Flew back to Melbourne briefly to run a day of school holiday workshops for Eastern Regional Libraries, who cover libraries throughout the Knox, Yarra Ranges and Maroondah shires. Thanks Janet for inviting me to be part of the library school holiday program! It was a fantastic day, kicking off with a morning workshop at Lilydale Library, then an afternoon session at my old Knox Festival haunt, Ferntree Gully Library. The theme was Totally Random Stuff, and as usual it was a delight helping to bring the children’s wild imaginings to life!
The Lilydale session was packed – 46 eager attendees, including a handful of brave parents. After gathering a few suggestions from the kids, I saw “tooth fairy” & “cave troll” and just couldnt resist – see result above! Now you know why parents tell kids not to stay awake for the tooth fairy….
I think this may have been a little too ugly for first thing in the morning, as a couple of girls began pleading for me to draw the “beagle” suggestion, which made me think of the old “pip pip, tally ho, ta-ra ta-ra”……you know, dapper english chaps poised at the fireplace…..one of the dads suggested I add a fox, another kid suggested a pipe, and the scene was set…..what I really love is the little improvised extras the kids added themselves:
As we hit the home stretch for the session, I did a multiple mash-up for the last drawing, including these suggestions: bilby, platypus, dragon & alien…at first it looked like the animals were fleeing from the alien, then I added the enormous mouth looming from the right, which gave the story an unexpected twist! Here’s my original, then check out the kids versions, they are fantastic!
After lunch I scooted across town to Ferntree Gully for Round 2! More very enthusiastic kids absolutely brimming with fantastic ideas – very inspiring! It was great to see some familiar faces from the workshop I did there in March of this year. We warmed up with something reasonably simple, combining the ideas of: duck, top hat, snake, little fluffy dog and tree…
Lastly we finished off with a funky rock elf – rock on! Huge thanks to all the kids who came, I had a ball! And thanks again to Eastern Regional Libraries, Janet Nolan plus Rowanne & Sue for helping to make the workshops such a success!