Lili goes to Japan!

I am so pleased to announce that I will be holding my first gallery exhibition in Japan this month! Here are the details:

T-BOX Gallery (15 - 20 Feb)
Matsuoka Yaesu Bldg. 3F, 2-8-10 yaesu, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0028

Art de ART VIEW (2 - 7 Mar)
13-30 Kitazono-cho, Takatsuki-shi, Osaka-shi, Osaka 562-0802

Gallery HANA Shimokitazawa (3 -11 May)
3-26-2 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 155-0031

The exhibition features new artwork related to Lili. So you may catch some of the following pieces at the exhibition:

soft pastel

pencil, oil pastel

pencil, oil pastel

pencil, oil pastel

It has been fun working on new pieces around Lili's everyday experiences. It also gave me a chance to work on an alternative version of Lili, imagining her as an adult, and experimenting with a different medium.

I worked around-the-clock on most of the artwork towards the end of last year. Here's a work-in-progress photo on one of the pieces for the exhibition:

Hopefully, I'll have more updates and photos later of the exhibitions themselves. So stay tuned!

The Great Dragon Warrior

My next book is out! The Great Dragon Warrior, published by Epigram Books, is a story written by Ng Swee San, and I was commissioned to do the illustrations.

It was a whole lot of fun to draw lots of different dragons! Here are some pictures selected from the book.

Coming soon!

Sneak peak at my new book that's coming out soon... watch this space!

Mechanical Menagerie

It's been awhile since I last posted here. I'm currently back in Malaysia, still trying to settle in and figure out my next plans. In the meantime, here's something I did a while back for a competition. I went back to playing with the nib and ink, and I have to say that it's going to be a permanent part of my repertoire. I quite like working this way.

North & South and Jane Eyre

After months of making illustrations for picture books, I wanted to try doing something totally different, something a little darker in mood. With a bit of experimentation with materials, these were the results. They are meant to be book illustrations for classic novels, specifically North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. (Pride and Prejudice has been done too many times).

 

Milton Town

 The death of Mrs Hale

Mr Thornton claims Margaret Hale

Jane Eyre escapes Thornfield Hall

About a little cupid

So I've been working really hard on my final project, which is a new picturebook dummy. These were developed from the psychedelic cupids I worked on sometime ago. Here's a sneak peak:

More of Circus Boy

I made a picturebook dummy about a circus boy last year, and I really loved working with soft pastels and so I thought I'll create a few more images based on the same story. These images were originally created for a competition. The first of these was posted here.

Another flying pig

Right... I realise that I haven't been posting for some time. Been busy (of course). But here's something that I've done some time ago, based on the pig in two pigs and a croc. Will update in a separate post on why I'm posting this particular picture soon.

Hansel & Gretel

Here is my entry to a European illustration competition to illustrate Hansel and Gretel. They put up all the entries here, and the public is asked to vote for their favourite. The voting is over, and unfortunately mine didn't make it to the top 5. But here it is, and I'm happy with the piece nonetheless.

Etchings of Lili

It's the summer and there's open access to the university's printmaking studios, hence I took this opportunity to play around with some etchings. The following were done with a single zinc plate using soft ground. Quite like the effect of using different inks on a single plate.

little boys and their stuffed toys

Some time ago, I completed a series of paintings for a friend, portraying her two boys and their favourite stuffed toys. I had fun while doing these, and was trying to emulate the watercolour backgrounds commonly found in Lisbeth Zwerger's (one of my favourite children's book illustrators) illustrations. I think they turned out quite well :)

 

just my cup(s) of tea

Continuing my series of favourite things (read: food), here's my other favourite beverage: tea!

selection of my favourite teas

Cupcakes and Doughnuts!

From ice-cream and coffee to cupcakes and doughnuts! I love painting the food I love.... yes, I was salivating while painting this!

it's all in the icing

yummy doughnuts!

Macmillan Prize 2013

It has been some time since I last posted. Quite a number of things have happened since then: the end of my first year in the MA Children's Book Illustration course, and winning third place in the Macmillan Prize 2013 (hurrah!). I have to say that winning a prize is such a pleasant surprise, and a welcome indication that I'm on the right track.

Here's me posing in front of my drawing at the Macmillan Prize 2013 exhibit

The Macmillan Prize is an annual competition open to UK-based students and requires the submission of a complete children's picture book dummy. The story I submitted is Lili, about a sweet girl with red-hot hair. I had originally worked on this as part of a project in the course, and the following are the pictures from the story.

The Wind in the Willows

So I've disappeared for a while... been really busy with a new dummy book, and preparing for the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2013. Will post these updates later once I get all the photos sorted out!

Anyway, I just came back from Italy a few days ago, and realised that the Puffin Children's Award contest deadline was today! Luckily I had already read the book, and had some initial ideas but didn't really have the time to carry out the vision so I had to improvise and ended up with a new design. So here it is. I'm quite happy with the type.

Circus: Big Teeth

And the story of the boy who works at a monster circus continues... Here's another sequence from the dummy book. Our little boy is quite the unflappable one. Enjoy!

Circus: Mr Octopus

Here's another short edited sequence from the book.

Will our circus boy be eaten alive?

Awww...

Circus: Long-necked Monster

I previously published a work-in-progress picture of these two pieces. And here are they are finished!

 

Circus: Multi-eyed Monster

Here's a sequence from the circus dummy picture book...

the boy who worked at a circus

So the past few weeks I've been really busy working on a sequential project, basically coming up with a dummy picture book. This is the first image in the book, as yet untitled, about a little boy who works at a circus. But this is no ordinary circus... more will be revealed in the next few posts... stay tuned!