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I haven't posted a drawing for a few days, so here you go, a caricature of Michael Portillo.



I like trains - I even illustrated a train book - but Stuart loves them more (he's a proper anorak) and has been obsessing over Portillo's Great Railways Journeys series. I've been watching the first episodes of Mad Men Series 5 with headphones on to avoid the show, but this evening it seemed companionable to watch it together while we ate our pancakes. Drawing made it much more fun.



That is my favourite pancake sugar, which we always buy when we go to Brussels. And I found the chocolate sprinkles in a suitcase I hadn't used for awhile, from a trip to Amsterdam. They still hadn't gone stale. Gary and I have been putting in long hours at the studio and trying to eat sensibly, but we sort of lost it today, even before the Pancake Hour. I popped out this afternoon and Gary sent me along with a little shopping list:

Morning sketch: this time I got down a book of Hermitage paintings and redrew Antonio Allegri da Correggio's Portrait of a Lady from about 1519. (But I thought I'd put something in her empty dish.)



People sometimes ask me if they can colour the things I draw, so I've made this into a free colouring sheet, if you'd like to download it and have a go (with crayons, in Photoshop, whatever you like!). (Here's a link to the PDF file.)



Click here if you'd like a closer look at the painting in the book. She's fun to draw. Her clothes are solid colours, but you could change things and put in all sorts of patterns and textures. She might even have some awesome tattoos.

Oh, and check out Francesco Mugnai's website of photos of beautiful abandoned places and modern ruins. So amazing. Wow. (via Aliette de Bodard and EwaSR on Twitter.)

I have a new editor working on one of my books, named Alice Corrie. She looks a little bit like this:



And this one also looks slightly like the designer, the fabulous Ness Wood. Ness treated us to lunch at her house and showed us the amazing new studio she's built in the loft. We took our shoes off because it's so new and pristine up there. And I was carrying a drink. ...Oh yes. Trotting up the stairs, I caught my foot and managed to spray the contents of my glass up the side of the wall. It was a moment of high sophistication.

I love watching Jonathan Edwards' drawings pop up on my Instagram feed, and this picture of Stuart is inspired by some of the things he's been trying out.



Some diary dates: I'm appearing at Chipping Norton Lit Fest on Sat, 20 April, for a family event with my new book, Superkid: Startling superpowers! Astounding monsters! Madcap battles! Join writer, illustrator and comics creator Sarah McIntyre in designing THE SILLIEST SUPERHERO ON THE PLANET and unleash your creation on the weirdest, vilest, dribbliest baddies you can throw at it. For children of all ages, accompanied by an adult.</i> Free, booking details here. Loads of other fab authors are appearing the same day, including Philip Ardagh, Jo Cotterill and Sue Heap.

And I'm leading a Comics Jam workshop with Philip Reeve at Animated Exeter on Sat, 23 Feb, details here! Lots going on, Philip's even written a whole new short story (set in Exeter) for the occasion and I illuminated one of the letters in the story.

More links:

I was very excited to hear that Viv Schwarz has got her first few copies of her upcoming graphic novel The Sleepwalkers with Walker Books. Can't wait to get my hands on this, Viv's amazing, and from the peeks I've seen of this, the book will be, too.

I always mean to read more science fiction, and Jared Shurin from The Kitschies Awards has just posted his 50 Essential Fiction Novels. I've bookmarked this for further exploration!

Nichola Morgan has posted an excellent article, How much should writers charge for events? (People are always asking me for advice on this.)

Here's a little dinosaur song for you, via Woodrow Phoenix: