Happy 1893 election day!

124 years ago today women in NZ voted for the first time in a general election. First time IN THE WORLD! The Electoral Act 1893 passed on the 19th Dec declaring all women, regardless of race/ethnicity, eligible to vote. It had taken three rounds of petitioning from Kate Sheppard and the suffrage campaigners to get the act passed, the last of which had 32,000 signatures. They then had less than ten weeks before election day, but in that time more than 80% of eligible women (over 21) had enrolled to vote, and 85% of those voted on the day (far greater than the 70% turnout from enrolled males).

This year Annual 2 came out. I was asked by the editors Kate De Goldi and Susan Paris to develop something with Kate Sheppard running a sausage sizzle. It evolved into an 8 page time displacement story. Here's some process doodles and final art for one of the spreads.

click for a closer looksee...

Annual 2 is available from NZ book stores and online from
Potton and Burton.

Whanganui Journey...

Toroa's Journey, to the shops

I have a new book out in book stores for Potton & Burton and written by Maria Gill. It's an honour to be collaborating with Maria, and I'm looking forward to meeting her in person finally at Paige's Book Gallery in Whanganui (details to come). For now, here's a couple of the interior spreads. That plastic patch one is a mixed media of paint and actual plastic trash collected from Kapiti beach near my coastal nest.

Game Of Awesome

A few years ago I illustrated a game for NZ schools called Game Of Awesome. The commission involved creating separate illustrations for 200 cards, plus wraparounds for 5 boxes and an instruction booklet. As it was designed to inspire kids in their creative writing, the best thing about the job was that the subject range was broad and perfectly ridiculous in every way. Chrometoaster, the awesome company who came up with the game and designed it for the Ministry Of Ed, wanted doodles on every surface. So there's always more for kids to find.

It picked up a Best Award for Public Good last year, along with the coveted Purple Pin at the New Zealand Best Awards. Tonight it picked up a bunch of awards at the Australian Good Design Awards, including the 2017 design of the year for all categories. The Chrome Toaster press release has more info.
Here's some hastily taken shots of the packaging. You can click 'em to embiggenate...

The road to that map.

Going through my old work folders, and found the roughs for my BONE (Bureau Of Nautical Exploration) story for issue 01 of the Gecko Annual . There were a nuts amount of revisions in the process of putting it together. Plenty of the revisions were down to my nitpickiness, but also the editors Kate De Goldi and Susan Paris both have keen eyes for what's not working, spelling/grammar mistakes and what's ludicrously cryptic. These progress doodles show a little of the process behind the map spread.
The second Annual is coming out before xmas 2017, this time with a time-travelling story from me. Will post sneak peeks of that when I get the all clear.

Click them to embiginate...

The final jobbie...

and a variant version as a colouring/activity sheet extra...