cheep, peep, chirp...!

Afternoon tea anyone?

Stir...

A quick one so I could join in all the illustration friday fun! :)

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus!

Happy St David's Day to all the Welsh!

Hello friends!

Hi everyone, and a super happy new years to you all. I'm SO touched to see so many old friends, new friends and talented faces following … It's been such a busy few months, so I've been practically invisible in blogland, and the real world alike. Who knew how intense bookmaking would be! I've been very blessed though. After a very steep learning curve(!), there's now 2 wonderful children's books in the pipeline and I've been lucky enough to work with some seriously talented authors and publishers, alongside my super-agent Teresa. I can't wait to share it all with you (keeping the art quiet is SUPER tough. I'm terrible at secrets!). Keep checking back for news! I'm going to try and get myself into a more regular doodle routine for the blog and twitter, and as soon as I can release any exciting sneek peeks, be sure that I will do!! Hope you're well!! Thanks for following, and lots of love x k

The Adventures of Christmas Star

Took a quick break from painting this morning to come up with some Christmas card ideas.... I think there might be story potential here!
"happy snow day everyone! - star. x"

Happy Thanksgiving Friends!

Just wanted to 'post' a little best wishes from us... enjoy the holidays!

Happy Halloween!

Happy halloween everyone!! Have a fabulously spooky weekend! Things are going well here; super busy but I'm creeping into colour on one of my projects - hurrah! I can't wait to get back to the blog to share more with you soon. Where has the time gone? I hope everybody's well!! I spent the last few days creating a crazy collage of guitar picks so here's a quick little halloween edit for you... happy holidays! xx k

I [heart] Lemon Tart

Hurrah! I managed to squeeze in an Illustration Friday. Yummy... dessert-themed! Lemon tart is my favourite. Hello to everyone! Hope you're well :)

How green was my valley?

Very Green! We're just back from a spectacular week in North Wales. Lots of mountains, forests, lakes - such a great getaway and I found some great monster forest inspiration! There's so many photos, it'll be weeks before I search through them, but here's a few for your morning coffee! p.s. extra special mention for the cartoon mushroom in the last photo (red top, white base and spots... I thought they were fictional until we stumbled upon this little fellow and the rest of his family in the forest!).

Postcard from Snowdon

Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) is incredible. We took the last photo from our iPhone and it looks just like a postcard ...but we were there, honest!

Nellie

...in a little birthday card.

Lady Chipmunk

Hervé in Love

A little preview of a recent piece I did for a children's charity in Israel.

Tales From The Sketchbook Archive

Thank you Kinnon!

Kinnon Elliott has written a really nice little profile about me on her blog! Check out the post here and you can see more of Kinnon's beautiful work on her blog at http://kinnonelliott.blogspot.com/ Thanks Kinnon!

More Book News...

I have something extra-super exciting to announce.... not only do I have this wonderful project on the horizon with Henry Holt Books and the uber-talented Tiffany Strelitz Haber... I can now officially announce that I'm going to be illustrating my second book, So You Wanna Be a Rock Star, with Walker Books and the fabulous author Audrey Vernick!

Does it get any more exciting than this!!

I'm positively thrilled to be a part of both, and I can't wait to share more about these projects with you. Keep popping in for news and thanks to everyone who's been supporting me. Lots of love, Kirstie xo

Nellie

Hi all! Just made it back safely from Spain and thought I'd spring back into action with a cheeky little elephant pic! Had a wonderful holiday with my bestest friends in the world, camping under the stars and enjoying some nice long walks on the beach. Hope you're all having an excellent summer too! xo Kirstie ;-)

Flamingos

I did this for a project I'm working on, but we didn't need it in the end (altogether now ...aww!). I thought it might like to have it's premiere here instead. Parump-pa-pa-pa...! (that's my trumpet!) Have a nice Friday all! ;-)

More Animals

I've got so many of these now... need to think of something clever to do with them!

Slither, the festival snake...

Wedding Bells

Our friends are getting married this weekend - Congratulations Chloe & Andy!! There's a nice little story behind how they met too... Chloe is one of my friends, and Andy is one of Jonathans'.... so about 3 years ago, after accidentally writing their names together on the invite list, Jonathan and I shamelessly went about trying to set them up at my moroccan-themed birthday dinner (belly dancers included)! It worked - we ended up chaperoning their first date a week later and they've been together ever since... they've even beaten us down the aisle! ;-) Aww. It's very nice to see them graduate from our highly successsful school of matchmaking! Here's a little peek at our card:

Animals

Frustrated

A little colour test for a project I'm working on. I'm so sorry the blog has been so quiet lately - it will be woken up from it's hibernation very soon, with some exciting new bits! Promise!

Nancy

Nancy makes jewellery.... and it's her birthday on Sunday ;-)

Ahead

Quick one for illustration friday :) Have a lovely weekend all!

Birthdays

It's a big birthday for my little sis this weekend. She's turning 21 and we're off to Wales to celebrate with her - hurrah! It's been a while since I've seen her (or my other brother and sister for that matter), so I'm very excitable today! Happy Birthday little sis!


Ooh, and if you're ever in Wales, don't forget to pick up some welsh cakes! (click here for some background). They're our best kept secret - I can't seem to find them anywhere in London!

(welshcakes by zingyyellow via flickr)

Book News!

I am SO proud to announce that I will be illustrating my first picture book with the wonderfully talented children's book author Tiffany Strelitz Haber!! 

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am - Tiffany is brilliant, and it's such an incredible book! The working title is "The Onster" and it's a wonderfully funny and touching story about a monster who loses his "M", telling the tale of how, sometimes, when things get lost, even bigger and better things can be found. 

It's going to be published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, and the expected release date is Fall 2012. I'm so proud to have been asked to illustrate and I can't wait to tell you more, so please keep checking back for other news and updates! I can't wait for you to see it! 

p.s. Make sure you check out Tiffany's website and author facebook page! 
p.p.s Extra special thanks to my agent, Teresa Kietlinski at Prospect Agency for making this happen! 

Happy Easter everyone! xx

It's my party....

It was my birthday yesterday, and my mum and dad sent me this amazing card with all these old photos of me on it (in this example, I'm the one on the right). Check out my socks, sandals, my amazing outfit and my personal favourite, the blue "Care Bears" watch. My sister is the rather unhappy looking one on the left. I don't think she took well to my lesson on the importance of picture books and reading and all that....

Expired

The sandwich was most definitely off...