JELLY-ROLLING IN THE CASBAH - the Festival Dinner

There's no doubt about organiser, Jenny Stubbs and her band of helpers at this Festival. They’re such a creative bunch! 

The theme for the Festival dinner on Saturday night was Moroccan, in honour of Jeannie Baker's book, Mirror. The main Marquee took on the appearance of a candle lit casbah, lots of silk scarves, pots of roses, belly-dancing (jelly-rolling), low cushioned couches and Moroccan backdrops. The only thing missing was a live camel. 

Around 70 guests dressed in costume - some highly inventive, ate, drank, talked, jelly-rolled (ask our MC, author, Josie Montano if you're not sure what that means) the night away.  

Josie Montano and Jenny Stubbs (Festival organiser)

Songster, Nadia Sunda and guitarist, Michael Fix entertained with fabulous medleys. The talented sister act, The Sunde Sisters, dressed in traditional Croatian costumes and sang a hilarious duo, Never on Sunde.

Nadia and Angela Sunde

A great celebration for all! I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Mark Wilson and friends

Tanya Batt and friends

Pamela with John Heffernan and Narelle Oliver

Josie Montano, Deb Abela, Narelle Oliver, Aleesah Darlison

Michael Fix and Nadia Sunde

Sheryl Gwyther, Jeannie Baker, Angela Sunde

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 ...  

ONE DAY ILLUSTRATION CONFERENCE

Coming to you LIVE from the Illustration Conference.

Mirror - Jeannie Baker
Today, participants gather in the Ipswich Civic Centre today for the 1-Day Illustration Conference -T/Librarians, writers, illustrators and children's book lovers.

First on the program this morning, was our Keynote Speaker, Jeannie Baker, illustrator-extraordinaire. Jeannie's books include the winner of a CBCA Award 2011, Mirror, Where the Rainforest Meets the Sea, The Story of Rosy Dock, The Hidden Forest, Home in the Sky, Belonging, Window, Home and many more. 

Jeannie's presentation included images from the makings of her wonderful books, the stories behind the books, her methods of working and most astonishing of all, her journey through Morocco (by bicycle) by herself.

This journey gave her the images, the inspiration and the Berber people she befriended, ate meals with and who opened their lives up to her - this became the focus of her award-winning story, Mirror. I had intended writing notes during this presentation, but I was so enthralled, I forgot to do it.

Here's a video of Jeannie's book, The Story of Rosy Dock. http://www.jeanniebaker.com/films_index.htm

And on .... more presenters from the Festival

Here're some more of the fabulous presenters at the Ipswich Kids Literature Festival.

Jeannie Baker - author and illustrator (Jeannie's work, Mirror, will be launched Saturday 3rd September at the Festival's official opening)

Kerry Brown - author 

Leigh Hobbs - author and illustrator (could've chosen a lovely picture of you, Leigh, but someone else pushed in!)


Lesley Reece - founding Director and Chairwoman of the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre  

John Heffernan - author