What a delight and honour to be drawing alongside Serge Bloch at the South Ken Kids Festival 2016!  He is such an amazing artist across many genres, not only for children.  I first came across Serge's work in France when my kids were small.  My son loved the Max et Lilli series and later my daughter discovered Sam Sam in Bayard's French children's magazines.  

S

Stella started by introducing our work- here's one of my recent books from my recent French 'draw-along' series, Les Contes à Colorier...
 ..

and then we got going.  Here is my Tiz meeting Serge's cat...

in a restaurant as it turned out.  The audience suggested the menu...

Here's my left hand drawing a chef's hat on an alligator waiter.  No idea where he came from!  I always end up holding a sheaf of pens and brushes in my right hand. Serge stuck to his one pen.

Ott's turn to meet Serge Bloch's famous Sam Sam and his Sam Nounours

But Tiz is sticking her nose into the story again...

...and then the audience says 'draw London!'. Had no time to finish the London Eye...

A kid ask for a yeti (I drew a baby one) and then a witch - such a big bossy witch!  Serge's little witch is being much sweeter.

Vive the @SouthKenKids ! Impro w/ @ItamarBorochov @dc_litchfield @bridgimage Axel Scheffler Barroux & other amazing artists 

pic.twitter.com/nuUU9mWzhV

— Institut français UK (@ifru_london) November 20, 2016

The final drawing I did with Serge didn't make it on the big screen.  Instead I took it home with a  pillow that I bought on the way back, ready for a good nights sleep.

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Been doodling, sketching, and talking books this week -  in New York!
Before I left London, the delectably doodly site kidscandoodle asked me to debut a new 'Drawn' interview. Here's a sneak peek of just one answer.  See the rest here!

Then -  here I am in Brooklyn, looking at downtown Manhatten...
then off with Tiz and Ott and my first ever US event -  in Manhatten at the venerable children's book store, Bank Street Books

Tiz and Ott make their marks on the door of Bank Street Book Store!

Never worked with so many pre-schoolers as at Bank Street.  We all went dot dot dot with Tiz and Ott!

A carpetful of crayons.  "Ott could paint a cloud with his eyes closed"

After my own booksigning - what a delight to catch up with the hugely talented author-illustrator Tim Miller in the crowd - and have him sign his books for me!

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one palette of blue, yellow, magenta red and white poster paint

Armed with this substitute palette, a couple of brushes (one doing the job of a spatular and one for painting) and a long strip of paper to paint on,   the first aim was to mix as many colours - as possible out of the 3 primaries - including black or near black.  

Here are 4 vertical strips each by a different workshoppers showing how everyone comes up with their own  amazingly distinctive colour range (and brush marks) from the three primaries.  (Ott  from my book Tiz and Ott's Big Draw would be have been in his element!) 

4 vertical strips of colour made with 3 primaries. Adding some white extended the range of beautiful chromatic greys.

One adult told me how soothing they found it.  And in the concentrated atmosphere, as ever the children worked faster.  Adults were still creating colours while a 4 and 7 year old had already started creating characters.

We then looked again for inspiration at a wordless picture book by an unknown artist, following a child's imaginary journey.  Part of the Bethlem Museum of the Mind's collection, it is currently on show with some other amazing works in their current Youtopia exhibition.

The adults caught up with the kids, and created their own amazing characters...

exploring strange scenes...

and  familiar worlds,  here work by a 7 year old left and his dad (right)

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Lots to catch up with but first, a significant moment yesterday evening at Foyles - Katsumi Komagata's first talk ever in England and this coming weekend his first workshop open to all at the ELCAF festival. Big thanks to their European funded initiative that he has been able to make it to London at last!

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Just a quick taster of what we did at Tate Britain last Saturday.  Amazing artists from 3 to 10 years old and from all over the world made a special Tiz and Ott Gallery.   (A video of us all in action coming soon.)

Here's me in my mother, Julia Marzo's dress dating from the Seventies.   My 21 year old daughter suggested I could wear it at the Tate.  It was also my mother's birthday.  She would have been 92  - thank you mum!

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Big news this week! My latest book, Tiz and Ott's Big Draw (out earlier this year with Tate Publishing UK) hits US shelves via Abrams Books - here-  and already it has earned a Kirkus Star review!  
I can't wait to cross the pond next year to get drawing with kids in schools and bookstores there.

This week too, Tiz and Ott's Big Draw is also the London Culturetheque 'children's book of the week' - wow!  Next week I'm looking forward to  South Ken Kids events and school workshops in London.  If you are in London on Saturday November 21, come and see me, Axel Scheffler,  Beatrice Allemagna and other international illustrator-authors at the South Ken Kids Festival at the French Institute draw live on stage!

Meanwhile here is how Tiz and Ott are doing their bit to help inspire children to create their own characters and more...

Busy Tiz draws, Ott likes to take his time and dabble with paint and they get carried away. What really matters is how they connect - and the story they make together.  I wanted them to be simple and easy to draw so readers can focus on what THEY are drawing.   So before I wrote and illustrated Tiz and Ott's Big Draw I sketched Tiz and Ott obsessively.  I got to know them well enough to simplfy them.

Early character sketches for busy Tiz and dawdling Ott (©Bridget Marzo)

Tiz and Ott are basically simple shapes.  At the end of the book  Tiz and Ott show you how to draw or paint them, step by step.

Bridget sharing character drawing tips at St John's school Pop Up Peterborough in during 'Big Draw' October

In my story Tiz and Ott get stuck and in their very different ways,  draw themselves out of their own creative block.
For many older chidlren the 'I can't draw' syndrome is a killer phrase for creativity.  I often hear adults say it, and the damage often starts age 10 or so - with self-conscious comparisons to peers who CAN draw.  I like to share a simple remedy for this.  if  you know how to write' capital letters O, U and V and I - and dots - you can draw simple characters. Adults are often the most inhibited about drawing, and at family workshops it's fun to see young children take the lead for once in encouraging their parents.

I show how starting with big round O for a face, you can  construct characters, placing letters within and around the face in different directions.  The fun bit is ending with the dot of the eyes,  the pupils,  placing them carefully in a chosen area of their round eye sockets.

Looking at pupils - with pupils at the Pop Up Peterborough pilot at St John's School!

If you save the dots - the pupils - to the end - it really feels like  you are breathing life and drama into your character.
Giving a direction to a gaze with a dot can be one way into a story.
 You create a relationship between characters or reveal their view of the world. It's a device actors use. Follow a gaze - and see how a character connect  - or not -  to others or to what they are doing. And when you have met your 'quick draw' characters, story telling becomes easier  to create.  Here's an example for starters:

Young Charles informed me that Cherub (right) is looking at Bob because he wants to be friends but Bob is not interested - "you can tell from how he's looking up..."

Using my quick draw recipe,  my Big Draw October got rolling and literally on track at the Guardian Education Centre's Big Draw family day. New families arrived every hour to draw characters to fill the windows of Tiz and Ott's train which grew and grew. Sharing out some of my own favourite drawing gear including my favourite Pentel Brush Pens, children and adults created characters and 'graffited' the carriages with a range of marks inspired by Tiz and Ott's squiggles at the end of the book.

I asked the children as they finished, what were their characters thinking or saying?

Arabella told me "Bear is shy and doesn't know where to look when Rabbit  says hello and wants to meet him"

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Five books in 5 months is a record for me, even if 4 are in black and white and a series and not full picture book size.
Les Contes a Colorier are my adaptations of 4 fairy tales for kids to complete with their own drawing and colouring in... for French publishers Bayard Jeunesse.

Here's one of the covers I just finished.

The fifth book is an illustration commision for a picture book by a writer friend Addy Farmer.  The funded project will be for a literacy drive in North Lincolnshire schools.   I took it on for several reasons.  I liked Addy's rhythmic text, and I couldn't resist the chance of working with her  - and in schools directly concerned by the project.

And talking of schools...it's Big Draw month now so Tiz and Ott's Big Draw are taking me places!

First stop tomorrow
at the Guardian Kings Place big draw family day.
I will be there all day alongside a lot of wonderful artists and musicians too,  including Sally Kindberg, Rebecca Ashdown, cartoonist and comic writer Harry Venning, Posy Simonds and more - encouraging everyone else to wield pencils and brushes.

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Today was the last day of the Shoutsouth festival held at London Southbank University.
Over 3 amazing days over 15 of us children's book authors inspired over 100 children from schools all over South London to write and illustrate their own stories.  We all worked and played hard - the kids especially (so focused!), accompanying teachers and us Shoutsouth authors and illustrators and what wonderful stories and pictures came out of it!

In addition to a bigger team of writers,  6 of us illustrator-authors participated in Shoutsouth this year: Loretta Schauer, Amanda Lillywhite,  Deborah Allwright, Gillian McClure,  Sally Kindberg and me!

On Thursday I was asked to give a warm-up illustration session - and I managed to get over 100 children ages 8 - 12, plus their teachers, and other authors drawing characters.

Here's what everyone managed to do...

... in less than 20 minutes

Afterwards a teacher told me she hadn't realized she could draw a 'relationship' between characters until she did this simple exercise.  So it works for adults who aren't used to drawing,  as much as to kids who draw all the time. As I see it
1. If you can write O, U, Y and V, big and small, and draw dots, you can also draw simple animal or human characters.

2. With basic shapes, anyone can get two characters to 'connect' enough to spark a story.  Add dots to their eye sockets - to direct their focus - and you can get a story jump started.

3. Even the simplest drawings have a distinctive 'stamp' or handwriting to them.  Every single person in that room, young and old drew different characters.

4. Bottom line,  illustration is about communicating ideas and stories. It is not all just about skill or talent.

There's a handout based on this drawing exercise on my new site and do contact me if you are interested in me doing an event.

even experts like Sally Kindberg (author of the brilliant Draw It books published by Bloomsbury) had a go, alongside writers Mo O'Hara and Sara Grant

inspiration (here is writer Sara Grant sparking our Leopard team off!),

tips and lots of individual attention to their writing and drawing...

Here are just a few samples of our Leopard team's pictures. Hope to see more - and some of the brilliant stories the kids wrote  soon on ShoutAbout magazine for kids

Oh and a big thanks to the Shoutsouth bookseller Pea Green Books for inviting me to draw my multi-coloured Tiz and Ott on their tablecloth close to my books and  those by my friend Sally Kindbergs's  and above Curtis Jobling's - author of Bob the Builder and Wereworld!

As a children's book creator, spending time with kids is like a reality check after days in the studio.
I feel energized, with a renewed sense of commitment to what I am about!

(Love these characters from one of the kids in our first day character session!)

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Been a bit busy with various things, not least a deadline for four little books!

Right now I feel a bit like this early sketch for Tiz  & Ott's Big Draw - a couple of years ago - can it be?

And also a bit like the boy who cried 'Wolf'
But it takes time to publish a book - and to get it into the shops.

When I first thought of the little high energy scribbler called Tiz and the low energy dabbler called Ott, there were doodle books around.  A couple I had done myself for Bayard and the Tate .  But at that time were no stories about doodlers and scribblers and daubers like me -  and their daily struggles and leaps into other worlds in their heads.
Now there is a spate of wonderful books with stories about characters that create in different ways. Spirit of the times!

Anyway Tiz and Ott's Big Draw is now out with Tate publishing in UK bookshops and museum shops.  It will land on US bookstores in November 2015.

If by happy chance you are in London on June 4 please come and raise a glass to Tiz and Ott at my launch at Tales on Moon Lane.   You will find the details (plus!) in this drawn-to-music one minute video.  Big thanks to Ella Finch who filmed and timed my scribbles to music perfectly!

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In my previous post I talked about my first two days of talks and my kids workshop and school visit in Beijing. 
This time it is about serendipity - my new book and exploring Beijing.

After the first kid's drawing/story telling workshop at the Beijing Bookworm I go back to my beautiful zen hotel room at the Beijing  Opposite House (a room I'd like to take home!) 

I can't believe it.  In my room are two advance copies of my new book.  Juliette my designer at the Tate Publishing in London has organized a speedy delivery across China from the printers in Shanghai.

First thing I check is the gatefold.   The ladder works beautifully!  Tiz Ott's Big Draw is real at last -  and ready to hit the shelves in May 2015

Here I am in China - the  other end of the world from where I drew and endlessly grew those two little characters, gathering doubts then finally the courage to show it to the Tate. And the long wait for publication is almost over.  
I have to hurry to my planned meeting with Niu Shuo, the picture book publisher whom I met in our panel talk the first evening.   
She travels two hours across Beijing to show me her lovely books and catalogue. Now I can show her my latest too!

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Over Mongolia - on the way to China...

to our amazing hotel designed by a cool Japanese architect,  the Opposite House in Beijing. The hotel is one of the  Bookworm Festival sponsors and...

after a long flight from London the food and calm is like therapy before my first Bookworm panel talk that same evening with old friend, the  author-illustrator Frané Lessac over from Australia and...  Annette Oster, author publisher from Denmark, Olivia (Liu) Chang of SCBWI China and children's publisher Niu Shou. Next morning up early for my workshop for kids at the Bookworm library... about illustrating characters, focusing on eyes and expressions... to inspire stories and

...the youngest child there manages a whole story  in less than 20 minutes - beats me!

The following day up early for a long taxi ride through polluted Beijing, past the China TV centre which Beijingers nickname The Pants ...

to what looks pretty forbidding until

I go down the  path and hear birds calling in the spring sunshine

and hey, I am pinned up in the school entrance hall!

There's a lovely library and school to explore

and brilliant bilingual kid's self- portraits

and pictures with illustrated text in Chinese

and work by kindergartners (year of the sheep here!)

right up to posters by 11 year olds.  I love this one about recycling.

Though there wasn't much time for me get to work with two groups of 6-7s and 8-11 year olds,  both groups really drew and before they knew it were creating characters for stories.

Thank you kids and teachers at the happy bilingual Daystar Academy  where 90% of the children are Chinese and all are bilingual...

especially to Tahirih Senne-Linton for organising the day and showing me around the school's great Columbia reading and writing programme

Finally special applause to a 10 year old artist there called Lynn  who shyly handed me this brilliant portrait of me she did during my session!

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I've changed the look of my blog and header as today is the Chinese New Year -  of the Sheep! 

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Here's my illustrator's eye view from the Bayard stand, as armed with coloured pencils and stickers I got ready to sign my new book,  Bridget's Book of English  (That's the title my French publishers chose).  It's a large board book full of flaps and details - and English words - showing a funny furry family going through their day. On the back is a QR code and link to a site where I pronounce every word online - and be warned - I even sing the few songs in the the book.   How to sign a big shiny board book? Well I did a drawing on sticky-backed paper, stuck it onto the door on the right here alongside the name of the child and my signature.

 Regis Faller, the creator of Polo,  was signing just to my left.  Polo is the adventurous dog whose exploits feature in brilliant wordless comic books for pre-readers.  Polo is a big success in France and also won a prize in the US.  I told Regis that I was lucky enough to witness our Bayard editor Isabelle Bézard presenting it at our SCBWI Bologna conference some years back and as a result the great editor Neal Porter, of Roaring Brook bought the US rights for Polo.



At the 2011 Bayard stand at the fair, I signed my books alongside a very popular friend,  Hervé Tullet. Some of his books were on a table behind me.  Bayard sold coeditions to Tate UK/ Abrams US of my books and Herve's.  It was great to watch Hervé perform and interact with kids and adults of all ages at the Tate when I first moved back to London.  He is amazing - and he continues to create stunningly innovative books which are causing a stir in the US too.   Bayard published one of his first big doodle books in the same format as my Petites Mains Dessinent (The Big Book for Little Hands) which - hooray....

...has just been reprinted with a new cover in France. So I signed this book too.

Authors and illustrators were kept busy everywhere -  including comic artist Emile Bravo (I love his Trois Ours Nains series) in the middle here signing at the Seuil stand.

Art, doodles and drawing books were everywhere too this year - in books and on backcloths. Above is the Sarbacane stand which published one of my favourite books this year by Serge Bloch.  It felt appropriate that the art and new kids book publishers Thames & Hudson had a stand at Montreuil.  (Wish I had had enough battery left to photograph their wares!)

Wow- was the fair busy!  Nice that the Paris libraries had a suitably quiet corner stand of their own for kids and adults to relax in and  browse.

Monday, the last day is the 'professional' day, when more adults attend than kids. I wonder how many of the people here with their noses buried in books, are teachers and librarians buying their stock for the year. Ouch! My Iphone battery went flat too soon and I missed taking a photo of my other friend Marc Boutavant who was signing all over the place. Queues for him were huge so I will have to wait to get my latest Marc Boutavant treasures signed when I see him for another fun dinner chez lui or hey - let's get him to London.

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Does anyone other than a fellow illustrator, have any idea how long it can take to be 'fresh and spontaneous' on paper?

Just SOME of the Tiz & Ott trial covers above my desk - obsessive moi?

I have so many versions of the cover for my next book, Tiz and Ott's Big Draw  that are just not quite right in my own eyes - too stiff or too weak or just blah. Early this morning, in desperation, I totally redrew and re-painted the front cover, for the umpteenth time.  And this time it worked! The cover took less than an hour to finish. That said, days of struggle lay behind that short burst. By noon I was showing it to my lovely editor at the Tate and it worked for her too - oof!
Tate Publishing is right next door to Tate Britain so I popped in afterwards for another burst of the great Late Turnershow, Painting Set Free.  And me -  set free too!

So here I am, back on the blog, to share some good news and some work done this year.
I was so surprised and honoured to find that this picture from Tiz and Ott's Big Draw

Tiz and Ott brushed and doodled (...) scrawled and splattered.....and together they made their own way.... ©Bridget Marzo

was selected for the prestigious Association of Illustrators 2014 Shortlist in the children's book category.  Great company - including favourites like Katherina Manolessou, Nadia Shireen and my fellow SCBWI member Julia Woolf.
Chris Haughton was the category winner and deservedly so. By chance I had written about him not long before for Varoom - focusing on one of my favourite illustration topics, empathy.

My rainbow picture above has also been selected to tour with the juried Illustrator Showcase which opens at the SCBWI British Isles Conference in Winchester this Saturday November 1st.
A few prints will be on sale there for the charity War Child. It will then tour next summer to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle.

Oh and Bridget's Book of English is out with Bayard Jeunesse France.  Must do a proper web site page for it as soon as I have a moment. It's a book of 200 first English words following a furry family through the day with 30 lift-the flaps. This Saturday I'll be showing it at the SCBWI Mass Book Launch party.

In September I was asked to blog on the Words and Pictures  about working for children's magazines, just as I was finishing  illustrations to  a picture book length story in record time for Belles Histoires, the French children's magazine published by Bayard.
Here's what my studio wall looked like in July...

Roughs for Belles Histoires story 'Princesse Alice perd son dent' -  ink, brush and wash scanned in with texts

There are lots of cats in the story - that was the easy part - but I've never been asked to illustrate a spoilt princess  - a new challenge, let alone an indulgent king talking to a mouse - all in costume.

Last news but not least is I have broken my own record - I have given more creative workshops for children in schools, libraries and unusual places than ever before - and I love it.  But more about all that later!

My books ready for signing at the British Book in Paris - Bridget's Book of English and a reprint of Petites Mains Dessinent just out with a new blue cover

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Thank you Andrew Weale for introducing me and Chitra Soundar into the blog tour called My Writing Process! Andrew is a presenter as well as a writer extraordinaire.  I'll never forget how he entranced a theatre full of schoolchildren and teachers with his antics and stories at our CWISL Shoutsouth festival 2013.

World Book events, Bologna preparations and more had me stumbling last week when I should have grabbed the blog baton.  Woke up early this morning thinking it's not too late to stagger into action.
So here are my answers to the Blog tour questions:

rough sketch for endpapers for Tiz & Ott's Big Draw

Tiz in a hole pretend 'finished' spread from my sketchbook  - not the final version.

detail of a rough plan for what turned out to be Tiz & Ott's Big Draw.

Details of a page of text in my A4 sketchbook for Bridget's Book of English.

Two pages later into the Bridget's book sketches and I'm already pretending I'm doing the final book content...

Detail of the final artwork  - developed from the top left of previous sketch for Bridget's Book of English, Bayard France September 2014.

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Proposed cover for my flap book of first English words for Bayard, France

Barely landed from a wonderfully inspiring and long-saved up for trip to New York than I was off doing workshops with budding authors and illustrators under 10 years old, at the Chelsea Young Writers Group.
Then to talks for World Book Week at the brand new Artizan Street Library in the City, back near my home ground of East London.  Wonderfully attentive and interesting kids all of them!

So many children here, in East as well as West London, are recent immigrants.  I can relate to them.  I have an early memory of being in a French playground surrounded by children staring at me (at best looking concerned) because I couldn't understand them.  I think it's that feeling of being different, estranged, that made me want to come up with a book specfically about recognizing words through pictures. And a lift-the-flap book that's fun to play with, rather than a manual. I want the furry family of whatdyoucallems to be welcoming for any kid anywhere.  Can't wait to see the final maquette for this book when I go to the Bologna Book Fair in less than 2 weeks!

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So glad I braved wet, windy London (streets jam-packed last night due to a tube strike) to see Judith Kerr and Shirley Hughes in conversation at the Society of Authors. Feel I should share some nuggets for those that couldn't make it.  A big thanks to the Society of Authors for making it happen!

left to right Shirley Hughes, host Ann Sebba and Judith Kerr

Born in 1923 and 1927 respectively, with many classic picture books to their names,  these two world famous author-illustrators could be resting on their laurels but far from it.  They are still very much working, excited by future projects.  Such lively, lateral thinkers, such wit and emotional intelligence!  A true inspiration for us all.

I've been to so many talks by prize-winning picture book authors and illustrators at SCBWI conferences and such  Often, and perhaps surprisingly, picture book authors avoid any reference to their child audience in their speeches.  Some even assert that they don't think of kids at all, creating for themselves or for their own child selves. This talk stood out in that both Kerr and Hughes clearly related to their main readership - children - as well as to their own childhood.    
How did they come up with characters?    Shirley Hughes said it all came from sketchbooks. Alfie, the perennial pre-schooler just appeared fully formed in a sketch, and was very anxious to get into a story. She was conscious that Alfie's books are for an age group that can't yet read so a good deal of the story is in the pictures.  His friend Bernard,  she said, is the kind of kid, she said that only a mother could love, the kind who at 16 will get the girl.  They struggle with things that all young children struggle with, doing up laces, leaving their comfort blanket behind to go to a party... Less about her own children, Hughes would  lurk in parks watching and drawing kids move, "how they run and scatter like starlings..."

Judith Kerr

Kerr's characters were first inspired by cat.  She'd longed for a cat as a child and couldn't have one until she had grown up and settled down.  Mog was the first of nine cats she has had, including a truly weird cat who hated heights.
 The Tiger who came to tea was her only book which started with the story.  She told it to her daughter every night long before she wrote it down.  And when she and her daughter went to London Zoo, they didn't think of tigers biting but just marvelled at their orange stripes.  It's good said Kerr to include things you like drawing in stories. Do avoid writing about things you don't enjoy drawing!   Kerr confessed she killed Mog off after 16 books, before she informed her publisher.

What of their experience of war time?  Judith Kerr's novel,  When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit is based on  her own childhood fleeing Germany to Switzerland then France and London during the Blitz. Her life-affirming child's perspective offsets the underlying gloom of her family's situation. When they fled to Paris, Judith told her father that she enjoyed being a refugee.

Shirley Hughes found childhood on Merseyside during the Blitz extremely boring if not frightening at times.  Barbed wire, not much to do.  She escaped into stories.  I look forward to reading Shirley Hughes's novel Hero on a Bicycle. Inspired by a true story, it's set in Florence during WW2.    Hughes is delighted what the internet can do thanks to a site that provides children and anyone interested with more historical background to the story.

What of the business, the process?  Both said they started by analyzing other picture books, copying out and counting out pages, though Judith confessed she counted wrong at first.  Both said how lucky they are to have great editors - how important the partnership is.  Judith Kerr confessed that she dropped her agent when she told her she was "using too much paper" to write a story, and since then has used the Society of Authors legal advisors to check over her contracts. 

Kerr touched a familiar chord in me, talking of the worry when you finish a book - what next?  The casting about for ideas...how to get it right?  It takes a long time.  And unless the story is right, it's hard to draw.  

Shirley Hughes appreciated the Society of Authors for the community it offered in what is an otherwise pretty solitary profession. And when she was on the S of A committee in the 1970s, she had defended illustrators' rights in getting equal payment for library loans from the Public Lending Right - thank you Shirley Hughes!

Back to children. Shirley Hughes read out some priceless letters from children and really appreciated teachers encouraging children to send them.  One boy wrote "Dear Shirley Huge (sic) - I think your books are great but my friend doesn't like them. Are you published wildly (sic) abroad?"
Shirley ended by turning the roomful of us authors into children. I was lucky enough to be sitting in the front row to see her draw to a rhyming ditty about Oswald and Jessie who were terribly messy...



I felt like a kid leaving a party.  And now I'll show off my going-away gifts to myself with signed plates in them by each author.
 Judith Kerr's Creatures starts
"There are drawings and there are illustrations.  I first discovered the difference aged four and a half at my German kindergarten".
Coming up to her 90th birthday  the book is a big treasure trove whic tells the full and amply illustrated story of her life and work from childhood to her 'last years': roughs, manuscripts, photos and illustrations, fabric designs, cat sketches, oils, thumbnails...

And I can't wait to read Shirley Hughes and daughter Clara Vuillaumy's  beautifully designed and illustrated chapter book, Dixie O'Day In the Fast Lane.
 How much fun it has been, Hughes said, to come up with ideas with her daughter Clara.  There are more books to come.
When the young Clara  came home from school, she would use up the discarded watercolour from her mum's palette.  In short she'd provide the tools but leave her to get on with her own thing. My own artist father did the same thing.   Clara's illustrations are very different from her mother's - plus she can draw cars which Shirley Hughes does not like drawing.
Their work and Judith Kerr's too is bursting with vitality, wit, generosity.  Their conversation was testament to that too. Precious ingredients for picture book creators!

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Got to dance, Tiz and Ott!

New contract signed with Tate Publishing UK for Tiz & Ott's Big Draw due Spring 2015.
More to post later...meanwhile just got to dance despite the rain!

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Rain in London, floods out west.  Here are a couple of illustrations I've just done for Storybox magazine for young kids.

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Worked hard over the holidays and finished a lift-the-flap word book for young children for Bayard France. Bridget's Book of English is the French title. (Bridget with a French accent sounds like Brid-Jette and I'm told, sounds sweeter to a French ear than Brigitte).
I used coloured pencils for the first time in years. Here's a bit of the classroom scene for anyone who lands here who missed my earlier wishes!

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Whaaaaa!  Was it really June I was last here?   What happened?
Well here's an Advent Calendar game I designed a few years ago.

www.bridgetstrevens.com/advent/

Let me know if you can't open each day - on the right day.
Children might like to guess what's inside each present before they click on it.  If they jump ahead of the day, they'll get a pop-up which should animate.  I designed it some years ago and though I did not manage to change the old fonts as I'd like, it still works - thanks to my Sidney-based web hoster Simon Specker.  Since the late 1990s he has hosted me at Planet Homepage in exchange for having hosted him years before during his trip around Europe.

There's another advent calendar I helped the SCBWI Words and Pictures team  put together.   This one is new this year.  Have a look at our Society of Children's Book Writer and Illustrators' advent calendar which will grow day by day as a different illustrator is added on until December 25.

I haven't been idle since my last post in June.
And it's brought me two exciting new contracts, one French, one English for two very different picture books that I'm writing as well as am illustrating (more about those soon).

Time now to recapitulate the months I missed on this blog with a highlight or two per month.

July - an inspiring SCBWI Picture Book retreat with Helen Stephens and Gerry Turley in a dream location on the River Avon, alongside other authors and illustrators and visiting publishers from Egmont and Hodder.

August -  alongside the books I was working on a series of paintings for the Time for a Rhyme feature in Bayard's English Storybox Magazine.  Here's a glimpse of the first one for the September issue...
My son and I managed a week off and a long drive from London via Paris to the Lot to sketch scenery around Les Eyzies for another story I'm working on.

Incredible rock formations...quick crayon

watercolour sketch in the heat

September - a dose of picture book dummy doctoring with fellow author-illustrator, the wonderful Sue Porter for a SCBWI BI illustrator masterclass we hope we gave fellow creators a fresh angle on their projects for picture books texts and images.

October  - A big sorting out and new storage in my home studio -  10 big wide smooth moving draws, and lots more shelf and desk space, built by a brilliant carpenter (contact me if you need a good one in London!)  and no less than 34  big delicious pears on my little Conference pear tree  which I  planted a year and a half ago, in my garden near Brick Lane.

November - work on my books, another commission for Highlights High Five, and a last minute charity sale to set up of SCBWI Showcase illustrator prints, at the SCBWI Winchester conference in aid of the Philippines Typhoon Appeal . An inspiring conference - a lot to take in but I had a moment to relax afterwards on the Eurostar to Paris for a working meeting with Bayard.
I managed to fit in the Grand Palais to see the huge Braque show.

No photos allowed - fortunately I had a few coloured pencils to record a thumbnail of Braque's 1934 Still Life with Red Tablecloth

The Vallotton exhibition was huge and full of work I didn't know...Somehow the same day I managed an hour at the French kids book fair before the train back to London.

A couple of days later, this weekend, two seasonal fairs in South London with other CWISL authors and illustrators.  I read Mini Racer, at Feast Fair's CWISL stand today. The children coloured in snails on skateboards, and "dotty dog" cars and boy did we make tracks with them!

 There I've caught up with myself - not too late for December 1st and the Advent launch...and  just in time to make dinner - phew!

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A spark to set us off from storyteller Margaret Bateson-Hill at the start of  Shoutsouth

"There are some events you do that blow you away. Shoutsouth Festival was one of those."

So tweeted Margaret Bateson-Hill today after 3 days of writing and illustrating workshops with over ninety 8-13 year olds from a range of South London schools.
We're all part of a group called CWISL - published writers and illustrators promoting the love of reading, writing and illustration with children from all backgrounds. The children's stories and pictures will be published on CWISL's  Shoutsouth website when they are all scanned and typed.
Until then, here are some photos I took to keep me inspired!

I found this lost-looking man among the cuttings...

Designing book covers with my Leopard team

Mo directing  tableaus of emotions as a prelude to our workshops

Writers Beverley Birch smiling and Mo O'Hara inspiring kids

Helen (H L Dennis) centre showing off some covers that our 23 'Leopards' in my workshop with two Leopards of different ages from different schools.

Author J L Buxton and ME  (ahem Bridget!)  with our Leopard display...pity our other Leopard leader author Sara Grant couldn't be there today - some great stories to read online later!

"Cold Joker" a great cover with a story behind it

Tissue paper helped  make this cover suitably mysterious

A cover by a WW2 expert aged around 8

Cover to a sad and gripping story by another Leopard aged around 12

A collaborative cover and story with a political twist   by two Primary schoolmates -

The Panther team's display with "sharpie" focused drawings inspired by author -illustrator Gillian McClure's workshop.

The Lions' display with some covers inspired by author-illustrator Jane Porter's workshop

This cover from Jane's Lion workshop caught my eye!

SCBWI illustrator Anne-Marie Perks got the Tiger team sculpting characters

Author Andrew Weale Master of Ceremonies entertaining at the grande finale

London South Bank University offered us workrooms and an auditorium, other sponsors like Rymans donated materials, but the hoped-for public grant didn't come through because of cuts.  So all the work that Carnegie shortlisted author, editor and CWISL founder Beverley Birch, and chair Sarah Mussi, and all of us others put into preparations, school visits and workshops, was entirely voluntary. The week before many of us prepared for the Festival by visiting libraries and schools. I loved Battersea Park Library and meeting fellow CWISL authors HL Dennis and Lydia Syson at Bessemer Grange School.  (Coincidentally I had just enjoyed reading Lydia's book "A World Between Us"  which starts with the battle at Cable Street which her grandfather had seen and ends with the Spanish Civil War battle of the Ebro which my Catalan uncle fought in aged 17.) It was a commitment which meant a lot of time away my own writing and illustrating. However never have I felt more rewarded.  And humbled.  It was heartening to see kids of varying ages, backgrounds and schools work together - all thanks to books! It's all here - what books can do for kids. And to witness the energy the kids put into their work, the thought and dedication over 3 days was truly inspiring.   What it's all about, really!

Feedback from one child : "I think Shoutsouth is a very eye-opening experience which reveals the work and success of illustrators and authors. You feel like a real author illustrator!" I AGREE!

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On my way to work last Thursday in Courtyard Studio in Clerkenwell, a window in Dallington Street caught my eye.
A builder nearby told me I was the third person that morning to stop and photograph it.  Despite the problem with the glass reflections I had to record the stunning variety of children's paintings and collages under a panel
"We asked 130  3-10 year olds What is Creativity?" 

The watercolours that first caught my eye in morning son (plus a reflection of the  builder...)

"A creative person is someone who creates things, for example a guy who does plastic surgery is a creative person."

LEFT "A creative person has a rule you would most probably not have." RIGHT " If someone is creative they make new things that have never existed before."

Collages by younger kids

Close up of above with reports of comments by younger kids - bottom left "A superhero with special powers.  It is going to be a three-eyed surperhero from the factory."

LEFT The Roman Empire was creative.  It created sandwiches, sewers and books! RIGHT Creativity is letting your mind go wild.

I get to Panther House which is a warren of film, animation, design and illustration studios like our Courtyard Studio far left of Reception. Surprised to see these metal stencils of intriguing texts lying near the entrance - cast offs?

In our studio  there was Viv Schwarz with her patchwork monster  - I asked her to sit on it,  like a flying carpet. She says she often adds to it when moving house as she is at the moment...

Some inspiration on shelves behind my desk... Adrian Taylor's art corner is behind my 'wall' on the right.

View from my desk over my wall to the kitchen corner  and the window You can see  the skip where we find the odd treasure to recycle...

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