It's not every day that the author of the Snowman calls your first children's book "Astonishing", but that's what Raymond Briggs called Winchester born Richard Graham's enchanting picture book "The Cranky Caterpillar."

Originally conceived while Richard was studying for a masters in Creative writing at Winchester University, "and then put away for a few years" the book tells the tale of Ezra who uses music to try and cheer up a cranky caterpillar that she finds mooching in a piano.

A commercial sculptor by day, Richard, the son of well-known city publican Janet Graham, has a unique way of bringing his characters to life, by first creating sculptures from every day items and then writing a story about them:

The titular Caterpillar’ sculpture was originally created when Richard was assembling old junk into animal sculptures; dogs with lightbulb eyes, birds with wood saw wings, and a caterpillar made from the hammers from an old piano"

Talking about his unique process Richard said: "The transformation from sculpture to story to drawing is a satisfying process, using different techniques along the way, you get to know the characters better as you take them through the different mediums and processes, get to think about them as you are making."