Saturday, September 10

CHILDREN'S BOOKS ILLUSTRATORS RULE....

I'm jumping ship... I wanna be an illustrator of children's books!! Yes, I'm being totally disloyal to my chosen profession as an author. But such was the calibre of illustrators at the Conference, even I could be turned! They included Anne Spudvilas, Greg Holfeld, Sarah David, Jeannie Baker, Leigh Hobbs and Freya Blackwood. 

Anne shared her wonderful artist's journals of charcoal and ink drawings she used while drawing The Peasant Prince.



Anne Spudvilas


Greg's talk focussed on Reading Pictures - picture books versus graphic novels (lots of audience participation too). 


Greg Holfeld


Sarah Davis
Sarah examined how text and image work together to create meaning and involved lots of practical hands-on activities that will help teachers and T-Ls to analyse and create visual narratives with students. 




Leigh Hobbs
Leigh focussed on creating unique characters and what to do with them. Lots of laughing!
Jeannie's workshop focussed on making collages and collage picture books as a medium of expression for children.
Jeannie Baker


I attended Freya's workshop. She shared how she created her gorgeous illustrations for Harry and Hopper and several other books. Freya even demonstrated her method of drawing a child so we could do it ourselves (well, attempt to do it ourselves). She's a very good teacher and we managed to produce something - my effort is at the bottom of this page (just the head as I didn't master body proportions, lol). A great workshop!
I wish I could take Freya home with me.


Freya Blackwood
It was a perfect day for beginning or developing illustrators to learn from some of Australia's best children's books illustrators. Where were you??


Pity the legs went off the page!
Here's my effort at illustrating in Freya Blackwood's workshop. I'm going to practice every day from now on ... when I finish that final draft, and tackle that other third draft and ...  

9 comments:

Lynn said...

I'm so jealous!

Tania McCartney said...

Waaaaa! I am prepping to be there for next year NOW! And PS: Sheryl, your drawing is amazing, but that's no surprise. x

Sheryl Gwyther said...

haha, that's a lovely compliment, Tania. You notice I didn't put in the legs! But I'm going to practice more on my gestural (?) drawing when I get home. :)

Sheryl Gwyther said...

Lynn, you would've been in 7th Heaven! It was amazing.

Anonymous said...

Always thought you should do a picture book Sheryl. Love your drawing.

Sheryl Gwyther said...

Thank you, Michael!! :)

Dee White said...

Great post, Sheryl.

Love your drawing and the day sounds like it was so inspiring:)

Sheryl Gwyther said...

Thanks, Dee. Exhausting BUT inspiring. Everyone has been so generous sharing their knowledge - the participants have been thrilled at what they're getting.

Angela Sunde. said...

I agree with Sheryl. It was the most inspiring bunch of illustrators to hang out with and learn from.