Joel Stewart

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-21T12:00:00.001Z

Christmas Specials

2011-12-05T17:31:00.004Z

Look out for two wintry and Christmassy episodes of Abney & Teal on CBeebies over December! As well as some other times, The Perfect Tree will be showing on Christmas eve at 08.45am and The Snow Neep and The Perfect Tree will be showing together on Christmas day at 12.28pm.

In other news I've been scrabbling about with computer brushes a tiny bit more. In places it's some of the first digital work I've done that's approaching being comfortable with it's own computeryness. Hmmm...

New Adventures!

2011-11-07T16:06:00.003Z

Five new episodes of The Adventures of Abney and Teal go out this week. 5.45pm on CBeebies.

Brushes

2011-10-28T10:10:00.003+01:00

Some doodles with customised brushes in CS5. Whew, when I get some time I think there's some real stuff to be done with these!

Squirrel!

2011-10-24T16:52:00.001+01:00

2011-10-19T13:58:00.000+01:00

Marginalia

2011-10-17T14:47:00.001+01:00

Time for Porridge

2011-09-27T10:45:00.006+01:00

So, The Porridge Party - episode 01 of The Adventures of Abney & Teal went out yesterday for the first time! It's already available on iPlayer here.

Being so close to all the episodes, it's hard for everyone on the team not to be rather aware of how much we've learned about bringing the show together since the first ones, but today's episode Star Stick is an early favourite of mine.

Meanwhile, it's back to work on the rest of the episodes... I've got bottle-tops and bagpipes to paint.

Oh, and here's a blog post I wrote about the show for the CBeebies grownups site.

Counting Down!

2011-09-20T15:55:00.004+01:00

Pick of Children's TV in this week's Radio Times, (It starts next monday).

Blurred Edges

2011-09-19T12:52:00.002+01:00

Not that I'm anywhere...

2011-09-17T12:43:00.002+01:00

...near done with schedules and edges just yet.

(Actually, horridly cute turtle, it's just two now).

Peeklet

2011-09-12T19:42:00.003+01:00

You know that thing that all my drawings from about the last three years are in the margins of? Well here's a sneaky peeklet, with news of how short the wait should be to really see it. There's a couple of little things in Broadcast magazine too, but that's subscription only.

Playing By the Book

2011-09-01T09:19:00.002+01:00

An interview I did recently with the brilliant Playing By the Book blog.

And more schedule edges

2011-08-24T12:39:00.002+01:00

(I don't know how that one got in there).

HOOOOOOOT!

2011-08-11T08:49:00.004+01:00

Dexter Bexley & the Big Blue Beastie on the Road came out in paperback just a few days ago.

Here is a fantastic review from the brilliant www.playingbythebook.net. It's not only one of the nicest reviews I've ever got but it also contains the most brilliant ideas for getting kids, well, to have a great time! There's an excellent Hooter design that I might have to try for myself too.

More Schedule Drawings

2011-08-01T17:18:00.002+01:00

Dear Grandma Joyce,

2011-07-07T07:33:00.001+01:00

Architect, Poet, one-time Accordion-playing Land-Girl, and avid reader of this blog - to wish you Rest In Peace does not quite seem suitable. You were a force of nature. I think nature will appreciate your fearlessness now you are rejoined.
Love,
Joel

It's a dance I learned from Baxter Dexley

2011-07-06T12:32:00.001+01:00

More Schedule Edges

2011-06-27T13:27:00.001+01:00

Scrawls...

2011-06-15T17:59:00.003+01:00

...literally from the margins of a hectic schedule, and one sneaky Blue Beastie - who may have snuck in elsewhere too.

Noughts and Ones

2011-06-08T18:21:00.002+01:00

A stack of experiments with custom photoshop brushes (including some semi automated cross hatching) and drawing direct onto a wacom tablet...

Works

2011-05-30T11:26:00.003+01:00

There's a feature on my work in today's Guardian Multimedia section! They say lovely things. It's all rather old work though, though work I'm still proud of. They did another piece in 2009 that featured more up to date stuff.

I got an advance copy of Dexter 2 in the post this week. It looks great and will be out at the beginning of August. After that there may be quite a gap for new books from me, but my television show is due to air the first episodes in the Autumn. Hopefully there will be books to accompany it not long after, though we'll have to get our skates on to get them ready!

2011-05-03T21:45:00.001+01:00

??

2011-04-28T18:29:00.001+01:00

And can I upload pictures?
Maybe but looks like only as titchy linked thumbnails...
Unless I faff around and do this:

Nope, even that didn't work...
Maybe when I find my flickr account details I can make it happen.

Like this:

Gah, it's so glitchy this app!

Movement

2011-04-28T17:22:00.001+01:00

This week I left behind my home of the last seven years and Andrea and I moved far too many books and far too many instruments up far too many stairs into a bright and airy attic flat in Kilburn, north west London.

This is a bit of an experimental post using an iPhone app. Maybe if I can get it to work then this place will start getting updated again soon!

Black Carrot Secret Yoghurt

2011-04-10T23:20:00.002+01:00

Scraps 02

2011-03-13T16:26:00.002Z

And here are some scratched from the corner of Cafe OTO.

Scraps

2011-03-13T16:23:00.002Z

The corners of my sketchbook have been empty of late. Here are some scrapings:

2011-02-14T12:54:00.002Z

2011-02-10T10:50:00.001Z

Hans

2011-01-29T10:24:00.000Z

From the margins, again

2011-01-25T15:33:00.002Z

Sick of computers, I've been testing different papers and paint (with varying qualities of doodle). Top two use Arche HP, the rest use Fabriano Rosapina. The Rosapina is beautiful but very unpredictable, the Arche HP is super reliable, but makes me finickety over details because you can do so much with it. I'm so indecisive I can't even decide which side of the papers I like the best.

Otherwise. Aaaaaaaaaagh! Tv show work is awfully involved, awfully always.

Tree Soup

2011-01-14T13:42:00.001Z

Got my first advance copy of the Picture Corgi paperback edition of Tree Soup this week. It's been a long time coming but it will be out on the 3rd of February.

Drawing On

2011-01-09T20:22:00.003Z

Also: Dipdap episodes now available on iplayer (As mentioned below, this show was made by my friend and collaborator Steve Roberts).

2011-01-04T16:36:00.001Z

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T18:46:00.001Z

Be sure and watch Steve Roberts' show Dip Dap Every weekday, 9.10am BBC2. Repeated Sat AND Sun 11.55 on CBeebies.
It's hilarious and brilliant. Also, Steve is a writer/artist on my own show.

Xmas Hounds

2010-12-30T19:40:00.002Z

Belated Merry Christmas to you!

2010-12-17T09:58:00.001Z

2010-12-13T12:59:00.000Z

Shackleton's Banjo

2010-12-07T16:17:00.003Z

Tim van Eyken, (who has been doing wonderful music for my animation series), has made a BBC Radio 4 show about the banjo which travelled to Antarctica with Shackleton. It's here for a week or so.

Beaky

2010-11-30T12:38:00.001Z

Andrew Graham-Dixon's Art of Germany was on tv and I doodled demons...

It's available on iplayer now, if you're in the UK. Funny to see him wandering round the Alte Pinakotek in Munich. I've done some wandering there. Thought he took the whole notion of German renaissance art as alien to the rest of Europe a bit far, but he was fascinating and enthusiastic as usual. And he was certainly right about renaissance limewood sculpture being amazing. I've got a picture I took of one somewhere... Oh yeah, here:

Don't know if it is by Tilman Riemenschneider, but I do know that I like the nose.

2010-11-26T18:34:00.001Z

What's this?

2010-11-22T10:58:00.001Z

Late Lattice

2010-11-22T10:54:00.002Z

This amazing pumpkin was carved by my friend (and landlord) Nick Denchfield. He finished it a week late and I'm posting it even later!

2010-11-20T16:52:00.001Z

2010-11-20T16:51:00.001Z

2010-11-08T15:44:00.002Z

Belated Happy Hallows

2010-11-01T14:40:00.002Z

And Thanks everso to Owen Swan for the copy of his book Lilli-Pilli The Frog Princess, which flopped elegantly onto my desk this morning.

Interview

2010-10-30T16:40:00.001+01:00

Nice new interview with me over on Kim Harte's lovely children's book blog.

2010-10-28T10:08:00.003+01:00

Lines

2010-10-17T14:46:00.003+01:00

People have been producing the recently Nobel prize winning, single-atom thick substance Graphene, without knowing, for hundreds of years. It is produced in flakes from pencil graphite when a line is drawn. No wonder pencil lines can be so strong yet so subtle.

All the above lines are ink (and pixels) though...

2010-10-16T19:12:00.000+01:00

Rambleaway

2010-10-04T14:08:00.002+01:00

Here is a very very long, rambly interview I did for Writeaway a couple of years ago. Despite being so old, it only went up quite recently, and it is surprisingly current because I've been tied up with the tv show for so long. Only Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie on the Road wasn't fully done then, bookwise.

It's a funny interview and I just go on and on, in slightly too candid a fashion, but maybe someone will find it illuminating...

(At the end it is Have You Ever Seen a Sneep that I am talking about re sepia ink and oiled paper, not Addis Berner Bear Forgets, and I honestly wasn't implying that the colour I did for Shark and Lobster wasn't as nice, but that it was harder to do than later books using a similar technique).

Of me they sing

2010-09-21T13:27:00.002+01:00

My work is mentioned favourably in this Telegraph article about Obama's new children's book. I can't comment on Obama's book, not having read it. The title makes me cringe somewhat, but so do the titles of many US children's books and it may be a cultural thing...

2010-09-21T09:02:00.001+01:00

More, you want more bagpipes?

2010-09-14T10:29:00.002+01:00

Sketches are somewhat thin on the ground at the moment, (actually they're pretty numerous in storyboard work, but I can't post those).

There's nothing extra to see here...

Elusive post

2010-08-26T09:37:00.003+01:00

This blog... I have ideas for this blog, but no time, no time...

When I heard that Sylvain Chomet's treatment of Jacques Tati's script for the Illusionist was set in Edinburgh I kind of assumed there'd be lots of fun in recognizing places in the drawings. Still, I thought it was pretty great when I noticed that the pawn shop, where the old ventriloquist pawns his dummy, is based on the real pawn shop where my dad once bought me a trumpet (which I then utterly failed to learn to play).

The film is beautiful (except for some of the CG stuff), but beware of taking your kids. The small boy next to me was bored out of his mind.

Yet again there is nothing under the following link. Blasted code.

2010-08-07T23:19:00.001+01:00

Lovely review of Dexter Bexley 2 here.

2010-07-28T10:10:00.002+01:00

Sneep Review

2010-07-27T14:13:00.001+01:00

Click here for a nice review of a book I drew. Don't click the "See more!" link at the end of this post though, because you won't.

2010-07-22T13:27:00.000+01:00

Greasers

2010-07-20T16:09:00.006+01:00

Ignoring hundreds of drawings of elbows, knees, and tums, and moving along with some drawings I did when Grease was on TV.

Pretty exciting time at the tv studio, with great animation coming round, and Tim van Eyken in the big blue studio downstairs doing wonderful music. I even went down and recorded a little bit of musical Saw this afternoon.

Londoners

2010-07-20T16:07:00.000+01:00

Miscs

2010-07-20T16:03:00.003+01:00

(You really can...)

(Includes one Jeeves and Wooster).

Interview

2010-07-13T16:00:00.002+01:00

Click here for an interview I did about Red Ted and the Lost things and about drawing.

PS.
I'll deal with this dodgy expanding code at some point (that says see more even if there's nothing to see), but not now...

PPS.
I've got three full sketchbooks (and more) of drawings here that I can't post any of due to broken internet and lack of time. They're almost all mad anatomy drawings that I've done in any spare moments over the last week and probably not of much interest to anyone but me. Maybe I'll put highlights up some day. Or maybe I'll move along.

2010-07-10T15:30:00.000+01:00

2010-07-10T15:26:00.001+01:00

2010-07-10T15:21:00.002+01:00

2010-07-10T15:18:00.002+01:00

Holiday Snaps...

2010-07-10T15:01:00.005+01:00

(Photographed with an iphone).

One more thing...

2010-06-28T19:53:00.001+01:00

...I'm going on holiday now.

2010-06-28T17:01:00.001+01:00

2010-06-28T17:00:00.001+01:00

2010-06-28T16:59:00.001+01:00

2010-06-14T11:29:00.001+01:00

(The Telegraph Magazine)

Also The Irish Examiner

Bag of books, bag of bones

2010-06-14T09:40:00.002+01:00

Here is an interview I did last week with thebookbag.co.uk.

Otherwise:
I've been doing some anatomy drawings. Just sketching from a book, then trying to process the information by drawing again from memory. I think, at least, that I'm getting a little further than I have before. The memory drawings, particularly when extrapolated to animals, are pretty weird. Actually all these drawings are weird, but useful...

2010-06-07T18:15:00.000+01:00

Out Now!

2010-05-28T15:44:00.003+01:00

Here's the first review, which is pretty great.

(I actually kind of agree with the tiny niggle about the joke right at the end, I remember blustering it through with my lovely editors, but I could've improved it with the drawing).

It just about makes up for the fact that this morning some man in a white smock drilled me in the face and took a massive amount of money from my bank account, for the second time this month!

Kids, look after your teeth...

2010-05-21T13:42:00.006+01:00

Am in the studio recovering from yesterday's successful (I think) but exhausting presentation to the BBC.

Out soon:

Warning, small rant follows:

So, one of the new Olympic mascots is a one-eyed monster named Wenlock...
As I listen, blinking, to the building site crashes of Olympic fueled "redevelopment" only feet from my studio window, it is tempting to muse on the fact that I took the same name a few years ago, while wandering around the area, to describe a creature that was, essentially and clunkily, the collected despair of the children of a whole community...

Click here for some examples of why "despair" and "redevelopment" are two terms which easily arise in the same sentence around the Olympic "village."

There's even some argument to be had about the use of resources in this building on the other side of the world, but whee! It's astounding!

The Seed Cathedral

Here's a few more gloomy but ultimately silly doodles:

2010-05-18T13:42:00.001+01:00

2010-05-14T22:20:00.001+01:00

2010-05-11T09:17:00.001+01:00

2010-05-10T17:07:00.001+01:00

2010-05-10T17:06:00.001+01:00

2010-05-10T12:46:00.000+01:00

More Sketches

2010-04-22T14:52:00.004+01:00

Limping in from the margins:

Also:
We got blogged in the park...
There's biro on that dress!

I got photographed for my deadly orange trousers the other day in Spitalfields, too. But the photographer didn't say how long before I'd make my appearance on eyewateringsartorialmistakes.com

2010-04-14T14:26:00.001+01:00

2010-04-12T13:55:00.001+01:00

Stanley Wells Audio Book

2010-04-09T12:10:00.002+01:00

I hadn't a clue this existed, or planned to exist, until two copies arrived in today's post...
The less said about the cover the better, but still, exciting.

2010-04-08T11:26:00.000+01:00

2010-04-06T16:09:00.001+01:00

2010-03-16T12:53:00.001Z

Post!

2010-03-15T17:36:00.002Z

It's a bit of a pale and limping thing this blog these days. Maybe I should reconsider/reconfigure it...

Meantime these make me almost as happy as the spring sun that's appearing and the tea I've just drunk. You can almost smell the blossom.

Apology

2010-02-22T18:56:00.006Z

But first:

Hooray!

Amidst packing to be at the flat near the TV studio (I'm still working away at least a third of the week at the moment) I realized that there are a lot of emails I haven't had time to reply to. So this is kind of a catchall apology (I think it's not the first) to students etc. who've written asking for essay interviews and the like. I'm sorry if I've missed you, but it's likely that I will continue to do so for a while, even while I've caved and bought an iphone (as much a distraction as a help!), I'm keeping up with a team of about eighteen people on the show, and faraway essays and stuff do fall off the edge of most day's to-do lists.

Here's a lovely thing that came that way some time ago...

Red Ted!

Good News!

2010-02-17T12:47:00.005Z

Somebody brilliant got for me, not only a maths cauliflower,

but also amazing tickets to see Joanna Newsom.

As well as all that, several animation things are at last falling into place.

...

2010-01-28T14:13:00.006Z

Ahem,
This week I am discovering that writing, arranging, designing, directing, pre-producing, and producing can cause more than slight stress when attempted all-at-once.

Besides that surprising news, here are some things that I await with trepidation:

Joann Sfar's film "fable" about Serge Gainsbourg,

Temple Grandin, the movie,

The new Joanna Newsom record.

And some things with intrepid weight:

Poets ranked by beard weight.

Also, I am a big fan of this man's toys, and you might be too.

Signs of Life

2010-01-18T12:53:00.006Z

Hello,

I did survive into 2010. In fact Christmas and New Year were both really lovely, I just haven't had a moment to look back (and while work is fun and a privilege at the moment, doing so makes me a bit melancholy).

I remember some stuff about one end of the country...

...and then the other...

...this song, which I just got a tv-show episode out of (one of 52 that have to be written, which is why there isn't time for blog posts)...

...and wasn't there something to do with a seven-foot icicle?

Not to mention bagpipes.

(Not to mention them, but there are more videos of the piping and such [not mine] here).

Happy Birthday to me...

2009-12-21T17:15:00.004Z

This Gramophone is a present from my Honeysuckle Rose:

I'm off to the deep south of Cornwall Christmas, then again off to the low north/south of Scotland for new year. There will be traditional music and dancing, and despite grand intentions it'll probably turn out like this:

(If you aren't convinced that's genuine, look up Stian Carstensen).

Merry Everything!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-17T12:53:00.002Z

I sang a bit of backing and played accordion for Yo's Christmas ditty.
Consequently the accordion police are coming for me...

Look

2009-11-30T13:09:00.002Z

look look!

A Guardian Online Gallery about my books! With a commentary by me me me.