In the Art Cave

For the next two months, I won't be taking any work outside of completing the final art for my next book, the true childhood story of Charles Dickens titled, A Boy Called Dickens which will be out in the spring of 2012. You might guess that 2012 is the 200th anniversary of Dicken's birth, and if you know anything about Charles Dickens writing, then you know something about his childhood. David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit and many of his other works come directly from his traumatic childhood experiences living in debtor's prison and working 12 hour days in a blacking factory.

I wanted to share a few of my sketches and drawings, and a bit of the final art. Here Charles is running down the streets of London, to Warren's Blacking Factory, where he packaged shoe polish.

I'm drawing without as much of the ink in this book, using instead graphite, pencil and charcoal to create much of the atmosphere. Look for some new work in a few weeks.