up to my ears in sheep and chickens and… hippos?

I’m aaalmost through with drawing chickens and cows and pigs and sheep and dogs… not in my usual repertoire. For the chickens I went and practised drawing real ones at the lovely Ceres which isn’t too far from here. I found a good spot where they clucked beside me most obligingly. I couldn’t see the cows that I thought lived there, so I mainly relied on photo reference for them. It’s funny – I would have thought a cow would be very easy to draw but for some strange reason they looked a little too much like hippos for my liking in some of my practise drawings. Don’t tell anyone. I guess it was because I was going for a stylised look – I think drawing on a memory of a very friendly looking cow in a jigsaw puzzle from when I was little. It came good with a little more practise!

So on Tuesday night (at about 3am) I finished putting the final touches on the illustrations (the picture book’s called The Flood which I’ve posted about below). And at 9.30 Wednesday I met with Cristina Pase (editor at Windy Hollow) to hand it in. I’m just waiting for feedback on the cover design and then we’re all done. I began the next book that morning. No rest for the wicked.