Developments with Matti

Matti is slowly becoming a book I am really proud of. It’s a much, much stronger book than it was when I first conceived of it in the Summer of 2015.

I’m now working hard on getting a dummy ready for after Xmas, but especially for Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2018.

Here are just a few experiments with drawing her, over & over again – sometimes whilst half-watching the telly. I think I am actually discovering ‘my voice’ for drawing imaginatively (I feel I have a different ‘voice’ when I am doing my event illustration, and one that I feel quite confident and comfortable with). ‘Voice’ by the way, in more layman’s terms – is a bit like ‘style’. Sort of. And that’s a whole other story…

Here are a few sketches that I have recently got very excited about… the sketchy, uncertain nature of the drawing. The earth-coloured pencil.

Someone from the other tribe

Someone else from the other tribe

I’m very excited about my book once again, and one day I hope a publisher will be too.

You know…. I’m just wondering if I’ve ever talked about Matti before on here. Perhaps I really should have entitled this post ‘Introducing Matti’…