Last Sunday afternoon, I took the train to Cambridge. Actually, 3 trains - bit of a long haul. I nearly got stranded part way there too: overhead cables were down in Retford, all trains going south were suspended and, when I did get going, we spent so long sitting in the middle of nowhere that I had time to do this painting of the view:
It was worth the pain though, for several reasons:
1: I arrived to a home-cooked, Thai, veggie meal and a glass (actually 2 glasses) of wine with my hosts Mr and Mrs Clarke.
2: I was soon to sign squillions of books - hurrah!
3: Best of all, was the fantastic time I had in store next day, with the kids at St John's College School...
Yes, it's the Spring school-visits season and, as well as dancing the cancan with Y1, singing about dragons with Reception, rapping, burping and creating monsters with Y2 (plus of course, reading stories galore and drawing loads on the flip chart)...
... I was also called upon to judge 2 competitions.
The first was the 'Extreme Reading' photo prize. It's something lots of schools do for book week: kids have to bring in pictures of themselves reading in weird and wonderful places. There were so many really imaginative ones, we gave a prize to each year group. My favourites were a girl and her book inserted into the shell of a giant tortoise (how?), a small boy atop a princess-and-the-pea style tower of cushions, pretty much to the ceiling, and a brilliant action-shot of someone reading while turning a cartwheel!
I was also the judge of a Class Two at the Zoo illustration competition. All the children took part. This was the display of some of the hot favourites. Mrs Clarke did a great job - notice how the letters of my name are cut out of sections of Class Two at the Zoo illustrations:
I couldn't possibly choose one winner, so again, we awarded a separate prize for each year. All the winners got a signed copy of the book (with a drawing of the anaconda inside, of course).
Throughout the day, every Rec - KS1 child in the school bought a book, so I worked my socks off, signing in every spare minute.
I didn't mind at all though: it's great to sell so many, as it really helps to keep them in print. Plus, I was fed plenty of biscuits to keep my strength up. Posh ones too. I am a sucker for shortbread:
We finished the day with a PowerPoint talk to Y3 and Y4.
Everyone was so appreciative, I felt very loved. Mrs Clarke, who booked me, said it was the best author visit they had ever had, and they have had a few big names, so I came away glowing like the kid in the Readybrek commercial (remember that?). Here is Mrs Clarke in the library:
Fortunately my train journey home was a lot easier than the trip down. Plus, this time I had a stash of shortbread to keep me going!
A huge thank you to Mr and Mrs Clarke for their hospitality and to everyone at school, for making it such a fun day.
Don't forget kids: keep practising your drawing, because it's like magic - the more you do it, the better you get, until eventually you get so brilliant that you explode (that last bit is a fib, but the rest is true).
Just before Christmas, I had an email from a librarian working in Barnsley Children's Centre. She told me she was planning a course for local parents, teaching them how to create story sacks. She wanted my permission to use one of her favourite books, Class Two at the Zoo, to base the course around. How lovely! 
For those who don't know, a story sack is a bag you fill with all sorts of little props and ideas, relating to a favourite book, to help you to add value to storytime with your child. The bag might include a simple puppet to help you read the story, or activities that pick up immediately after finishing the book, like games or songs with a related theme, or props to help you retell the story together. It's basically the same kind of thing I use when I am doing a
storytelling with a school group.
I have come across libraries that make story sacks and lend them out with the books, but Jane in Barnsely wanted to empower parents to create their own - a great idea and good fun I should think.
The parents made sock puppets, bingo games, snap cards, laminated puppet masks and games of snakes and ladders. They also made copies of my illustrations, which they cut out and coloured in, re-creating background settings from the book with Velcro-on characters, to animate the story with their children.
All the parents ended up with a lovely story sack to take home and share with their child, as well as a certificate to say they had completed the course. Fantastic stuff.
If you have young children or grand children, why don't you have a go at creating a story sack? As long as you are not selling what you create, you are free to use any of the illustrations or ready-made activities, colouring sheets, step-by-step drawings you find on my website, either to creare props to add to one of my books, or someone elses.
I was sent a link to a little film last week, from a librarian all the way across the water, in Bighorn Library, in the USA.
I'll be honest, I hadn't realised that this year is Chinese Year of the Snake, but Rose Reid, the librarian in Bighorn, was on the ball. It was great that she selected Class Two at the Zoo as the perfect book to share with children, to celebrate (thank you Rose).
When I'm doing school visits or festivals, I always enjoy reading Class Two at the Zoo - Julia Jarman's rhyming texts are so playful to read aloud and the children always roar with laughter. It was definitely one of my favourites to illustrate too. I had a lot of fun thinking up different ways for the anaconda to gobble up the various children and drawing the reactions of the various other animals in the zoo!
In her film, Rose demonstrates a very simple, but very effective workshop activity too: how to create your own anaconda puppet to go with the story.
Take a look, especially if you are a librarian after a way to do some work around the Year of the Snake theme. There are other snake activities on my website too: a step-by-step guide to drawing the anaconda, a quiz to see how well you remember the story, an anaconda to colour in with your own pattern, plus a series of short films with lots of background information on how I create my books.
Have fun!
Last year, I was invited to create a small piece of artwork for a charity auction and exhibition, Stars on Canvas, in aid of the fantastic Willow Foundation. They sent me a little blank canvas last December but, since they didn't need it doing until June, I tucked it away on a shelf and... you guessed it: completely forgot it was there! They emailed me a couple of weeks ago and I felt really guilty, but luckily it turns out I am not too late.
Last time I did one of these, I had a bit of a disaster, because pastels don't really work on canvas. I ended up using oil pastels, but it was still not ideal. As it happens though, I recently bought myself some acrylic paints: I've been fancying having a go for a while.
Unfortunately I couldn't leap into action when I got my e-nudge from Willow: I was still frantically trying to get my Swap! artwork done, ready for Gullane to present at Frankfurt. That deadline has now passed and, though I am still working hard to get the rest of the artwork finished ASAP, I was able to steal a day this week, to get my little canvas done:
I chose an illustration from Class Two at the Zoo, as I thought that, since that book's been around a while and been on telly a fair bit, on Bookaboo, it might just be an image people would recognise, and so maybe fetch a bit more money at auction.
I decided to use the edges of the canvas to let people know what it was all about, but I have to say, painting the lettering took almost as long as the picture!! The project was really handy for getting a feel for acrylics though - it's my first try with them.
The idea is to sign the canvas and they sent a black marker pen, but I didn't want to put a great ugly signature across the front, so I initialled it in my normal way and signed the top edge instead. Hope that'll work for them.
There will be around 300 canvases in the auction, not just by artists and designers, but also by well known faces from the worlds of sport, music and entertainment. Bidding will open on 22nd November and closes on December 2nd (good timing for interesting Christmas presents perhaps..?). The auction culminates in a public exhibition at Maddox Arts, London W1, from November 29th until December 1st.
This is the 3rd Stars on Canvas auction. The first 2 events raised over £100,000 towards providing memorable experiences for people living with life-threatening conditions, such as cancer and motor neurone disease.
On Wednesday afternoon, I took the train down south. I was invited to spend Thursday at West Lodge Primary School in Pinner, but it was way too far for a day trip. Step forward the very kind Mrs Hurcum, who agreed to put me up the night before and cook me dinner.
Bright and early next morning, we battled our way though the remaining snow to school: a lovely, modern building, overlooking the frozen park. The children had been well prepared and had read loads of my books, and as we walked through the library I spotted the fabulous display at the top of this post!
And that was not all: Mrs Hurcum's Y1 class had taken assembly, acting out Class Two at the Zoo wearing animal hats they had made themselves. The hats and lots more great paintings had been made into another gorgeous display on their classroom wall:
By:
Lynne Chapman,
on 11/11/2011
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I had rather of a day of experimentation when I was out and about on Tuesday.
First up: I took a couple of the Derwent Inktense pencils and a waterbrush with me on the train to Wilmslow, for a change, to try new techniques. In the top sketch, I tried to be less tight and concentrate more on mark-making.
The man below clocked me drawing him immediately:
I didn't show him the sketch, since I wasn't sure he approved, but I showed the brother and sister in the notes. The little girl got out some colouring pencils of her own, so I dug out one of my bookmarks for them: another of those nice little experiences with strangers.
I seem to have been doing a lot of school visits lately - perhaps that's why I've had two colds in the last 3 weeks and am coughling like a 40-a-day smoker as we speak!
These pictures are from the delightful Hazel Grove Primary, where I worked with KS1 children all day.
During the storytellings with the littlest children, we rolled out long sheets of white paper and everyone worked together on massive illustrations. I read Stinky! to one class so we created the smelliest picture in the world (covered in fat flies). With a different class we did Class Two at the Zoo, so I drew the outline of a massively long anaconda and they all filled it
On Monday, once the final checks were done on this batch of my
Baby Goes Baaaa! illustrations, I spent the day at my computer, preparing various resources for
my exhibition in the summer.
Like the show I had in
Tameside in 2009, there will be far more than just framed artwork, but we're adding lots of new ideas to build on the previous exhibition. I've been beavering away creating more children's worksheets, and I've written lots of new information sheets to work alongside the images, much like this blog I suppose.
We think the new show will probably be called
'Llamas in Pyjamas', to link with
Lark in the Ark:
On Tuesday, I took the train to Salford to be shown round the gallery by Amy Goodwin, the curator, and to meet Dave Robinson, the man behind lots of new and exciting ideas for children's activities. He is not only going to create a massive ark, but build Mrs Duck's house from Big Big Wolf is Good, as a 'drawing den': Another fun plan of Dave's is to build an 'anaconda tunnel' along one wall under the pictures (he has ideas involving fabric, hoops, hardboard and sponge...), so that children can enter the snake at one end and emerge from a massive 3D mouth at the other. I am in awe!
For the adults, we want to create a film booth with seating, where people can watch videos of me talking about various aspects of my work, and we are going to put together some glass cabinets containing open sketchbooks, my book illustration roughs, tools of the trade etc.
5 Comments on Llamas in Pyjamas: My Illustration Exhibition, last added: 3/14/2011
Not a hill with berries, but Berry Hill Primary School in Mansfield. It's quite unusual for me to be doing school visits in January, yet this is the 2nd, not counting the lecture. 
And what a lovely school! All the children were really excited in advance and so they were all smashing sessions. I spent the whole day with KS1, and we had great fun with the stories.
I read Stinky!, which is a current fave, as I love getting them all to be the flies - 60 kids all buzzing together! I did my latest, Bears on the Stairs too, complete with rap poem (I even remembered the words this time!) and, of course, Class Two at the Zoo to Class Two. Plus, with Reception, we read An Itch to Scratch: I get them all singing, and scratching different bits of their bodies, to the tune of 'If You're Happy and You Know It', but changing 'happy' to 'itchy'!
They did great drawings too - nice to see children who are happy to do big images that fill the A3 paper edge to edge. The drawings here are the ones I did one the journey to Mansfield and back.
So many children bought signed books after school, that we ran out, so I have to spend most of this afternoon signing loads more, ready to post back to school - how lovely.
Thanks to everyone at Berry Hill - really nice to meet you all!
If you tuned into
CiTV on Nov 15th to see maisie Smith reading
Stinky! on
Bookaboo, you might have been confused to find
Julia Jarman's book,
Kisses Are Yuk! on instead.
Sorry about that - turns out that the Powers-That-Be changed the schedule dates, so it was on the following day instead. Duh! Hopefully you enjoyed Kisses Are Yuk! just as much (well, hopefully not quite as much...).
Anyway, if the shake-up meant you didn't manage to catch Stinky! the first time round, he is on again TODAY at 12.00pm and 3.15pm. 
The episode is also repeated on Monday
Dec 20th, Thursday
Jan 6th at the same times, and then on Sunday
Jan 16th on ITV1 at 7.10am.
And not only that: if you live down-under in Oz, you can see both series 1 and 2 of Bookaboo on ABC2 on weekends at 08:00 from 4th December through to mid January, and on weekdays at 09:40 from 7th December. Which means you get to see the hunky Robson Green read Class Two at the Zoo as well!
So, no excuse for missing it this time!
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Lynne Chapman,
on 10/24/2010
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Remember the window display I'm working on for Sheffield city centre? Well, the roll of window vinyl came back from the printers on Friday. The courier arrived with a very heavy, very tall parcel - much taller than me. I couldn't wait to get it open!
The roll inside was 6ft wide and very, very long, so cumbersome in fact, that the only way to even unroll it, was over the dining table.
I then set about cutting out all the animals, to save time for the team at the other end. It was a bit tricky, as the vinyl kept flopping about, but it didn't take that long in the end.
It's all pretty exciting, as I'm imagining how dramatic they are going to look! The white is the backing paper, that peels off to leave clear, sticky-back plastic, much like the stuff we used to cover our books with, way back when.
This is stuck on to the inside of the window (apparently, you wipe the glass with soapy water first, which buys you re-positioning time), then another roll of white backing is stuck up behind the images, to make them more opaque and show up better.
If I've got it right, this then has to be cut to fit the animal shapes after they are actually up on the window, which sounds a pretty gruelling job. I will deliver them to the designer this week and then have to leave it to him and his team (which will be the hardest bit for me - I confess, I'm a bit of a control freak).
The publishers' sales reps are on the case, trying to arrange some kind of tie-in with the nearby Waterstones. Maybe an in-store event; not sure yet. I'll keep you posted and take LOTS of photos when it's done!
I enjoyed myself enormously at the end of last week: I have been working in Bakewell, a pretty village not that far from Sheffield, as part of a mini festival called The Write Stuff, organised by the local Lady Manners High School:
At my first event, with Y3 at Bakewell Methodist School, I was delighted to say hello to some children who had been to my storytellings before. We had a lively session: I read Class 2 at the Zoo and Stinky! and the children drew some extremely smelly animals!
The rest of my storytellings were housed in Lady Manners' fabulously massive library, with groups made up of children from all the neighbouring village schools. I did 6 sessions over 2 days, so to keep myself from going mad, I read different books for each and got the children to draw different things. We had some knock-out pirate pictures based on Class Three all at Sea.
The children were all fantastic. Thank you so much to Mrs Hetherington for letting us take over her library and for looking after me so well. It was great to have so much space to spread out, and to allow the children to draw nice, big pictures.
Yummy school dinners by the way!
Thanks too, to Simona for giving me a lift, and to Louisa for her mercy-dash to Longstone, when there was a mix-up about who needed to be where.
OK, when I say 'we', my role was, in truth, fairly minimal. What I really mean is, the wonderful Happy Films team that put together the CITV show Bookaboo won - and well done to them! My small claim to a tiny part of their fame, is that Class Two at the Zoo featured as one of the 13 episodes.
Bookaboo's victory as BEST CHILDREN’S PROGRAMME came at last week's Broadcast Awards. We were in prestigious company, pitted against emmy award-winning drama, Dustbin Baby, Scorpion Island, Horrible Histories and more. The win was a unanimous decision by the judges, who added that the show was “warm, and totally original” and "as appealing to the adult audience as it was to the children’s”.
Bookaboo also won the pre-school BAFTA award at the end of last year, proving that our friend the rock-drumming, book-loving puppy truly does appeal to children of all ages.
If you still haven't caught the show, do watch out for the repeats: the stories are all read by your favourite celebs, and they do a great job!
Remember Corby's crazy Big Draw event in October? They have invited me back for their Play on Words Festival in March so, if you missed out last time, you have another chance to catch a storytelling.
And this one will be EXTRA SPECIAL, because I will be doing the events together with Julia Jarman, author of Class Two at the Zoo, Class Three all at Sea and Kangaroo's Cancan Cafe!
Now, anyone who has met either of us will know that we are both inclined towards over-excitement, so, when we get together it's very lively and a lot of fun. As well as the stories, there will be pirate songs and cancan dancing, and everyone will get to draw, including me of course!If you want to join us, we will be performing on March 6th at Corby Library.
There will be 2 identical shows, aimed at 4 - 8 yr olds, from 11.00 - 12.30 and 1.30 - 3.00. Events are free, but you need to book a place by calling 01526 203 304, where you can also find out about all the other fun things that are going on for the festival, all over town: as well as loads of lovely storytelling, you can make a Gruffalo from felt, or weaving a story in willow - sounds fascinating!
I finished my article and I'm rather pleased with it - let's hope they are!
Since I'm referring to specific aspects of my illustrations, there need to be images alongside the text, and I'm told I can have 4 or 5, which is great. I have all my illustrations saved digitally (I always make sure I get a copy of the publisher's scans - very handy), so providing these is no problem.
Except... as the article is aimed at writers, I want to show how I've interpreted the text, so I need the story to appear on the illustrations, as in the actual books. Even more so with the image above from Class Two at the Zoo: an example to demonstrate how a more adventurous designer might incorporate text (great job Claire!).
But the words are obviously not on the original scans, and scanning the printed page gives poor quality illustrations. So to get the images you see here, I've had to fiddle about, scanning the books, then lifting off the text in Photoshop and pasting it on top of my original illustration scans: a bit of a pain. 
I suppose I shouldn't grumble: it is fantastic to have the means to do this so easily. I still remember when the dizzy heights of repro technology were letraset and a photocopier!
A brand new edition of Class Two at the Zoo will soon be available with a CD! We are really lucky to have bagged the brilliant Imelda Staunton to read the story.
The publisher has created these designs for the CD and case, re-using my illustrations from the original picture book. They emailed them to me for my approval: this is always done when my illustrations are re-used in a different format.
I've illustrated Chapter books, which have occasionally become talking books, such as the Broomstick series, but this is my first picture book in this format, and I'm chuffed to see our reptilian friend hob-nobbing with all these celebs: first Robson Green, now Imelda. Ssssssssssuper!
This new edition will be in the shops from November 5th, with the CD sold as a package with the picture book, UK price £7.99. I can't wait to hear it!
Saturday was the big opening day of my exhibition. Thank you SO much to all those who turned up to support me. And thank you to the gallery for the wine and nibbles!
This is me with the lovely Damian Harvey, author of An Itch to Scratch (as well as many other fab books, including the incredibly successful Robo-Runners series).
As well as the preview evening, the Funday celebrations proved a huge success, and the day was really buzzing. I hardly sat down from the moment we opened the doors!
I did storytellings throughout the day, and children played in the monkey's tea party area, based on Stinky!:
They could stick their heads through a hole in the wall to actually be one of the monkeys:
...and on the other side, they could be one of the children the anaconda ate in Class Two at the Zoo:
I am hoping that children might be inspired to try some illustrations of their own, so we created a drawing area, with ideas for things to try, including step-by-step guides to drawing characters from my books, like Giddy Goat (which I will eventually get around to putting on the website - promise!):
There are other silly activities, like stick-the-flies-on-Stinky, the baby warthog:
...and also a quiet reading area (below), with copies of my books for children to look at.
Throughout the day, children made Giddy Goat puppets and had their faces painted by one of the most impressive face-painters I've seen. I SO wish I'd had time to stop and take some pics to show you (these photos were all taken in the brief window, before the Private View really got going).
Apart from the face painting, the children's activities are a permanent part of the exhibition, but I don't want you to think it's just aimed at kids. For adult visitors, I have written a whole series of information sheets which are mounted on the walls between the pictures. These cover everything from why I choose to draw on pink paper and why wording must never appear on the illustrations, to anecdotes like the gorilla nipple debacle!
I'm thrilled by how the show has been set up - a massive thanks to Marie and Katie for all their help with the design, project management and the hard slog. I hope they are as proud of how it looks as I am.
The exhibition runs until November 7th, so there is plenty of time to see it if you missed the preview. It is at Tameside Central Art Gallery, above the library (postcode OL6 7SG). There are directions and details of how to get there here, or you can phone the gallery on 0161 342 2650.
Hope you enjoy it!
By:
Lynne Chapman,
on 7/10/2009
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The design of my exhibition space is being finalised this week. The work is all being framed, all the props are being made and the final layout decided.
We are now having mobiles of animals from Kangaroos Cancan Cafe instead of monkeys - I think the platypus and koala would be really funny. The monkeys are now part of a monkey's tea party instead, as in Stinky!, with fake food etc for children's play. This will combine nicely with the magnetic flies game. 
We are going to cut one monkey's face out, making a hole in the board, for children to stick their face through and be part if the party. If they stick their face through the other way, they will appear in the belly of the anaconda in Class Two at the Zoo.There is a new idea (inspired by something we saw at the Quentin Blake show) - a quiz board about dinosaurs, based on Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!, with round shapes you can twirl to reveal the answers.
I am a little disappointed that we are unable to include the ark now, with the little stuffed animals for the children to put into it. Some breakdown in communication meant that the publisher did not supply copies of Lark in the Ark for sale at the show, and so the curator has dropped the idea. Very frustrating! 
We are still going to have the reading area, which will be a mock-up of Smudge's sitting room, with pictures of Smudge and her friends on the wall in frames, and Smudge visible through a fake window, playing in the garden. Aaah...
And since Giddy Goat is part of the show's title, he is going to be stencilled on the walls around the exhibition, leaping from picture to picture, or balancing on top of frames!
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Lynne Chapman,
on 6/22/2009
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Some good news - the programme for the Edinburgh Festival is finally published, so I can tell you what I'm up to, without getting my knuckles rapped!
I'm really excited, as I've not been invited to Edinburgh for several years and then suddenly I'm asked to do 3 different events at once!
I start on Weds August 19th at 10am, with a re-run of Hay's A Lark in the Ark storytelling, with Peter Bently in our snazzy T-shirts.
After lunch it's another joint event, with author Julia Jarman, reading Class Three All at Sea and Class Two at the Zoo, at 1.30pm. We did a similar event a while ago in Lichfield, which was hilarious. You can see some photos in the Picture Gallery.
I have the rest of that day free to visit other events. I rather fancy a talk by Neil Gaiman, as I love his wonderfully dark work, and Gerald Scarfe is a must.
Next morning, on Thursday 20th at 10am, I am doing a storytelling on my own (though I will be kept company by Stinky! the baby warthog and his swarm of flies). There will of course be all the usual silliness, plus smelly songs and pongy drawings.
All my events are suitable for 4 - 8 yrs and cost £4. Tickets go on sale today. If you want to book a place visit the festival site or call 0845 373 5888.
By happy coincidence, my good friend Lydia Monks, also based in Sheffield, is doing events on the same days, reading her new book Eeeek, Mouse! (sequel to the wonderful Aaaarrggh, Spider!), so we will be able to travel together.
I will of course keep you posted about who they decide is going to be the wee, smelly warthog's new friend, and when it is scheduled to be broadcast.
These are great - and it must be so nice to see your story 'made' into a sack. I gave an author visit to a school recently, where they asked me to judge a Story Box competition whilst I was there. Same idea, just all held in a decorated shoe box! Parents and children had been hard at work, which made it incredibly difficult to choose the winners!
What a great idea, a story bag would be really useful for teaching English to small chldren too (something I often do here in Italy!)
Lynne, this is great isn't it... I love it.
I was in Prestatyn Library on Tuesday and there is a big picture of one of your warthogs on the wall following your visit (a couple of years ago I think)...
Ha ha - I have left warthogs all over the country and it is lovely when I revisit and see how they are cherished.
I hope it was a good one: every so often I do a rather wonky one, but it still goes on the wall and makes me cringe when I go again!
Great idea, a 'story bag'!
Thanks, Inge Leonora-den Ouden.