I want to tell you about Monday, when I spent a lovely day at St Giles Primary School (here in Sheffield for once!).I was supposed to visit them back in October, but had to cancel when I lost my voice. This is the big drawback to visiting so many schools: I am exposed to so many different kids, I'm constantly getting ill.
And wouldn't you just know it - 2 days before St Giles came round again, I went down this new cold! I couldn't disappoint them a 2nd time, so got myself dosed up with paracetamol, packed a big bag of hankies and went for it!
I'm so pleased I did. All the children remembered me from a visit last year and were so lovely.
Y5 did these amazing dragon drawings. I'd read them Dragon's Dinner and they asked me to show them how to draw a cute, baby dragon instead of a fierce one. I explained how to use round shapes to soften a character, and how babies' heads are much bigger than adults', so drawing a big head makes a character look cuter.
I had fellow illustrator Jo Mincher shadowing me for the morning, who was brilliant with the kids (thanks for your help Jo!). I wanted Jo to observe two very different sessions, so with Y6 I did a workshop where we twinned various animals with professions, to create funny combinations for character illustrations. Again, the children did some fabulous work and came up with all sorts of interesting ideas (octopus hairdressers, gorilla lolly-pop ladies, elephant astronauts...)
We finished off with a quick group story, about a Prime Minister who was addicted to Coca Cola, drank the country dry, and so had to invade America to take over their Coke factory. Class brainstorming brings out the funniest ideas!
St Giles was my last school visit of the year: what a lovely one to go out on. And thank you to everyone for being so patient with my foul snottiness. I'm feeling quite a bit better now, thanks goodness.
3 comments:
What a great way to spend a day... I love childrens drawings, they seem to nail it first time without trying! Sorry it's been a while since I last looked at your blog but I really like the clandestine sketches in public places, you make it look so easy. Also glad to see you liked the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris (the high point of my trip... it's free (no getting ripped off like seems to happen so much in Paris... free drinking water and great big leather couches... almost deserted, a beautiful building, not to mention the fantastic collection too of course!). By all means make use of the lower eye lid 'trick', I'm sure I absorbed it from somewhere else, probably Ren & Stimpy :) Thanks so much for checking out the blog.
Thanks Matt.
Do you know yet which poem is going to provide the cover image for your book? They seem to be getting stronger and stronger as you go along! I do like that muted palette you've been using.
These kids drawings are just awesome. You must get so much pleasure seeing them create such masterpieces.
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