John Shelley - Illustrator
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studionib.bsky.social
John Shelley - Illustrator
@studionib.bsky.social
Illustrator and author for children's publishing and the wider design business. #KidLitUK #illustration https://linktr.ee/studionib
BookTrust have launched their Christmas appeal #MagicOfBooks www.booktrust.org.uk/xmas to help raise money to send surprise festive parcels to children who are vulnerable or in care. www.booktrust.org.uk/support-us/b... @booktrust.org.uk #kidlit #kidlitUK
Bring the magic of reading to children this Christmas​
A gift from you could mean a child finally has a book to call their own.​
www.booktrust.org.uk
December 11, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Quote with your starry art ✨

From 'Yozora o Miage Yo' 「夜空をみあげよう」#picturebook (Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, Tokyo) #福音館書店

#kidlitart #kidlitUK #illustration
December 9, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
One flag removed by the council. Hundreds left to residents. And now a man in his sixties has been beaten for taking one down. This is what inaction looks like.
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...
Left to danger: Norfolk council inaction leads to flag-related violence
As Norfolk refused to act on flag complaints, locals removing them instead found themselves threatened and violently attacked
eastangliabylines.co.uk
December 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Masaka! This is not the Japan I remember.
The ¥6,000 fee to extend or change a residential status is planned to be raised five- to sixfold, to around ¥30,000 to ¥40,000. A ¥10,000 fee to apply for permanent residency is also expected to increase more than tenfold to exceed ¥100,000. 👉 ebx.sh/vFnHEz
November 22, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Moon Town, an old exhibition piece from Japan days. #illustration #townscape #kidlitUK #kidlitART
November 19, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
Nov 17-23 is Bereaved Children's Awareness Week.

The Loss and Grief reading list is a curated selection of 24 titles that focus on the topic of bereavement. It is a guide to stories that empathise, comfort and hopefully connect with young readers.

childrensbooksireland.ie/our-recommen...

1/2 🧵
November 14, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Hi Bluesky friends! What's the best alternative to Google as a web browser? I'm really getting fed up of seeing 2 or 3 pages of sponsored ads appearing before proper results, plus all the unwarranted AI guesswork.
October 24, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
I'm Jewish. I'm also Mancunian.

Every other national party leader was interviewed by Laura Kunesberg during their conference.

Maybe the BBC thought as someone who also supports Palestine - I had nothing to say?

Let's keep growing: join.greenparty.org.uk
October 5, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
These blue and white delft tiles are more than decoration: they’re snapshots of 17th- and 18th-century taste, trade, and storytelling. Imported from the Netherlands, delftware tiles were popular for their gleaming tin-glazed surfaces and crisp cobalt designs.
October 6, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
If you want to see Michelle Mone kicked out of the House of Lords and arrested until she pays the £232,000,000 she owes give this a RT.

If you want Rishi Sunak's involvement in the £14,900,000,000 PPE Fraud he covered up investigated, LIKE.
October 1, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
every good scholar needs: a desk; some ink; a demon monkey hovering menacingly above, clutching his own book; and a quill
September 26, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Quote with your yellow art! 💛

The mermaid's dance, from the #HansAndersen story 'The Little Mermaid' 'Ningyohime' 人形姫 (Hyoronsha Publishing, Tokyo)
#kidlitart #kidlitUK #illustration
September 28, 2025 at 5:49 PM
What a great interview with Jeff Mills on #BBC6music with @cerysmatthews.bsky.social I met him in Tokyo back in the day in Maniac Love, such a humble genius.
September 28, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
It is a truth too often unacknowledged, that a populist in possession of the public's rage must be in perpetual want of an enemy.
September 22, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Some more recent scribbles on the train to London - clouds, pylons, people. #sketchbook #trainsketching
September 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing.

These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.
Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI
Visual artists, illustrators and graphic designers share their stories about how AI is being used to lower wages, degrade work and even replace it altogether, in this installment of AI Killed My Job.
www.bloodinthemachine.com
September 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
How do we fix this mess?
September 16, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
I’ve signed this. Authors, illustrators & educators can still sign:
statement-on-palestine.org
We call on the Government to recognise the genocide, meet legal obligations to act accordingly, end complicity in war crimes & arms sales, respect the human right to protest, de-proscribe Palestine Action.
Children’s authors, illustrators, <br/>and educators' statement <br/>on Palestine
statement-on-palestine.org
September 12, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Well Done @georgemonbiot.bsky.social - great to hear him defending the corner on BBCRadio4 The Moral Maze this evening. #bbc #radio4
September 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
You'll probably have to blow it up or look at this on a big screen, but here is how anyone can make a little 8 page zine that they can use to write a story, write about their favorite things, a personal experience or make a mini comic. Fold some paper and get your thoughts out there!!
August 28, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
'Female Ghost with Sword' from 'The Complete Works of Chikamatsu' - Uemura Shoen, 1923.
#GhostMonth #ukiyoe #JapaneseArt
August 13, 2025 at 1:40 PM

この夏、韮崎にあるシャトレーゼホテルで、フィールドバレエによる野外公演『シンデレラ』が開催されました。この公演のシーゾンに合わせて、僕の絵本(1996年初版)から選ばれたイラストが、ホテル内の客室や会場を彩りました。
古い作品が新たな観客に出会うのは素晴らしいことです。前の作品に新たな観客がみつけた!#シンデレラ #絵本 #バレエ #イラスト #韮崎
August 13, 2025 at 2:02 PM
This summer, Châteraisé Hotel in Nirasaki #Japan hosted a Field Ballet open-air production of #Cinderella. To accompany the season, illustrations from my PB retelling (published in 1996) were chosen to adorn the rooms and locations in the hotel. A new audience for older work!
#kidlitART #KidkitUK
August 13, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
Artists have always loved to sketch!

Sketch of a sparrow from Egypt dated c. 1479–1458 BC.

Some 3,500 years ago in Egypt, artists used small flakes of limestone as sketchpads!

MMA excavations 1922-23, Deir el-Bahri. 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
August 8, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by John Shelley - Illustrator
Simon Tisdall highlights the dangers posed by the proliferation of lower-yield, tactical warheads which supposedly allows “limited” nuclear war. Crossing that red line could lead to an unstoppable chain reaction, with horrific consequences. The campaign against nuclear weapons must get much louder👇
As the world hurtles ever closer to nuclear oblivion, where is the opposition? | Simon Tisdall
The puerile standoff between the US and Russia ought to alert a slumbering public to a risk that is in many ways greater than during the cold war, says Simon Tisdall, a Guardian foreign affairs commen...
www.theguardian.com
August 10, 2025 at 6:50 AM