Funky Fish Fabric!

I've been watching the Great British Sewing Bee and it has inspired me to do a bit of sewing again! 

Look at this great fabric I bought:

It's really a quilting fabric, but I'm going to use it to make a dress to wear for school visits. I've got a few fishy dresses that I wear, but this material is the best I've found. There are lots of funny faces, but I think this little orange guy is my favorite!

I'm not sure on the style yet, but maybe something a bit vintage-y would look nice. It's just a shame I won't be able to make it in time for World Book Day on Thursday, but it will be a fun project for next week.

Smiley Shark in Korean!

Look what arrived this morning! Several other languages came too, but this was the most exciting  because the Korean language looks so different and amazing. They've even translated my name into Korean, which I'm quite happy about. I always wondered what it would look like!

Redlands School Mural II

As promised, some updated photos of the mural I am doing for Redlands School Nursery:

I finished Smiley Shark, I need to do a little finishing work on the jellyfish, crab and starfish, but they're almost done! I really like how the bubbles have turned out, I think I'll add a load more towards the end when I can see how much space is left.

I still need to add in lots of little creatures to make it really fun. My favourite part is adding silly expressions to the incidental characters in my books, and I don't see any reason why a mural should be any different.

Some of the older kids peeped over the fence today, and asked me if I was going to add Fidgety Fish, so I'm going to pop him in next to the angelfish. I need to fill in some of the space on the sand, too, maybe with some more rocks and shells. Next time I'll be adding more greens and blues which will give it more depth. I try and stick to using a few colours at a time when I'm painting, it means I can keep the colours cleaner, and I don't have to keep going inside and washing my palette and brushes too often. It takes a bit of self-discipline though, because it looks better every time I add a new colour, so it's tempting to use them all at once!

I'm really pleased with how bright and colourful it is looking so far, it makes such a difference to the whole playground.

Brazilian Books

Every now and then I get a package from my publisher, Little Tiger Press, with copies of a new overseas edition, and yesterday these two arrived:

This one's a Brazilian translated edition of the first book I ever wrote, Fidgety Fish. It's great to see that it's still popular all these years later.

I originally wrote it when my oldest son, Mortimer, was a little baby, and now he's a great big nearly-fifteen year old! It's lovely to think that children all around the world are enjoying my stories -or at least I hope they are enjoying them!

This is also a Brazilian co-edition of my most recent book, Smiley Shark and The Great Big Hiccup. Craig, our lodger who's from Brazil was mightily impressed that I've finally had my books translated into his native language.

He said it was interesting because they don't really have an onomatopoeic word for hiccups, so they've just left it the same as in the English version. Maybe the word 'Hic' will catch on!