Week 7 - Sam Usher

Hello! It's Week 7 and talented Sam Usher has just completed his week with the book. His mountains of roughs and colour tests are below and they all look fantastic. You'll notice he has a soft spot for toucans and birds, which he draws and paints to perfection. More of these can be found hiding on his twitter updates and on his website.

Sam spent most of his childhood reading, drawing and forgetting to do school work. He enjoys attending Literary festivals and school visits, especially when there's the chance to make a mess and annoy parents! His debut picture book Can You See Sassoon? was published in 2011, longlisted for the Greenaway Medal and shortlisted for the 'Read it Again!' award.

Sam currently lives in London and his spare time is spent cycling to museums and trespassing (but its all for the love of illustration!).

So the end of another week. Check out Sam's website and follow his trespassing antics on twitter. Now over to Christine Pym...

Week 6 - Alex T Smith

It's week 6 and the book has been in Coventry and staying with the ace Alex T Smith for a week. Alex has been tweeting and posting up pics of his progress and they look amazing. He's also the first to try a slightly different format to the previous illustrators which was very interesting to see (see pics below).

So a little info on the artist... Alex was born in 1985 and has drawn and written stories since he could hold a pencil. He graduated with a 1st Class Hons degree in Illustration in 2006 and having won second place in the Macmillan Prize for Children's Picture Book Illustration in his final year, Alex begin working on his first commission as he put his degree show up!

Since then Alex has gone on to work for a wide variety of clients not just in the publishing industry. As well as writing and illustrating his own picture books, many of which have won prizes and have been read on TV during the Bedtime Hour on the CBeebies channel.

Alex is also the creator of the CLAUDE fiction series for early readers. The first title, CLAUDE in the City was selected for the Richard and Judy Children's Book Club 2011 and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2012. The first three books in the series are now published in fourteen languages across the world and a further three books will be hitting the shelves from October 2012.

You can follow Alex on twitter, keep up to date with his work on his blog and see his portfolio here.

Week 7 see's Sam Usher receive the book back down in London again. Stay tuned for what he does next week.

Movember madness

Five of the Bear With Me gang decided to grow the extra mile and take part in Movember this year. We adopted the team name Team Doodletache, and with some careful face growing techniques we all managed to pull off the hairy caterpillar look. The team raised a jaw dropping £1325 when Movember came to its hairy end. A huge thanks to all the support and donations - but it doesn't end there, there's still time to donate so please visit the team page here for more info!

Team Doodletache and the Booksniffer 

Week 5 - Chris Haughton

The brilliant Chris Haughton had the book in his hands this week. He took to his twitter account and tweeted some sneak peeks along the way (see images below). He also tweeted that he might try and rope Oliver Jeffers into doing a doodle on his spread but unfortunately it didn't materialise. Anyway, even without the amazing Oliver Jeffers, Chris produced a classic red bear in his distinctive paper cutting style and the story seems to have a taken a nice surprising twist too...

Chris is an Irish illustrator currently residing in London. He has illustrated for The Guardian, Wired and other publications. He was listed in Time magazine's 'DESIGN 100' for the work he has been doing for fair trade clothing company People Tree. His debut book 'A Bit Lost'  has been translated into 14 languages and won nine awards including Gold at the AOI 'Best of British Illustration Awards 2010'  and the Dutch Picture Book of the Year 2012. 'Oh No George' came out in March 2012. Follow Chris on his Twitter account and have a gander at his work here & here.

Next up Alex T Smith!

Nicholas Hoult

The actor Nicholas Hoult (About a boy, Skins, X-Men First Class) has followed in Tom Hardy's footsteps and also drawn us a spectacular red bear. Nicholas loves what we're doing and gives his full support to the project and illustrators. His drawing will also be up for auction when the project comes to a close next year. Thanks Nick!

Week 4 - Leigh Hodgkinson

It's week 4 and the book had the pleasure of having the wonderful Leigh Hodgkinson doodle and paint in it. Leigh graduated from the University of Hull in 1998 with a first in graphic design. She went on to study Animation Direction at the National Film and Television School. Leigh has worked in the animation industry since then making award winning animated short films amongst other more commercial projects. She is currently a represented director at animation company Beakus.

In 2004, Leigh worked as art director for the first series of Tiger Aspects “Charlie and Lola”, based on the books by Lauren Child.

Leigh is passionate about writing, making things and daydreaming. She has had a gaggle of vibrant picture books published and there are lots more to come! She is also hoping to dabble in the wonderful world of etsy to sell her crafty creations very soon. She works in a nice shed in her back garden in East Sussex. “Goldilocks and Just the One Bear” and “Magical Mix Ups – Friends and Fashion” both published by Nosy Crow are her latest books to hit the shops.

Check out how she did with her spread below. Even her 2 year old daughter Eebee contributed to the bear's journey! Follow Leigh on Twitter and check out her latest work on her blog!

Now time for the book to leave East Sussex and travel back up to London where it will be welcomed by Irish illustrator extraordinaire Chris Haughton.

Week 3 - Sarah Warburton

Week 3 has flown by and the book is making its way to the fourth illustrator already. Sarah Warburton was the third recipient of the book and has done us proud with her fantastic spread. Sarah is based in Bristol and has been illustrating for about 17 years so far. She works with various materials, using watercolor, pencil sketches and digital colour to produce her illustrations. Her main interest in each image is character, movement and expression. She begins 99% of each drawing with the eyes.

Some of her main works have been for 'The Rumblewick Dairies - My Unwilling Witch' by Hiawyn Oram (Orchard Books) 2006, 'My Adventure Island' by Timothy Knapman (Scholastic) 2012, 'The Princess and the Peas' by Caryl Hart (Nosy Crow) 2012 and the forthcoming 'Mabel and Me - Best of Friends' with Mark Sperring (Harper Collins) 2013.

She again posted lots of images of her work in progress and sneak peeks of her final spread- all can be seen below...

Sarah is on Twitter and you can check out her latest work on her blog here. Now off to Leigh Hodgkinson, roll on week 4...