailor. I took my healing bowl, for summoning dragons and my dragon puppets, which may soon have to travel to France with me. Infact there were so many people that we ran out of books. Anna from Solva Woollenmill was running the book stall and signed books are always available at the mill, in Middlemill, and online in her shop.

The children had all worked on wonderful paintings of 'their' dragons and I have the unenviable task of judging them. I couldn't do this there as they were too good and I need to take time to look at them all, so will post some more pictures later.

All day today I painted and wandered around in peace and quiet. I have been working on a red dragon on gold. A real Welsh dragon.

A moment in Attleborough

In Attleborough library I watch as children from local schools came in. At one moment a group of about four gathered up Tell Me a Dragon and placed it flat on the floor and sort of tumbled into the pages. Such a joy to see it working as it should do, a dragon charm to lure children to a land of the imagination.

Dragon adventure no 1.

I suppose if you are going to go for a trip you might as well drive from one side of Britain, right across to the other, in a van wrapped in dragons. So, armed with a Nepalese Healing bowl, some dragons, a book or two and some pencils that is just what we did.
Before I left I gentley broke it to my parents that I had sold sensible car and bought rediculous van and then wrapped it with dragons. Lucky really, as I think they would have noticed.

At Annie Dalton's house the van snuggled up against the cottage walls for the night and the wind dragon kept an eye on all that we did. Riley seemed untroubled by a visitation by dragons and it was good to see that Annie too talks to the cats.
As we set off the next morning Millie tapped me on the shoulder to wish me luck.

 

Again the dragons watched through the windows, this time of Attleborough Library, as children talked about the books they had shortlisted for the Norfolk Childrens Book Award. Then Kasuno Kohara showed how she printed a block for the Jack Frost book. Beautiful colours and mesmeric to watch. I talked nonsense about dragons and read the children Little Dragon Small, a new story, just hatched.
And Tell Me a Dragon won, and the children gave me a beautiful small dragon of my very own to keep, and I was pleased and so were all the dragons in the book, and Little Dragon Small was pleased to.

 

After a magical mystery tour of Norfolk with Robin navigating we finaly arrived at Marilyn's bookshop and have since been hatching plots.
We stayed at The Saracen's Head and all I can say is that I am so looking forward to going back again in the autumn. I do love it there. So relaxed and comfortable.

 

Very glad to say that later the next day, while driving to Wimslow to see Charlie with picture books to read and the van to show him, the dragons managed to dodge the shower of s**t that the muck spreader flung at us in passing! 

Meanwhile great to see that when I park my van in the street children siddle up to it to converse with dragons.

 

On our travels we saw red kites, buzards, ravens and rooks, four herons flying, a duck up a tree, swans, morehens, a great flag with a deep red dragon, drifts of snowdrops, hedges of old man's beard and probably more of Norfolk than we needed to. But it was very beautiful.

Back in the office.

Always a strange feeling to have finished something, especialy something that has taken so long. The Cat and the Fiddle began years ago and then turned into The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems.

Although I enjoyed working on Classic Poems I still wanted to go back to nursery rhymes. Their strange, anarchic rhythm and rhyme appealed so much and gave such a freedom that I just wanted to play. But not just play. So many very young picture books are simple, strong  bold images. I wanted to do something with more detail, more complexity. From my own experience of reading picture books when my children were young they just loved books where the pages were packed with detail and pattern, stories in the pictures. And the time we spent in the company of books like The Little House By the Sea by Benedict Blathwaite were precious hours. Always more to see each time.

So.

Finished now.

For about four years now I have had a story lurking. Ever since I painted the small dragon in Tell Me a Dragon, hatching from his egg, he has been stomping around inside my head demanding attention. A few times I have tried, eventualy caught the idea for a story, the shape of it, but try as I might I couldn't catch the words. Next week I am going to Norfolk for the Norfolk Children's Book Award, very much looking forward to meeting Kazuno Kohara.
 I was hoping to catch the words for Little Dragon Small and the Search for Story before I went so that I could try it out on the children in Norfolk. 
I finished the last bit of painting on the cuckoo and headed for the door with a notebook, a pen, three dogs and Elmo. Up to the top of the hill where the sun shone and there was space to let go. A pair of ravens flew by close as we sat on the hill. On the way up something had clicked, a small dragon hatched, a character was dropped, things went like the cogs in a watch and each piece turned so that while I sat and ravens flew in tumbling flight the words fell onto the paper.
It was cold. Elmo snuggled up and pushed his way inside my sweater like a ginger hot waterbottle with purrs. The ravens flipped in courtship, tumbling for the sheer pleasure of flight.

The story had been struggling to hatch out for days now and just needed time for the rhymes to be cleared away. 

 

Back home and back to the computer and email came in with the most amazing review from Judith Philo at IBBY.

The Ice Bear
Jackie Morris, London: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books, 978 1 8450 7968 0, £11.99,
2010, 32pp.
The portrait of the ice bear on the front cover, in close up, seizes the attention of the reader, inspiring a shiver of awe. On the back cover a dark-eyed boy, brown hair covered by a fur hood, studies us. These two figures direct us into the book inviting us to see the world through their eyes.
Themes of birth, loss, separation, restitution and new beginnings shape a dramatic narrative of mythic dimensions, set in the vast open space of the Arctic region. This landscape of far horizons contrasts with representations, in close up, of the principal
characters: the ice bear and her offspring, the hunter and his family. There is also the dark brooding presence of the raven. She acts in ways that are catalytic to the bears and the humans and to the child who is bound to them both. When a choice has to be made, this child declares that he will live with the bears during the winter and spend the summer months with his human family. In this way the relationship between and the
understanding of the two worlds will be strengthened.
This is a beautiful, painterly book. The unframed pages place the reader at the scene at each turn of the page. Small children will be engrossed by the close-up nature of the pictorial representations. For older readers, the visual power of the illustrations is amplified by the poetic sensibility of the narrative text. Jackie Morris reminds us that we are caretakers of the natural world, especially that far-off region where bears and hunters inhabit the earth and the sky. Such mindfulness for the outer world will also enrich our inner world.
Judith Philo

 I wrote The Ice Bear on the hill, on a blue sky day while ravens flew in the sky. I always think of Raven as the heroine of the story. In some ways it seemed as if the ravens told me the story because it was theirs.


Yesterday I finally got round to sending a biog to the Kids Need to Read Foundation, a wonderful organisation who aim to get books into the hands of children, through libraries in the USA. A few weeks back they asked if I would like to be on their advisory council. I had given them a couple of ideas for fund raising, hopefully good ideas. What could I say except, "Yes please". Made my day!

A curl of dragons.

48 hours left to finish a book. Drove van to Haverfordwest where there were dragons 'gassing off' ( I am assured that this is a technical term for this stage of the process, proir to laminating). Amazing curl of huge printed images and I was as excited as a small child on Christmas morning.

Now I am nervous. And I have about 24 hours to finish the book, soup to make, people coming around for supper and I have left my van with people who are going to wrap it up.

Collect on Saturday. Until then I try not to think about it.

Conversation with publisher about next two books, East of the Sun and West of  the Moon and I am Cat, which will probably both be published together. 

Time to make soup and settle head.

On the beach today and in the studio

Pattern. In the sand. And beauty in unexpected places. 
Light. 
Sea birds and a sky so blue, newly emerged from rain.
At home, a small dragon hatched from a sky blue egg.  

Distractions no. 2

Just had the proof for van through. Have asjked for a couple of changes and have fingers crossed that it can be done in time to go to Norfolk. I am unreasonably excited and have to sit down and work!

I am discovering a whole new world of 'dubbers' out there, and illustrated vans all around the world. Want to start either a facebook page or blog for the van but not sure which yet.

Distractions.

It is always difficult to move swiftly from one painting to the next. I have 4 or 5 paintings still to do and have to be finished by 12th Feb ( extension from end Jan). So, today I have to

1. Stretch paper. Three pieces.

2. Draw out Jumping Joan and maybe Four and twenty tailors.

3. Fill in form for Art in Action.

4. Find contract to send to people.

5. Walk dogs.

6. Make fire. It is getting cold again though bright.

7. Stop looking at the preview picture of one side of my van.

8. Sort out discs that need to be made and posted to people who want them.

9. Talk to Jane about things inside the van.

A very special offer.

On November 27th, from 5pm, Solva Woollen Mill, Middlemill, Pembrokeshire will be having a book launch for The Ice Bear. I will be there signing books, hopefully with feathers in my hair and pen in hand. During the evening each book bought will have a raffle ticket with it and at the end of the evening a ticket will be pulled out of a box or a hat and the winner will get the drawing seen above. To make this fair for people who live a long long way from Pembrokeshire this will also apply to all books bought from the mill's online shop. All books at the mill are signed, with best wishes. The drawing is an original sketch in pencil of the Ice Bear Mother, on board. The image above is an 'almost finished' as I will probably fiddle a bit with it over the next few days. The offer applies to all of my books at Solva Woollen Mill, not just The Ice Bear and they have most titles there.

On Friday I heard that Tell Me a Dragon had been nominated for the CILIP Kate  Greenaway Medal. All the dragons in the book have their claws crossed that they make it through to the shortlist to be announced in April of next year.

Pirates and treasure

Dropped Tom at school then headed to Porthllisky where there was a promise of treasure. Blue sky, red coat of a pirate, seal in the bay, walk slowed by blackberries kssed by the sea salt breeze, buzzard and the haunting cry of lifting curlew. I played with my shadow on the rock face, a sea so blue.

Back at the car I called on Jan and sure enough she had ruby red treasures, bright beetroots. I envy her the raised beds she has. They are so full and looked wonderful in the slant of morning light. Hoping to learn all that I need to know from her and Daf and Tom.

Back home, working towards finishing the KNTR calendar piece, which Hannah described as 'an incredible piece of product placement'. The piece has something from The Snow Leopard, Tell Me a Dragon, The Ice Bear, and The Panda's Child ( waiting for contract).