Hi, I'm Mike Gibbie and I live in the North West of England. I have been working as a professional illustrator since leaving university in 1996. Children's books are my passion and I been fortunate enough to have had many published. My first book was published in 1999 by Macmillan entitled "Small Brown Dogs Bad Remembering Day." Aimed at children between three to seven it was a global sucess, selling widely across Europe, USA, Asia and Australia. I also have had a series of books published for a major U.K supermarket chain, along with a series of educational and scholastic books which are used in the national curriculum. Apart from children's books, I have worked in a variety of areas including greeting cards, comics, web design, promotional displays and I have set up a business specializing in children's bedroom murals. I use a range of materials including pen and ink, watercolour, pastels and in my murals I mainly use acrylics and emulsion. I love to use dip pen for my line work, it creates a lovely variety of weight of line and the inks I use bring the image to life with vibrancy and boldness. I also dampen down the watercolours when creating whimsical landscapes. When designing murals, I like to make the characters as charming and fun as possible. I firmly believe that children waking up to see a friendly animal looking at them, creates an air of contentment and they are happy to be greeted by a host of brightly coloured characters in brilliantly detailed landsaped scenes. Well, it worked for my kids at least.