Getting over flu and deadline marathon!

It has been a week since returning home from Australia Tour with the lovely Sally Rippin! I have met so many great people during the tour including teachers, bookshop owners, event organizers, publishers and of course all the great fans of Billie B Brown! Isn't it great that people from different backgrounds can connect through love of books and literature?
I have made so many friends. Sally was kind enough to invite me to her lovely home for a beautiful meal made by her loving husband. I enjoyed meeting her beautiful boys too! Felt like I walked into a page from a fairytale book as I walked through the gates of her funky home- the whole experience during the visit felt like a magical oasis during that busy tour.
Special big THANK YOU to Jennifer and Bethany for looking after me during the tour! And even though both Sally and I missed the Billie B Brown office bash party (we were both sick..) I got to meet most of the talented (and young AND beautiful) team at Hardie Grant Egmont!

Seems like I have brought back some weird throat bugs from Aussie??? Have been down with throaty coughs and flu :( Tackling all the deadlines I have left hanging over the tour. Enjoying every project I'm working on, but sucks that I can't put in all my love into each illustration when I'm worrying abut all the other piled work. But oddly, I do enjoy the feeling of being overloaded with work, makes me work that extra hard! Go away TV / fridge / facebook.

Here goes some little peeks on what I just finished working on.

I have been working on a few educational titles for PEARSON. These have been fun as I get to experiment with different styles and characters as each stories are short one offs. Schools around New Zealand should get these titles sometime during next year.

Also I just finished working on the 9th book in the Go Girl series, "Back to School".

And currently working on the 14th book in the Billie B Brown series. Can you guess what Billie is holding?
Hint: Cute and fluffy :)

Also thank you for becoming a fan on my Facebook page. I did a little giveaway last week. I am planning to do more giveaways as I get more "Likes" so please check out my Aki Art Facebook page!