Tuesday 13 December 2011

Becket School: Workshops with Older Kids




Last week, it made 
a nice change to work for 2 days in a secondary school. They are so BIG compared to primary schools!  


I visited Becket School this time last year, but it took some doing: thick snow stopped all trains for a while. They invited me back this year and it did start to snow again, but fortunately we got away with it. 




I was working the whole 2 days with Y7 students (1st years). We started with a lecture to them all - around 170. Above I am talking about characterisation: how you can use pointy or round shapes to suggest evil or vulnerable creatures, and how carefully chosen clothing can give hints to a character's personality. 




In the talk, I follow the process of the creation of a picture book, using various examples from my backlist. These are roughs for is Big Bad Wolf is Good, and I am talking about how important it is to consider the position of the gutter (spread centre line).

The rest of the 2 days was spent doing the same 1 hour illustration workshop over and over, working my way through all the individual Y7 classes. As characterisation is so important to picture books, we looked at how to create animal characters, accessorising them to help make them individuals and using facial expressions to show what they're thinking. 




To show how to add realistic movement, I climbed up on a table in the classroom (Health and Safety Officers look away now!) to demonstrate 'running legs' and how to draw them:




Each day I had a yummy lunch in the Learning Centre then did a 1 hour, drop-in session for anyone who wanted a chat. On Friday I had about 25 turn up, so it was a bit crazy, but on the 1st day, it was just me and Edwood (hi Edwood) so he got a 1 hour, one-to-one masterclass.



A big thanks to Mrs Webster for inviting me back and looking after me so well. As she stayed with me through many of the sessions, she was probably drawing animal characters in her sleep on Friday night!






6 comments:

Dale Carnegie London said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
October ja Wave said...

Your teaching methods are really good! It's nice to read your humorously written blog while still learning new things ^^

Lynne the Pencil said...

Thank you!

Unknown said...

It is a good feeling to bounce off of fresh ideas with open minds. It looks as if you all had fun. When do you visit the adults for the same - I would really enjoy it myself?

Lynne the Pencil said...

I do literary festival events for adults occasionally, sometimes workshops though mostly talks. I generally blog them in advance, to let people know.

Because of my exhibition in Oldham, I am doing a couple of talks there soon, if you're interested: Sat Jan 28th (11am -12.00)in Gallery Oldham; and Tues Feb 21st at Oldham Library (1pm - 2pm).

Always open to invitations though. Big Draw in October is an excellent opportunity to run drawing events for different age groups.

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