[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-united-agents-illustrators-evening":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"We had a rough start yesterday at the \u003Ca href=\"http://thefleecestation.wordpress.com/\">Fleece Station studio\u003C/a>, losing our power (and heat) for about four hours. And had I printed out any of my artwork yet to take along to our agent's portfolio party? Oh, no.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/cold_studio-de21faa0bd.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nFortunately my studio mate, \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/node/3712#profile-3\">Gary Northfield\u003C/a>, had a beautiful printout of some pages from \u003Cb>\u003Ci>Teenytinysaurs\u003C/i>\u003C/b> his book that's coming out with Walker Books in Spring 2013. (He'd been given it by his editor at Angoulême comics festival in France last week.) Isn't it lovely?\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/northfield_teenytinysaurs-b9204677ca.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSo here we are in Soho, in the kitchen/living room of United Agents, setting up books and other stuff we've made, on every available surface. That's \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/elissa-elwick#profile-3\">Elissa Elwick\u003C/a>'s wee beastie in the front, that she made for her degree show, then made look a bit more friendly in a picture book. And here are the two Jamies setting up: \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/jamie-smart#profile-3\">Jamie Smart\u003C/a> and \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/jamie-littler#profile-3\">Jamie Littler\u003C/a>. You can just see \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/david-o%27connell#profile-3\">David O'Connell\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/emma-thomson#profile-3\">Emma Thomson\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/jess-mikhail#profile-3\">Jess Mikhail\u003C/a>, Gary, and \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/jim-field#profile-3\">Jim Field\u003C/a> behind them. I'd never printed up a black-and-white artwork portfolio before, so I picked out some pieces I've done recently, for fun, including the illustrations to Philip Reeve's \u003Ca href=\"http://philipreeve.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-bleak-midwinter.html\">\u003Ci>In the Bleak Midwinter\u003C/i>\u003C/a>. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/jamie_smart_littler-527e6a9476.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThe best thing about the night was getting to hang out with all these illustrators who are usually just a name on a book or a picture on the agency website. And it was fun to discover some I'd never heard of before, such as \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/hindley#profile-3\">Kate Hindley\u003C/a>, who'd come all the way from Birmingham for the evening. Wow, her work is beautiful! Such fabulous colour palettes and lovely little characters and landscapes. I was very taken, as you can see:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/sarah_fangirl1-6dbca4b8ec.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThat's my drawing on the left, the other one I shamelessly nicked off \u003Ca href=\"http://katehindley.co.uk/page2.htm\">Kate's website\u003C/a>. And here's Kate herself! I think I scared her a bit, being so effusive about her portfolio, ha ha...\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for more pics under the cut!-->\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/united_agents_2-8f24779e4c.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAnd another illustrator who came a long distance: \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/britta-teckentrup#profile-3\">Britta Teckentrup\u003C/a>, all the way from Berlin just for this event! And there's Elissa Elwick in the centre, and \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/kim-geyer#profile-3\">Kim Geyer\u003C/a> on the right, hanging out in the kitchen before the editors arrived.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/united_agents_1-d3666597dd.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAnd arrive they did! Wow, that room was MOBBED. But in a good way, it was lovely seeing a lot of people in publishing I knew, or had only met briefly once or twice (and whose names I'd inevitably forgotten... sorry, everyone!), and some I'd never met but had heard lots about.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/united_agents_illustrators-80473a31cb.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThere's our lovely agent, \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/jodie-marsh?dept=3\">Jodie Marsh\u003C/a>, rummaging for drinks in the fridge, and \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/ali-pye#profile-3\">Ali Pye\u003C/a> and Kate Hindley.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/ali_pye_kate_hindley-a12550f9f7.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/ros-asquith#profile-3\">Ros Asquith\u003C/a> only popped in briefly because she had to run off to a \u003Ca href=\"http://www.illustrationcupboard.com/exhibition_details.aspx?eId=178&ePage=0\">charity exhibition at the Illustration Cupboard\u003C/a> that she was taking part in, but it was great to see her. Whenever we meet, we always wave our hands around and say things like, \u003Ci>Dahling, we MUST do lunch one of these days\u003C/i>, but we almost never do (probably because we're both freelance and we're not really Ladies Who Lunch, as much as we'd like to be). She's the one of the two people who talked me into being on the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.societyofauthors.net/\">Society of Authors\u003C/a> children's book committee, so if everything there goes completely nuts, you can blame Ros.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/united_agents_sarah_ros-c23bfb4093.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/david-o%27connell#profile-3\">David O'Connell\u003C/a>, who had only just finished writing a fabulous chapter book that he intends to illustrate. He was just going to bring business cards, but Jodie liked the story so much that she printed up a bunch of A5 manuscripts for editors to take away, and Dave ran out almost instantly.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/david_oconnell-1-2b7543f732.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThen the security guy at United Agents kicked us all out and we retired to the pub. (Here are Jim Field, Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield.)\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/jim_field_smart_northfield-1691801507.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOur fab agent, Jodie, trying to talk over the noise made by a lively hockey team sitting behind us.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/united_agents_jodie_marsh-08d3a3912d.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's one of my fave Scholastic people, \u003Cb>Fiz Osborne\u003C/b>. Even though she's an editor (and not my editor) she once got sent to the Bath Festival with me as a publicist, and we had such a brilliant time. (\u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/330104.html\">Here's the picture I drew of her as a Fizzasaurus Rex\u003C/a>.)\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/fiz_osborne-09e00c6eca.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOh, and just one more peek at Gary Northfield's \u003Ci>Teenytinysaurs\u003C/i> sample pages, because it looks so very fab.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/gary_teenytinysaurs_2-33bccbbde0.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAh, and what is Cooey the Pigeon doing on top of  one of Jamie Smart's comics? Well, there's this amazing new weekly comic for kids (and grown-ups) called \u003Ca href=\"https://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/\">The Phoenix comic\u003C/a>, and loads of the United Agents people are involved or submitting new ideas. And my other studio mate, \u003Ca href=\"http://unitedagents.co.uk/lauren-o%27farrell\">Lauren O'Farrell\u003C/a> has let her knitted friend review the latest copy. \u003Ca href=\"http://thefleecestation.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/cooey-phoenix-0-1/\">Read about it on the Fleece Station website!\u003C/a>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://thefleecestation.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/cooey-phoenix-0-1/\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/bunny_1-7d536bfe28.jpg\">\u003C/a>","2012-02-02T14:49:00.000Z","united-agents-illustrators-evening",[],"united agents illustrators evening",1776628721433]