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Dear colleagues and creatives, readers and rebels, fans and fantasists. To all my readers and friends,

Warmest Wishes for a sparkling festive season!

Illustration adapted from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum (Hesperus Press, 1st Dec 2016).

Best Wishes for a fantastic 2016 to all my friends and readers!

Folds flat to mail.

Wishing everyone a healthy and peaceful Year of the Sheep!

Thinking of making a big splash this summer!

Yuletide best wishes to all my friends and followers!

Folds flat to mail.
As the viewer opens the card, the workbench pops-up.

Wishing everyone a peaceful and successful 2011!

Summer greetings to one and all!
London has been comfortably warm, but daughter and I are shortly off to the sweltering heat of Tokyo for a month, where by all accounts temperature records are being broken. Undaunted, we'll be staying in the shade as much as possible. I've work to do after I arrive, so, pens, paper and laptop in hand, heat or no it's business as usual.

To offer you a quick look at the greeting card designs that were delivered just yesterday (woohoo!), I’m posting a few pages from my catalog, so you can see the kind of stuff I’ve been up to! I’m currently working on a new design for this site, complete with an online store, so soon you will be able to see all the designs in living color! Click the images below to see them larger. Note: the colors won’t be quite as neon in print. Enjoy!

Color visuals line - 1

Cartoons - 1

Sprout line - 1

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In the first lesson we covered how to say “Hello, how are you?” and “What is your name?” in German. In this lesson we will look at possible answers to general questions. Phrases in brackets are the pronunciation of the adjacent word. NOTE: In German you may come across an awkward character (ß) it may look like the letter B but actually represents a double s. But this character is now only used in special circumstances. For the sake of this lesson we will use ss instead of ß so you don’t get confused.

The most simple of answers are “Yes” and “No”. Which in German are “Ja” (Ya) and “Nein” (nine).

Out loud or in your head say “Yes” and then “Ja”. Repeat this three times. Do the same with “No” and “Nein”.

If your not sure how to answer something I suggest three phrases. “Maybe” - “Vielleicht” (vee-liked), “I don’t know.” - “Ich weiss nicht.” (Ick vise nickt) or “I don’t understand.” - “Ich vestehe nicht.” (Ick ver-shter-hir nickt). Now these are slightly harder phrases to learn if you are not yet familiar with German. Start by revising “Maybe” and “Vielleicht” over in your head.

It should become clear by looking at the other two phrases that “Ich” means “I”. Also you might have been able to tell that “nicht” is “not”. We have “I do not know.” and “I do not understand”. In German, however, they literally say “I know not.” or “I understand not.”. Once you know “Ich” and “nicht” these phrases should become easier to learn.

All you have to learn now is “weiss” and “vestehe”. “Weiss” meaning “know” and “vestehe” meaning “understand”. Write these words down if this is hard to memorise and use this to revise at various points during the day.

Remember to try and practice these phrases with a partner for more practical learning. Thank-you for reading my article and hopefully you can catch the next lesson.

(The greeting is done by Kit Grady. She will be illustrating one of my children's books in 2009. Aren't the characters darling?)

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco just opened a big retrospective on the work of Tezuka, father of anime and manga, words which refer respectively to the Tezuka-inspired animation film and graphic books now so fabulously popular. Opening day at the museum last weekend, the show was packed with twenty-somethings and parents tagging along with their 10-year-olds. Nicole Harvey (who buys children’s books for the musuem shop, among her many other duties) and her colleagues at the museum have been working overtime to get the adventurous show and related activities up and running. There’s a Manga Lounge set up with a typical manga-fan kid’s bedroom and lots of manga-related products. The bookshop has a great collection of manga and books about anime and manga, including Gilles Poitras’ deconstructions of the magic for those of us who are a little more dependent on the written word. Gene Yang, author of the highly regarded American Born Chinese, is among the area artists who will demonstrate their comic art skills at weekly events through the summer.

If you’re the parent of a comic-lover and live nearby or if you plan to visit the Bay Area this summer with kids, the Tezuka show is a chance for you to learn something and earn some undying gratitude from the children as well. And if you can’t be here in person, the show’s website has links to everything from a Tezuka bio to essays on manga. Check out the blog, too! Help yourself to a virtual visit to a magical world.