SCBWI Featured Illustrator

Very pleased and proud to be the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators 'Featured Illustrator' this month :)

http://www.wordsandpics.org/2015/01/featured-illustrator-sarah-palmer.html

Friends

Who wouldn't want a should ride from a bear?

And how about a selfie...?!

Monster Meals

Another little project I've been working on is an idea for a board book about shapes and colours.  I spent a very happy couple of days cutting out shapes and creating a little dummy.

Each spread has a plate of food and a monster (with a something in his tummy)...

Sid's Treasure Chest

The main project I'm working on at the moment is another picturebook with a message that I'm passionate about - being thankful for what you have. 

Sid is a squirrel.  He has an empty treasure chest and he sets out to find some precious things to fill it up with...

But things don't go quite according to plan...

Worry Monster

Finally, I'm getting round to posting some of my more recent stuff!  For my Diploma Project last year, I had my first ever attempt at creating a picturebook.  It was about a worry monster and I called it called "The Problem Pet".  As a worrier myself (that's putting it mildly, I feel anxious if I don't feel anxious sometimes...) I wrote this story as a message to children who might be prone to worrying themselves.

These were some sketchbook ideas I had about how the worry monster would look:

I am about to begin re-working the illustrations, but these spreads (from my original project) show just what a problem pet Neville (the worry monster) became...

Linocut

I love lino!  Cutting lino is strangely relaxing... except for the odd linocut-related injury, which usually happens if you get just a little bit too relaxed...

Here is a linocut of one of my fur-babies, Poppy :)

Old stuff

So, here we are!  And, before I post some of my recent work, here's some 'old stuff' from a few years ago - pieces I completed for a diploma in Children's Book Illustration.

The first exercise and spread were watercolour cutouts.

And the brief for this piece was to create a vignette illustrating a story about a baby dragon who couldn't control his fire-breathing...

For this spread we were just given the title "Sebastian's Sink City":

And for my final piece, the title we were given was "Singer of Starlight".  This illustration was inspired by memories of my nan singing me to sleep when I was very little...