Peter Carnavas

Mr Darcy the duck is back!  This time he’s a dancing duck!  That’s why his new story is called… Mr Darcy the Dancing Duck.  It has been beautifully written by Alex Field (the author of the first Mr Darcy book) and it was my pleasure to do the illustrations.  Here is a little video of me drawing Mr Darcy in 60 seconds.

Peter Carnavas draws Mr Darcy

►

Illustration Friday Wings

Watercolour and pencil on very cheap, dodgy paper from a sketchpad bought at a supermarket.

My Little Bookcase Calendar

1. It’s heaps better than that Peter Andre calendar you were thinking about.
2. It raises money for the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, which helps marginalised children learn to read and write.
3. It features amazing artwork from 12 super-duper Australian illustrators, some of it original and/or rare.
4. You can buy it without having to go to a hideous shopping centre where you might even have to pay for parking while you wander in a daze in conditioned air, mindlessly browsing through discount stores and getting constantly harassed to sign up for pay TV, when you know that the only thing worth watching on pay TV is soccer but even that loses its appeal pretty quickly because the good stuff’s always on so late and the Premier League has lost its soul anyway, what with all that money being thrown around.
5. When you’ve finished with the calendar this time next year, you can trim out the illustrations, frame them and hey presto!  you have your own illustration gallery.
6. It was lovingly dreamed up, organised and put together by My Little Bookcase, aka Jackie, who possesses an amazing passion for children’s books and an even more impressive knack for getting vague, slightly aloof and completely disorganised illustrators like myself on board.
7. My sister-in-law bought it and she really likes it and she’s really cool with really good taste.
8. Think how much happier Aunty Betsy will feel when she receives this calendar for Christmas instead of that Andre Rieu tea towel you so nearly purchased last week (although I must admit, his mug is undoubtedly my mug of choice whenever I visit my parents’ place).
9. It’s a totally awesome calendar (hmmm… that phrase sounds familiar… I’m sure there’s a book out at the moment with Totally Awesome in the title… perhaps… is it written by Pat Flynn? … and maybe even… could it be illustrated by a skinny bearded man who wears an Irish cap all the time?)
10. Did I mention the super-duper illustrators?  Look at these names!

Kylie Dunstan (Collecting Colour)
Sue deGennaro (The Pros and Cons of Being a Frog)
Katherine Battersby (Squish Rabbit)
Sally Rippin (The Rainbirds)
Freya Blackwood (The Runaway Hug)
Lucia Masciullo (Come Down, Cat!)
Nick Bland (The Very Cranky Bear)
Anna Walker (I Love Ollie series)
Lisa Stewart (Can I Cuddle the Moon?)
Christina Booth (Kip)
Gus Gordon (Herman and Rosie) and
Peter Carnavas (Last Tree in the City).

This Saturday, Sarah Gray and I will be launching Meet Arabella, a book Sarah wrote based on her own daughter’s experience with Eosinophilic oEsophagitis, or EE for short.  Sarah will talk first about her family’s journey through understanding and learning to live with EE, then I will show kids (and grown-ups) how to draw some of the characters from the book.  It’ll be a great morning and especially of interest to anybody with children who may find themselves negotiating hospitals.  And it’s also a really lovely story, too.

Details:

10:00am, Saturday 18 August, 2012

Maroochydore Library

Free event

The Children Who Loved Books will be officially launched at Avid Reader on Sunday 22 July, 2012.  The wonderful Sheryl Gwyther will be launching the book, then I’ll do my song-and-dance routine with a whiteboard pen and a ukulele.  Come along, it’s always a beautiful morning at Avid Reader.

Hi folks.  I’ll be presenting an all-day picture book workshop with Dr Virginia Lowe on Saturday 14 July at Mt Gravatt in Brisbane.  Virginia was my original mentor when I decided to take this picture book thing seriously a few years ago.  I completed her picture book e-course through her Create-A-Kids-Book program in 2005 and the end result was a mock-up of Jessica’s Box, which was then published by New Frontier a few years later.  Virginia will bring a huge amount of knowledge to the workshop and I’ll bring a huge amount of… whiteboard pens.  The are still places available if anybody is interested in learning the fundamentals of picture book creation.  Just email me at mail@petercarnavas.com for more details.