From "A Bag Of Moonshine"

Here are a few pictures from my very first book, "A Bag Of Moonshine" by Alan Garner.
It only sold a few thousand copies so not too many of my blog visitors will have seen it.

A Boggart with a Bag of Moonshine

Here's another from the same period when I had just left college and I was using a strong black ink line to define my forms. It was a technique inspired by the wonderful art of Arthur Rackham and others working during the Golden Age of illustration at the start of the twentieth century.

This was in fact the cover image from my very first book, A Bag of Moonshine  by Alan Garner.

I was very fortunate with that book as it won me the Mother Goose Award and it very much set me on my way as a young illustrator.

The character above is a Boggart, which is similar to a Goblin but a little bit nicer. Below are some of my Goblins that I did when I was considering illustrating The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald.

The Salmon Cariad

This was from my very first book,"A Bag of Moonshine" by Alan Garner.
I was delighted to find that I still have the original painting.
Cariad is "sweetheart" in Welsh, and after a pretty unpromising start, when she tries to drown him, these two end up living happily ever after.