Category Archives: Michael Emberley

The Inevitable Electric Picnic Post

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Children’s Books Ireland and our Laureate na nÓg went to Electric Picnic this year and they invited us along. Eoin Colfer’s laureate project is a fab new collection of short stories and poems, all set in Ireland and called Once Upon a Place. I was thrilled to be asked to contribute a story and excited to be invited along to Electric Picnic (Ireland’s biggest arts & music fest) to chat about it with a load of other contributors. PJ Lynch, Enda Wyley, Siobhán Parkinson (who edited/published), Patricia Forde, and Eoin Colfer, are all in the top photo, and Oisín McGann, Sarah Webb, myself, Roddy Doyle, and Patricia again, are in the second shot.

the Literary Stage tent, Saturday
Eoin, Siobhán, Enda, Patricia, myself, PJ with an image done on the spot, and Oisín towering o’er us
Trish did a fab job as compere and Eoin had everyone in stitches, while PJ bravely created an amazing charcoal image on the spot.
capacity crowds both days
Talkin’
Sunday panel
Sarah, myself, Patricia, Roddy and Oisín

Two days equalled two morning gigs inside the Literary Stage tent. Meanwhile outside Michael and Steve McCarthy were busy running Monster Doodles…

Michael and Steve
Book doctors

Inbetween gigs ourselves and our friend and fellow author, Sarah (Sarah Webb, author of Amy Green, The Songbird Cafe Girls), were free to roam and people watch…

People dress up. There were loads of onesies…
recycled fashion
Eoin and Michael swap hats at the Other Voices tent
Electric Faery
face painting
meeting up with our nieces, Ann and Beth, and Beth’s chap, Matt

…check out the art installations…

Every tree had all sorts up there in the boughs
wicker foxes
Sarah and Michael

…Michael and myself had our vows blessed by Elvis at the Electric Chapel, with Sarah as witness/photographer…

…oh, and we did catch a little music.

Alani, the only act that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck…
The Staves
Michael and Bob

Once Upon a Place is due out in October 2015:http://littleisland.ie/once-upon-a-place-an-anthology-compiled-by-laureate-na-nog-published-by-little-island/

Click for info on Children’s Books Ireland and Laureate na nÓg

Top Notes

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I’m not a morning person; Michael is. I come down to the kitchen an hour or so after he’s left the house and check the kitchen table for a note to see whether he’s …

..cycled to work at Firehouse Bakery in Delgany
gone to work in Insomnia
@Usual early office -Insomnia

…or…

gone cycling…
…spinning the wheels…
..up the mountains…
…for a few hours

Sometimes the sketches are seriously minimalist….

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And occasionally I may come home late in the day and find Michael’s ….

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… down the pub. In this case, with Peter!

Getting the Lead Out

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Sarah McIntyre’s PicturesMeanBusiness campaign is all about highlighting the work involved in illustrating (and why illustrators should always be credited), so Michael and myself thought we’d try and give you an idea of the drawing work we do when developing a picturebook.

Right now I am working on the colour art for a book, all of it on computer. This ‘finished art’ will take me three to four months total, but there’s been a whole pile of hand-drawing just to get to this stage.

Hundreds and hundreds of drawings, all on tracing paper, my surface of choice. Some find the bin; most get filed.

In April 2014 there were scribbled ‘thumbnail’ sketches, as I tried to catch the idea which was emerging. Sometime later I began exploring the story’s characters in more detail, filling a sketchbook. Then several weeks were spent working towards a proper full-size dummy.

After a meeting with the editorial team at Walker Books I made a new dummy, taking their comments, Michael’s comments, and my own new thoughts into account. Another round of comments got me to a third dummy/draft and another editorial meeting, at which point I got the go-ahead to begin the final art.

I then sat down and began redrawing the 32 images, this time for scanning into the computer as the templates for the colour art. I traced the previous images, making final tweaks as I went, double-checking details: have I held each of the eight character’s faces/personalities/proportions properly through-out? Have any of them become stiff/lost their energy and appeal during all this redrawing? Is the background detail working? On and on. It took two weeks straight and I drew my way through nearly 1 metre of pencil lead!

Michael does most of his rough work in sketchbooks. He does even more preliminary drawing than I do, exploring characters, poses, expressions, interactions, humour, emotion, trying out lots of alternatives, always seeking out that perfect image. With the book he’s working on now, he’s reacting to and interpreting a text by Barbara Bottner. His illustration style is very line-led so he spends a ton of time on these drawings.

There are around 2235 individual sketches for this book in just four of the sketchbooks below, and there’s another couple of hundred loose sketches lying around the studio.

4 of these sketchbooks are front to back Priscilla and two are smatterings…
Priscilla Gorilla will be published next year by Simon and Schuster, Atheneum

Michael will trace/tweak the images he chooses for the book, transfer them to watercolour paper, then work the final colour quickly to keep it all light and alive.

PS: If you’re wondering why this post isn’t illustrated with drawings we’re talking about, there’s a certain amount of ‘keeping things under wraps’ involved with books which won’t be out until the end of next year! Watch out for more posts about illustrating over the next few months.

Northern Ireland, by the Book

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Narnia, Game of Thrones, Cúchulainn, Finn MacCool – Northern Ireland is full of story. We went chasing tales in Antrim, Down and Armagh last week with our two visitors from Kansas. Sally and Clyde Cowdin are a sister and brother who grew up in a children’s book shop – Reading Reptile in Kansas City.

We started our ‘book’ tour with Narnia and C S Lewis. Lewis hailed from Belfast and Dunluce Castle is thought to be the inspiration for Cair Paravel in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It also features as the House of Greyjoy in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Dunluce Castle/Cair Paravel/Greyjoy
Dramatic limestone cliffs viewed from Dunluce
Clyde examines a medieval chimney

A lot of Game of Thrones (based on A Song of Fire and Ice series, George R.R. Martin) is filmed in NI, using the dramatic mountains and coast as the settings in Westeros – Winterfell, Stormlands, the Iron Islands (disclaimer: I don’t really know what I’m talking about here; we rarely watch it). I googled and found a do-it-yourself driving tour. All the photos below are locations – the Dark Hedges (part of the Kingsroad in GoT), Ballintoy Harbour (Lordsport Harbour/the Iron Islands), and the Carrick-a Rede Rope Bridge on Larrybane Head, which doubles as Storm’s End. I didn’t brave the famous bridge as I’m a wee bit acrophobic and it’s a 23 metre drop. Instead I chatted to the gate-keeper, who said numbers had doubled in one year.

‘Game of Thrones?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said she.

(Roll over/click on any of the photos for details/ to navigate.)

Michael, Clyde and Sally cross Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge which most of the cast of GoT have apparently braved at some stage.
View from Ballintoy of Larrybane Head -Storms End in the show.
Clyde explores a cave at Lordsport/Ballintoy Harbour
Ballintoy harbour doubles asLordsport Harbour & the Iron islands
The atmospheric Dark Hedges, scene of Arya Stark’s escape along the Kingsroad. The avenue of beech trees was planted in the 18th century

Ballintoy Harbour in real life and in the show:

Looking seaward…
Looking landward… Nicked photo from self-guided tour, link at end of blog

Next we entered Irish legend territory – the astonishing Giant’s Causeway. The tales say it was created by Finn MacCool (Fionn McCumhaill ) so he could get closer to Scotland and call out the Scottish giant, Benandonner, to come fight him. Unfortunately the Scottish giant turned out to be a lot bigger than Finn, but Finn’s clever wife quickly dressed Finn up as a baby. Benandonner figured that if the baby was this huge then his daddy, Finn, must be enormous, and he ran home across the causeway, tearing it up as he went.

Michael amongst the basalt columns
look for the pipes and the giants’ red eye sockets… well, one and a half eye sockets.
Sally and Michael
Scotland! The blue behind Rathlin Island is the Mull of Kintyre. Yep, now you’ll be humming it all day…

The bold Finn pulled up a sod of earth to throw after him. The hole filled with water and became Lough Neagh (also on our tour), and the sod landed in the sea and became the Isle of Man.  (Full version of legend here)

And this is the Ring of Gullion. No better way to end our story trail with the Reading Reptiles than with the greatest hero of Irish story – Cúchulainn!

The Ring of Gullion – it’s a volcanic ring dyke, a ring of low hills around a mountain.
Ballymacdermot court tomb
Ballykeel Dolmen, known as The Hag’s Chair

We’ve passed the sign for the Ring of Gullion several times in the last three years and thought it sounded a bit Tolkienesque. Turns out the ‘ring’ is a group of roundy hills which surround Slieve Gullion, Culann’s mountain, the very place where the boy Setanta killed Culann’s guard dog in self defence after he arrived late to Culann’s feast. Setanta then agreed to guard Culann’s property until he trained a new hound, thus earning himself the name Cúchulainn, the Hound of Culann.

Link to self-drive GoT tours here. There are loads of GoT tours online -self drive and guided.

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Here’s a link to a fab interview Michael just did with Julie Danielson on her blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. LOADS and LOADS of preliminary sketches to eyeball, chat about writing and illustrating picture books and growing up in a writing/illustrating household!

Click here to go see: http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=3784

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Catching That Expression

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When your characters are going through extreme emotions sometimes you have to really feel their pain…

…then sketch the results! Selfies are so much better than using a mirror, because you don’t have to hold the pose while you draw.Michael faces

Michael really likes to get under each character’s skin when he’s drawing, so he often acts the story out to see how they move and express. He fills page after page of his sketch book, staying ‘in character’ as he draws, which means he’s muttering and exclaiming under his breath as he works. When he’s working on a text by Barbara Bottner that can make for some pretty noisy drawing as Barbara writes characters with full-on emotions and strong opinions. Annoying ABC (2011) had 25 preschoolers working themselves up into a group melt-down – that made for quite a bit of face-pulling and grumbling on Michael’s part.

The little girl in the book Michael’s currently working on is a typically feisty Bottner/Emberley creation. She goes by the name of Priscilla and she’s every bit as ornery as Missy from the Miss Brooks Loves Books books.  The photos show Michael playing out Priscilla arguing with her parents and teacher, trying to make them see things her way.

Night at the (Carle) Museum…

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It was a dark snowy night in January. Our friend Susannah Richards had invited us to meet her at the Carle Museum, Amherst, MA. and we walked in as the last visitors were leaving. There is something really wonderful about being in a museum at night – a delicious feeling of being somewhere you are not meant to be.

The event we were attending was honouring Nick Clark, chief curator/founding member, who was retiring. As you’d expect, there were many writers and illustrators there, creators of extraordinary books such as these…

…so we were a little starstruck…

Michael with Wendell Minor
Tony Di Terlizzi, Carle Museum
Norton Juster (Photo © Susannah Richards)
with Jane Yolen
JoJo Le Poer (teacher) & Lynn Dobson (librarian) who helped us put names to faces and introduced us to people
David Johnson, Carle Museum
Susannah and Michael in a hipper than hip coffe place before the event

In between meeting famous writers and illustrators I had a peek at the exhibition on Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans’ feisty wee heroine. It included loads of original art from the books, sketches, a first edition which belonged to the Kennedy’s, and two panel paintings which were commissioned for the Christina (Aristotle Onassis and Jackie O’s boat). Those little rows of yellow hats made me laugh aloud – a perfectly OK thing to do in a museum of picturebook art.

DSCF1178It was really hard to turn down a chance to go have dinner and hang out with some of these terrific writers and illustrators but we had to tear ourselves away for the three hour drive back to Ipswich through the snow. Thanks to Susannah for getting us an invitation to a night at the museum!

There be Bears…

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The seafront in our town was over-run with bears yesterday. Big ones, little ones, new, old, sparkly and plain. All in a good cause, the Caroline Foundation. An attempt was made on the Guinness Book record for a teddy bear chain but it had already been soundly broken a couple of days ago in the UK. Still, nearly 6000 bears lined up, money was donated to the charity, and afterwards the village was full of adults and kids clutching teddy bears. What’s not to like about that?

Poo was there, many many times over
Irish Bear meets Panda Bear
Bears walk the line

This guy definitely wins the ‘most loved bear’ award! No nose, hardly a tuft of fur, and his tummy is taped up.

Some other favourites…

Sweet bears
Tiny bears
Tiniest bear
Bear of Aran

This lot prove uniformity is scary, even in teddy bears…

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The whole thing was breaking up as we arrived and it was hard not to become anxious about much loved toys left on the roadside waiting to be reclaimed. What if it rained? What if someone drove over them? What if someone took SOMEONE ELSE’S BEAR????

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Why, it was almost unbearable…

The Caroline Foundation is a charity set up to support cancer research – http://thecarolinefoundation.com/about-the-foundation

@ the Castle

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Two weeks ago we took part in a brand new children’s book festival – Towers and Tales at Lismore Castle, Waterford. Only getting around to blogging about it now so I’ll keep it short and mostly visual! We arrived on Friday and basically ran around taking photos…

Our bedroom in the tower!
Still our bedroom…
view from the tower
Sarah McIntyre in her tower bedroom
other view from the tower- River Blackwater

Got up next morning and all the illustrators went out and drew on the Waterford library bus… (click for close ups- promise it’s worth it!)

Sarah McIntyre meets Chris Riddell meets Michael Emberly
I went scary bird…some Sarah McIntyre critters and a Chris Riddell ogre
Scary bird, Sarah McIntyre’s Jampire and co., and a load of cuddly monsters from Chris Riddell
Michael’s Gatto falls for a Hugglemonster (drawn by Norton)

Kids attended story-telling in English and as Gaeilge, did monster doodles with Niamh (Sharkey), made books, and pictures with folks from IGI, made hats and sharks with Sarah McIntyre, attended talks by Philip Ardagh, Chris Riddell, Darren Shan and Shane Hegarty. I ran a writing workshop with a group of talented teens in the local library and did a panel talk about getting published for adults in the Red Hall. There was a mini food market in one of the courtyards and the sun split the stones all day.

Gruffalo in the castle!
Elaina, Sarah Webb and myself under the book tree
Talk on how to get published
Chris Riddell talks to illustrators
art made by kids during the day

These photos don’t really show it, but at least 1200 folk came through the castle gates. ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED!!!

Afterwards we had afternoon tea…

All the speakers and the dozens of volunteers who made the day happen sit down to tea

All the speakers and the dozens of volunteers who made the day happen sit down to tea, hosted by William and Laura

…took more photos of the castle and each other… (mouse over for names of authors and illustrators)

This is what a castle-full of children’s book folk looks like! Michael is chatting to our hostess, Laura Burlington.
Philip Ardagh looking very happy with a bottle of whiskey!
Michael having a difficult time relaxing…not.
Chris Riddell and Sarah McIntyre sketching under a tapestry. As you do.
Michael drawing the castle. He filled the sky with cloud dragons…
La di da.
Chris Riddell, Philip Ardagh, Sarah McIntyre and Elaina Ryan
Niamh Sharkey, Darren Shan, Darren’s wife, Bas
William Burlington and Norton Virgien

It was a weekend in the Castle of Adventure, complete with cream scones and loads and loads of BOOK STUFF! All dreamed up by Niamh Sharkey, William Burlington, Elaina Ryan (CBI) and Maura O’ Keefe a year ago when Lismore Castle hosted the Pictiur exhibition for a month. And, maybe, next year it will happen all over again. If you are invited, I recommend you say yes!

Niamh, Owen, Oscar, Meghan, Archie Kimpton &his partner, Aoibhe, Michael

Arting Around…

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The Book of Leinster – one of the earliest written versions of the Táin
One of the most recent retellings of the Táin, by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh, Barry Reynolds and the Cartoon Saloon

Took time out to do some arting around last week as there was great stuff to see, children’s books-wise. First stop was the lovely Upon the Wild Waves exhibition at The Long Room in Trinity.  Curated by Pádraic Whyte, it draws on Trinity’s large collection of children’s books to bring us on a journey through myth and legend – Norse, Arthurian, Irish, as well as biblical and classical. It’s been up since October 2014 and runs till April, so you can still just about catch it, if you hurry. Alternatively see the link near the end of this blog.

The two images above are both versions of the same Irish legend – the Táin. One dates from the 12th century and the other from 2006.

The Hoopoe of King Solomon 1983, Ahmad Bahgat, illus by Hilmi Eltouni
Ludmila Zeman 1992
Howard Pyle 1903 illustration to King Arthur and his Knights
John D Batten illustration to Deirdre and the Sons of Uisneach (tragic Irish love story) 1892
Arthur Rackham 1920 illustration for Irish Fairy Tales
Rackham, 1917, Romance of King Arthur
The tall fella in the Long Room
Celtic Wonder Tales illustrated by Maud Gonne, 1910. Had no idea she illustrated…
Victor Ambrus, 1964, Thunder of the Gods, Dorothy G Hosford. A favourite illustrator of both of ours – I loved his illustrations to Sutcliff’s Tristan and Iseult.
Brian Wildsmith 1962 illustration to Roger Lancelyn Green’s Myths of Norsemen
George Wright illustrator, 1902
Dorothy P Lathrop, Animals of the Bible, 1938 -winner of very 1st Caldecott Medal
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Pauline Baynes illustration
Hagwitch made it into the exhibition because it features The Children of Lir legend. It is in good company, sharing a case with books by PJ Lynch/Marie Heaney, Niamh Sharkey/Malachy Doyle, and Siobhan Parkinson.
A favourite author from my childhood.
Star Wars – Attack of the Clones. Henry Gilroy, Jan Duursema
Jack B Yeats illustration to Patricia Lynch’s Turf-cutter’s Donkey 1934

It was a delight to see the work of so many masters of illustration in the cases, some featured above (roll over any image for more info/click for a closer look). Hagwitch made it into the exhibition because it features The Children of Lir legend. It is in good company, sharing a case with books by Marie Heaney/PJ Lynch, Malachy Doyle/Niamh Sharkey, and Siobhan Parkinson.

We headed to the Alliance Francaise that evening for talks about the art of the cartoon. It began with a really interesting overview of the history of Belgian cartooning given by Tine Anthoni of the Belgian Comic Strip Centre and ended with a lively discussion on how the art is practised in Ireland today.

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On Saturday we went to Dun Laoghaire to attend the Mountains to Sea festival. The children’s lit programme was organised by Sarah Webb, and rather fabulous it was too. We caught two sessions. Trade Secrets: Insights from the Inner World of Writing, was a discussion with David Almond, his editor at Hodder, Anne McNeil, and his agent, Catherine Clarke, led by Elaina Ryan of CBI. I’m a big fan of David Almond’s writing (Skellig, My Name is Mina, Kit’s Wilderness) and hearing him read from his latest book, Song for Ella Grey, was a real treat. He reads his own work so wonderfully, and speaks about writing with huge clarity and a quiet passion.

Sam McBratney reads his work beautifully too – he read Guess How Much I love You for us, which was an unexpected treat. I’m not the only person who hit record on their phone! He was in conversation with Robert Dunbar and a relaxed funny illuminating chat it was. Best known world-wide as the author of the multi-million selling Guess How Much… Sam is well known here for many other works for children and young adults – The Chieftain’s Daughter and Mark Time amongst them – and it was fascinating to hear him discuss his career, his journey as writer, the inspiration behind his work.

IMG_1266 Sam’s silk tie is hand-painted with hares by Anita Jeram. How cool is that?

You can take a VIRTUAL TOUR of the Upon the Wild Waves exhibition here: https://www.tcd.ie/Library/about/exhibitions/wild-waves/ 

illustrator PJ Lynch

illustration by PJ Lynch

You can read about David Almond and Trade Secrets: Insights from the Inner World of Writing here: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/so-you-want-to-write-for-children-an-author-editor-and-agent-offer-their-advice-1.2149833