New edition of NZ Children's Books in Print

Work is in progress for the next edition of NZ Children's Books in Print. There are a few changes taking place, the main one being that new editions will now come out at the beginning of the New Zealand school year (beginning of February), rather than the end.

The next edition will include children's books by NZ authors and illustrators released up until the end of 2010. An added bonus for publishers and users is that publishers will also be able to include listings of new books they have coming out in 2011 (this is optional) which will be marked with the month they are to be published.

Advertising bookings are being taken now. If you are interested in taking out an ad take a look at the advertising rates which you can click through to near the top of the page.

Printing Buniboy

I've been experimenting with using my new silkscreen and thought the character from my book would be a good place to start. Two colours, black and red, onto white. I'd been told I could use a stencil with my screen, which I thought I'd start with rather than the photographic process which I couldn't do at home. It was not very successful, the stencil material seemed a bit thick, but I did manage a few recognisable prints. Then I thought I'd try using my stencil with spray paint, which worked much better, though he now has a pink jumper due to lack of red spray paint. So here is Buniboy - the illustrated version from the book, the screenprinted version, and the spray-paint

version.

Wow Mum

This is a large papercut I made for the studio window at Unitec so it could be read from the inside and the outside. It also produced the added bonus of projecting the words onto the walls and floor as the sun moved across the sky. The text was prompted by my son who looked at a poster I'd made about my Doc Marten boots which I'd had since 1996, saying 'Wow mum, have you really been wearing those for 15 years.' Of course I am 'Mum' in New Zealand, but 'Mom' in US and we were pleased to note that when 'Wow' was projected upside down on the wall it became 'Mom' so we're all there.

Where shall we go today? sample pages

Here is the front cover and a few sample pages of the picture book I've made for my graphic design course at Unitec.