Last day at Woodlands

It's another beautiful day at Woodlands as we countdown to the finish line at the Ipswich Festival of Children's Literature with only the Esk State School's Mini Writers' Festival tomorrow left.
Another 300 hundred school children rolled on to the Woodlands' site today and things were humming.


Today's line-up of authors, illustrators and storytellers included Michael Salmon, Aleesah Darlison, Clare McFadden, Meredith Costain, Lesley Reece, Sarah Davis, Leigh Hobbs, Tanya Batt, Sally Rippin, Kerry Brown, Michelle Pike, Chris Cheng and Lynelle Westlake.


Here're some of the images from today.

One of the many faces of storyteller, Tanya Batt

Sarah Davis captures the attention of squirmy Preps from Coominya State School.

Lesley Reece enthralls Years 2-3 with the story of 'Wolf's Sunday Dinner'.

Mr Peacock finally displays his finery when I have the camera with me.

The Book Garden's shop on site - better than a Lolly Shop (Candy Store).

Meredith Costain and her merry band of pirates.

Michael Salmon and the story of Bobo.

(Ed: Sorry for missing a post yesterday, I picked up the dreaded lurgy - a hazard when working with kids.)

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 ...  

The authors and illustrators go to Ipswich

Tatty Rat, Paige Turner and I headed down to Ipswich today to see authors and illustrators in action. Brilliant blue skies, cool breezes and the lovely art precinct of Ipswich! 

Tatty Rat's favourite illustrators today were Greg  and Narelle.

Kids from local schools headed to the Ipswich Civic Centre, the Community Art Gallery, the CWA Hall and the Masonic Lodge Hall (all within a 2 minute walk of each other) where Festival authors and illustrators had settled in for the day - like Andy Griffiths, Tristan Bancks, Greg Holfeld, James Moloney, Chris Bongers, Narelle Oliver, John Heffernan, Leigh Hobbs.

Andy Griffiths

Narelle Oliver talking about the Barking Owl

 Paige Turner went to everyone's sessions and decided all of the presenters were her favourite authors and illustrators. (Editor: very diplomatic is our Paige!)

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN...

Yes, it's all stations go here at the Ipswich Festival of Children's Literature. 

Over 13 schools with a combination total of around 1000 children have arrived. And the organisation is so good, everyone is in the right place at the right time! Even the resident peacock knows when to pose.

We've got Andy Griffiths making kids laugh their heads off.

Lucia Masciullo and happy kids.

Sally Rippin's funny monkeys! :)

Leigh Hobbs, Old Tom and all.

The quiet Festival bookshop before the kids arrive.

Tune in later for more!

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