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Showing posts with label drawing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawing. Show all posts

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

St Austell Festival of Childrens Literature.

I had a wonderful couple of days down in Cornwall at the St Austell Festival of Childrens Literature. 

On Friday I visited Newquay Junior Academy where the kids & staff gave me a lovely welcome (& I also met their lovely school dog Nelly!)

(my drawing of Nelly the dog, a talking cat, a seagull with its bag of chips & a dog eating a sausage)


During the event I talked to the kids about how I became an illustrator (via roadying for bands among other things!)  & introduced our graphic novel Poo Crew Adventures: Journey to Poo-topia, a fast-paced adventure, which brings together clever, funny storytelling with lots of amazing facts and taps into kids’ fascination with all things poo-related & I PROVED that poo is THE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT IN THE WORLD!

We also had a game of ‘Poo or True?’

A draw-a-long of the book’s protagonist Ploppy with some great drawings from the kids!

I also gave a behind the scenes look at what goes into illustrating a narrative non-fiction graphic novel, answered some great questions from the children & signed LOTS of books.


On Saturday I took part in The Big Draw Off - A Graphic Novel Showdown Like No Other! with author illustrator Steve Webb which was brilliantly compered by JoJo Silva from Capital Xtra.

We both talked about our work & then were set various drawing challenges getting prompts from audience members & also creating characters based on audience members with hilarious results - a really fun interactive event (& not often you get to shout 'poo!' in a church!)



Big thanks to everyone involved to make it such a brilliant festival! I hope I'll get invited back!


If you'd like me to visit your school or your festival please contact me on info@stevemay,biz



 (in training for The Big Draw Off)



(A pictorial Steve (May) & Steve (Webb) in the beautiful Holy Trinity Church, St Austell)

(The two Steves & JoJo our compère)


Friday, 31 May 2024

"There's Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb"

Batman carrying a bomb

 As you might have noticed, Batman has become rather a theme in my work of late, but I think he's always been a recurring motif in my drawing since I was a kid. He's always there lurking under the surface somewhere! 

Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Dragons In Their Pants (slight return)


 A lot of people* say to me... "Hey Steve May! Why haven't you posted a dragon in pants for a while man?!?"

I'm TOO good to you!

(*Statement *might* contain fibs)


Tuesday, 15 February 2022

Draw Along 'Dirty Ulf' from Two Terrible Vikings


Here's me showing you how to draw Dirty Ulf, the grubbiest Viking in the village from the second Two Terrible Vikings book Grunt the Beserker by Francesca Simon & me published by Faber & Faber you can order a copy here!

More draw-alongs here

Wednesday, 8 July 2020

Long Cat

Does what it says on the can.

Thursday, 28 February 2019

Newham Word Festival with Guy Bass

I had a great time with author Guy Bass at the Manor Park library with the the kids from Monega Primary School  for the Newham Word Festival today. We covered everything from childhood vices, potato shaped children, dinosaurs, superheroes & not to forget our recent collaborations 'Noah Scape - Can't Stop Repeating Himself'  & 'Laura Norder - Sheriff of Butts Canyon'.

Guy's exuberance & expert storytelling went down really well with the kids & the morning gave me plenty of scope for plenty of live drawing to prove I was definitely 'quick on the draw' (see what I did there?!?!)

Thanks to the staff at Manor Park library for making us so welcome!

 Look at all our lovely books!
A meat pie, Tarzan & angry giraffe...
 Noah Scape
 Various superheroes (& Hulk's tiny trousers)
 Ten Gun Ben (& startled horse)
 Ten Gun Ben says "NO RULES!"
 A wild west 'good morning' pussycat (& rogue TARDIS)
 Potato shaped child & Guy's mum laying down the law 
(NB I have never met Guy's mum so this is purely invented)
 Noah Scape's favourite things!
 Laura Norder & Duncan Disorderly drawn from life in double quick time
(see below)


Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Harry Hill presents Matt Millz at the Southbank this half term!

I'm very excited to be sharing the stage with Harry Hill & the Beano for this Matt Millz event on Saturday 17th February on the Southbank!
You can buy tickets here...

Thursday, 22 September 2016

Introducing Monsieur Mains de Merde!

Yesterday whilst wrestling with a particularly tricky piece of drawing which refused to turn out right, I'm convinced I was visited once again by my illustrational alter-ego & nemesis Monsieur Mains de Merde.

Fresh from an alternate dimension of 'crummy drawing' he occasionally* takes over & magically gives me a dubious fictional character based excuse for my own ineptitude.

*To some of my detractors & anyone else who's rejected / ignored my work I realise this may seem to be more than 'occasional' visitations, but as this is my blog, devoted to plugging my work let's draw a veil over them