Archive for the ‘** Top Story’ Category

Kate Daubney’s Poodle Problem selected for Richard and Judy book club

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

We are very excited to tell you that ‘The Poodle Problem’, a novel by Anna Wilson with cover illustrations by Kate Daubney has been selected as one of 10 books for the latest WHSmith Richard and Judy book club promotion. The promotion started today and runs until the 2nd May – they are running a multibuy offer with other titles as well, so you can get yourself a copy of this book for a great price! Kate Daubney is one of Advocate art’s top children’s illustrators so this is fantastic, if you would like to see more of her work click here to visit the Advocate art website. Read on to find out more about ‘Poodle Problem’ and click here to visit the retailer.

“Nine-year-old Pippa Peppercorn loves helping out at the only beauty salon in the quiet town of Crumbly-Under-Edge. A cosy joint run by the cuddly Mrs Semolina Ribena Fudge, customers and their pets stop by as much for the tea and sympathy as for a trim. But when rival beautician Trinity Meddler comes to town and sets up shop, Mrs Fudge is in danger of losing her customers. What’s more, Trinity has a sinister plan up her sleeve – involving oodles of poodles! Luckily Dash the talking dachshund, with a nose for sniffing out a good mystery, is on hand to save the day – with Pippa as his number-one assistant.”

Liza Lewis on Print and Pattern Blog

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

One of Advocate arts fantastic children’s illustrators Liza Lewis has been featured on the Print and Pattern blog with four new prints she has designed for children’s wall art. Liza is a UK based designer and specialises in illustrating for greeting cards and for art licensing. Each print portrays a different animal doing something ridiculous, like a lion riding a motorbike! We think they are great and perfect for a child’s bedroom! Her prints are being sold by Oopsy Daisy, click here to see more. To see Liza’s online portfolio on the Advocate art website please click here.

Genie Espinosa’s Solo Exhibition in Barcelona

Friday, January 20th, 2012

We are very excited to hear that Advocate illustrator Genie Espinosa is having her first solo exhibition in Barcelona, Spain this month. Starting tomorrow it will be running until the 14th February. Genie specialises in book illustration for young children as well as greeting card design: her quirky colourful illustrations look great on the exhibition posters below. She has also filmed her work displayed in the exhibition (as it is a bit far for us to go . . ) so that we can enjoy it from a distance! Well done Genie! If you would like to take a look at her online portfolio on the Advocate website click here.

New card designs please!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

It is the start of a new year and at Advocate we are busy preparing for all the shows we will be attending this year. With Paperworld, Frankfurt, Spring Fair, Surtex, Bologna Book Fair, London Book Fair, BEA and Brand Licensing, there is plenty of opportunity to showcase new artwork! We would love it if our illustrators can send in new card designs which we can make into ranges for the greeting card fairs. Below are a selection of designs which we think will provide plenty of inspiration, including the OAP Happy Retirement image licensed by Hotchpotch Publishing; we think this is a great male design. Our Resources section on the Advocate website has plenty of reference material to give you ideas and inspiration for new designs. Just go to the ‘About Us‘ page on the website and scroll down to the bottom of the page – alternatively click here. We can’t wait to see all your ideas!

Kate visits Americas Mart, Atlanta

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Kate has been sending us photos from the US everyday, so we have been kept thoroughly up to date with how her trip is going! She spent a day at America’s Mart, Atlanta: America’s leading home furnishings and area rug marketplace and the largest trade mart/tradeshow complex of it’s kind in the world. It comprises of 4 buildings, making up a total of 7.7 million square feet! As you can see from the photo below  - it’s something else isn’t it? With 15 annual shows it draws in 548,000 attendees every year. Kate has shot plenty of reference material – from christmas to everyday, stylish, vintage and retro – there are lots of ideas for greeting cards and designs for products. She also spotted Advocate artists work on a huge poster (see the photo below Kate).

We feature 6 times in Art Buyer magazine!

Friday, January 6th, 2012

At Advocate art illustration agency we were very excited to open the winter issue of Art Buyer magazine and see that we are featured not once, not twice, but six times! Every issue, Art Buyer distributes a total of 11,500 copies; 2000 of these going to UK manufacturers, 1000 to the rest of the world and a further 8,500 going to Surtex and other licensing events including greetings, gifts, licensing and toy markets. Below you can see exactly where we are featured in the magazine and read some background information about Art Buyer. Click here to visit the Art Buyer website.

“Art Buyer is a magazine for the global art licensing industry, which is published twice a year in January and May. The January issue comes out before the Licensing Gallery and Spring Fair exhibitions, and the May issue two weeks before the essential New York Surtex exhibition and the Las Vegas Licensing Expo. Both issues feature dedicated and comprehensive show previews of these events.

Committed to design-conscious and creative licensing, the winter and spring/summer editions of Art Buyer also include plenty of other areas to get involved with. Our other features focus upon artists, agencies and what is happening in the market as a whole. We also round up the current news in the industry and then of course there are also all of our regular features: contributor’s articles, company profiles, artist spotlights and a unique section focussed on image libraries, which incorporates both illustrative and graphic art as well as classical and abstract photography.”

1. Inside front cover

2. Editor’s Letter (circled section), Page 5

3. Grisly Google, Page 6

4. Advocate Art, information for Spring Fair, Page 24

5. Get online, Page 25

6. A character with charisma by Edward Burns, Page 30

Jeremy Paul wins BBC Wildlife Artist award!

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

For the second year running, Advocate wildlife artist Jeremy Paul is a winner in the BBC wildlife artist of the year awards! His painting Southern Ocean – Wandering Albatross has won in the ‘Frozen Planet’ section, with Autumn Glow – Whooper Swans a runner up in the ‘Wildlife in its environment’ section. The competition is run by the BBC Wildlife magazine (it also runs the popular BBC wildlife photography competition) and is open to entries world-wide. They received over 1300 entries – of which about 60 were chosen for final judging – Presentations and an exhibition of the winning paintings from each category will take place at Marwell zoo in Hampshire in August, when the overall Wildlife artist of the Year will be announced. The winning paintings will also be published in the August issue of the magazine. Below you can see the winning images and a picture of Jeremy and his award. This is absolutely brilliant and thoroughly deserved so well done Jeremy! To go to Jeremy’s website click here.

Southern Ocean – Wandering Albatross – Winner of ‘Frozen Planet’ section

Autumn Glow – Whooper Swans – Runner up in ‘Wildlife in its environment’ section

Photos of winning paintings and presentation with TV presenter Mark Carwardine and Sophie Stafford from BBC Wildlife. (From left to right: Jeremy Paul, Sophie Stafford, Mark Carwardine).

Southern Ocean – Wandering Albatross in Art Business Today magazine.

Imitation of Jo Parry work in Beales

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

At Advocate art illustration agency we were shocked to hear from one of our illustrators Jo Parry that her artwork has been copied by a supplier of Beale’s department store “matop“. They have copied the whole set! Oh dear, I think they might be expecting a letter from Ed! Below you can see Jo Parry’s illustrations and the copy on a lap tray that is being sold in Beale’s.

If you want to visit the Beale’s facebook page where you can support Jo, click here. We need as many people to comment and ‘like’ it as possible!

Kelly Caswell’s ebook wins award

Friday, December 16th, 2011

Another of Advocate’s freelance illustrators Kelly Caswell has been involved in The Bug Club series by Pearson publishers. The ebook Kelly illustrated ‘Kat’s Great Act’ was part of the bug club series that won an award for ‘Best Use of Multimedia’ at the British Book Design and Production Awards. This is great news so well done Kelly! If you want to see more of her work click here to visit the Advocate website.

Nosy Crow Christmas Party

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

On Monday, Advocate’s senior agent Kate spent the day with illustrator Sarah Horne at the Nosy Crow christmas party in London. Nosy Crow publishes children’s books and iPad apps. The event was attended by many famous faces including Axel Scheffler, illustrator of The Gruffalo and author Philip Ardagh – winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, he has written stories including The Grunts and the Eddie Dickens adventures. Sarah Horne, one of Advocate’s best selling children’s illustrators was there with Caryl Hart, author of one her recently illustrated books Rhino? What Rhino? From the photos it looks like they all had a great time!

New Marvel comic illustrated by Paul Davidson

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Advocate illustrator Paul Davidson has recently finished illustrating new Marvel comic X-Club, part of a 5 issue mini series. Issue 1 came out this week in Europe and the USA; it went straight to number one as the best selling coming of that release week and is getting fantastic reviews. Here are some inked and coloured pages of the book as well as a short description of the story:

“In the wake of SCHISM which has divided mutant-kind in half, the X-Mens team of scientists – known as the X-CLUB – remains based on the island of UTOPIA, dedicated to serving as the mutant race’s first, last and only line of defence against all things uncanny and inexplicable. Poised on the bleeding edge of technology, biology and weirdology, their role is simple: To Think Differently.”

To read more about the X-Club series click here to visit the Marvel website, and you can visit Paul Davidson’s online portfolio on the Advocate website here.

Advocate – Bloomsbury – London Zoo – Kelly Bryne

Monday, December 12th, 2011

More than 20 new children’s books are to be launched next year with London Zoo, and three of them are illustrated by Advocate illustrator Kelly Byrne. In partnership with London Zoo, Bloomsbury and A&C Black are both involved in the project, releasing 22 titles including both fiction and non-fiction for children aged 0-11. Authors and illustrators contributing to the series spent time at the zoo getting hands on experience to feed into the books. The books illustrated by Kelly Byrne are part of the ‘Wild Things’ series, and the titles are Hippo in the House, Emu on the loose and Giraffe on a sleepover. There is an article on these books in the Books section of The Bookseller, December edition. We are very excited about this new range and can’t wait to see them in print!