Authors and Illustrators Online... Everywhere!

The main reason I've come back to my blog was to share links and images with 'EVERYoNE'! 

I may try to sort out my website for this kind of thing, but for now Blogger should work. I shared these black and white dinosaurs (you can print them and colour-in) on facebook last week.

But the problem with Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, or whatever social media platform you prefer, is that many of those sites are only accessible if you sign up. Or if you 'like' or 'follow' or send a friend request. I live in the Welsh Hills, spend most of my days hermit-ing in my studio, and often have no idea where to find my phone or iPad, so I'm not on social media all that much.

With the weird times we are currently all living through, I thought this would be a good place to share stuff, because everyone and anyone can see it here. I'm on facebook, Twitter and Instagram (just), so I'll post there too.

First off, I've just started a YouTube channel (see my previous post #DoodleWithDuddle and the image above). While I was getting to grips with that I found a whole load of other authors and illustrators doing the same kind of thing. If you're not a fan of pirates or dinosaurs, there must be something here that tickles your fancy...

Click on the names and explore!

The Booktrust shares some brilliant videos about drawing and writing.

Ed Vere was one of our favourite authors when my daughters were little. We read 'Mr.Big' and 'Bedtime for Monsters' so many times I knew them off by heart.

Jim Field, illustrator of the 'Oi' books, is drawing cats and frogs and mice and koalas on his Vimeo channel.

David Roberts, Illustrator of so many beautiful picture books, has lots of brilliant drawing videos on his Instagram page (I think you might need to be on Instagram to see these).

Chris Riddell, former Children's Laureate, is an wonderful illustrator and it's a joy to watch him draw. He's also reading from his own books.

Lydia Monks, illustrator of 'What the Ladybird heard', which was another bedtime favourite of ours. Lydia draws characters from her books on her YouTube channel.

Rob Biddulph is the author and illustrator of 'Blown Away' and 'Sunk', amongst others, and draws favourite characters from his picture books.

Sarah McIntyre, is an author, illustrator and comic artist who wears amaaazing hats and dresses and creates brilliant drawing tutorials.

Steven Lenton, illustrator of the 'Shifty McGifty' and the 'Nothing to See Here Hotel' series, doodles himself and has guest authors and illustrators appearing on his channel.

Will Sliney is a comic artist from Ireland and is teaching children to draw loads of different characters from comics, animation, games and films.

Alex Milway, author and illustrator of Hotel Flamingo, is singing and drawing and animating.

Jonathan Emmett is a fantastic writer and has been sharing YouTube videos for longer than most of the authors here. He also does Skype school visits and offers great advice to other authors.

Gareth P Jones has a ukulele and he isn't afraid to use it. He also writes very funny songs and very funny books.

Philip Ardagh is very tall and has an enormous beard. He's also rather good at writing.

Claire Barker, author of the brilliant 'Picklewitch and Jack' books, is reading from her comfy looking chair in a rather idyllic shepherd's hut in Devon.

Cressida Cowell is reading chapters from 'How to Train Your Dragon' every night.

Kieran Larwood, author of Podkin One Ear and the Five Realms series, has drawn a map (and baked it in the oven).

Moving to a slightly older audience, Cathy Cassidy is reading chapters from her book 'Love from Lexie'.

A.F.Harrold has a great poetry podcast. He is a fantastic author and poet.

Jim Parkyn, of Aardman Animation, runs plasticine modelling workshops all over the country (maybe you've modelled a Gromit with Jim) and has started a plasticine YouTube channel.

There are other sites and pages, pooling this information and sharing links, such as Picture Book Author Events Online on facebook, so it's worth following them too, if this sort of stuff interests you, for your own children, your school, or community.

And that's about it for now. If I find more, I'll update this post... Meanwhile, there's colouring-in to do!