I was working this Saturday, despite the sunshine, in the Sheffield Central Children's Library, as part of our annual Children's Festival. It's a lovely, fun festival, with loads going on, including a parade, and there's always a colourful banner hung on the town hall, made by a local school.
It was such a hot day, I thought everyone might abandon me and go to the park instead (especially as the children's library is deep in the basement!), but luckily I was wrong and we had a good turn out of little ones for my morning storytelling. I read Stinky, and the children drew various smelly animals. Virtually every child took one of my books home too - either borrowed from the library, or bought from me, which was lovely.
I was supposed to be drawing in the foyer of the main library at lunchtime, catching people passing through but, because of the weather, nobody did! Uh-oh... my insecurities returned as I headed back down into the bowels of the building for my afternoon workshop session: who in their right mind would choose me in a basement, over ice cream and sunshine?
How lovely then, to open the door and be met by a room stuffed full of eager faces!
I did my usual talk, showing roughs and artwork etc, then read Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!, fresh off the press, and used that as a basis for a 'scary chase' workshop.
My dinosaur flip chart drawings are still a bit unpolished, but everybody pretended not to notice (thanks guys!). We designed a crazy 'dinosaur on a beach holiday' picture, adding all sorts of silly details, until there was no more space to cram in another thing. Then I set a quiz question about the story, to decide who got to take it home. Well done Izzy!
4 comments:
You are incredibly productive! Awesome!
Oh this granny would have LOVED to see your basement talk... or lobby... what fun...
Your blog is full of a great collection of stuff I especially like your traveling art. Your not gonna believe this but I was actually born in Sheffield, England I still have family there but I left when I was 4. I've done 2 children books myself and would love to do more in the future. How did you find all that work?
Whereabouts were you in Sheffield, do you remember?
Re finding work - it's about establishing a link with a publisher really. Once you've done one job, there's a greater chance they'll use you again, then again and so on.
Your paintings are lovely. One thing to bear in mind - make sure character's faces are friendly, cute and full of emotion for children's book work. It's all character driven so they are the real key to success!
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