#PowerofPictures and connecting characters

This week I've been drawing and 'connecting characters' with students up north here...

with illustration students at Huddersfield University,

and down in South London for a book week at Smallwood Primary, Streatham - drawing characters with every single year group from Nursery to Year 6 (age 11).

 Here are some of Year 3's quick draw characters done in the hall at Smallwood Primary.
I ran one- hour workshops for whole Years 2- 6 plus  individual classes from Nursery to Year 1.
(Big thanks Smallwood's Literacy officer John Griffiths)

For every session we looked at the simplest tool that I use as a narrative illustrator in my own books to get characters really connecting to each other - or avoiding them: eye direction.

Som of my quick sketches to show (top) head - example of 3 simplified animals
(below) profiles showing a few simple ways to vary characters as springboards for stories

You could say it is about getting your characters to focus.  
Who is looking at whom (or not) and why and how? Such fun to see how a character comes to life when you place the dot of the pupils in a specific part of the eye socket!
The fun and stories really starts when you get that direction to a look. Then you can draw another character alongside, responding to that gaze - looking back or away. How do they feel about each other? Where will they look next?   It's a great springboard for story writing too as I've shown in more detail here. (And in a shorter quick tip here)

No matter how simple or elaborately drawn, how schematic or sophisticated it's amazing to see how a focused gaze brings a drawing to life.  "Like magic" as a Year 1 pupil told me, as she turned a round shape into a face and added a dot to the corner of each eye socket. 

Part of a Year 1 class  of 5 and 6 year olds in Smallwood - 45 minutes to
connect characters  (adding expressions).

Even some of the talented Huddersfield illustration students preparing final year books were struggling.  They tend to obsess on technique, the pressure to 'brand' your work or at the very least evoke an atmosphere.  It's so easy to forget how identifying with characters can help them and their readers to enter into and point the way (literally, you could say) through a story.

Coincidentally after this busy week I learnt about the #PowerofPictures initiative on Twitter.  Turns out that the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, the CLPE  in collaboration with Dr Sue Horner and Janet White have been doing some great research into the power of picture books over the past 3 years - with the help of some much-loved author-illustrator colleagues. 

Their report proves that 'getting under the skin' of characters in picture books can be useful for children in so many ways, well beyond 7 or 8 when kids are wrongly thought to be 'beyond' picture books. Many of us in publishing and in education know this but we have to convince others, especially parents anxious about their kids' reading level.   Here's to #PowerofPictures  - and the power of pupils (excuse the pun)!
But it's not just helping literacy levels. You could say it's  about encouraging the development of that bit of the brain that's crucial for the survival of the human race - empathy.

Here are a few glimpse of 'looks'  empathetic - and threatening - from some illustrations I did a while back
to Claire Clement's story that's just been published by Bayard France,  Le Doudou du Loup

Tiz and Ott's Big Draw in the USA, Culturetheque book of the week, and it's all about character and mark making!

Big news this week! My latest book, Tiz and Ott's Big Draw (out earlier this year with Tate Publishing UK) hits US shelves via Abrams Books - here-  and already it has earned a Kirkus Star review!  
I can't wait to cross the pond next year to get drawing with kids in schools and bookstores there.

This week too, Tiz and Ott's Big Draw is also the London Culturetheque 'children's book of the week' - wow!  Next week I'm looking forward to  South Ken Kids events and school workshops in London.  If you are in London on Saturday November 21, come and see me, Axel Scheffler,  Beatrice Allemagna and other international illustrator-authors at the South Ken Kids Festival at the French Institute draw live on stage!

Meanwhile here is how Tiz and Ott are doing their bit to help inspire children to create their own characters and more...

Busy Tiz draws, Ott likes to take his time and dabble with paint and they get carried away. What really matters is how they connect - and the story they make together.  I wanted them to be simple and easy to draw so readers can focus on what THEY are drawing.   So before I wrote and illustrated Tiz and Ott's Big Draw I sketched Tiz and Ott obsessively.  I got to know them well enough to simplfy them.

Early character sketches for busy Tiz and dawdling Ott (©Bridget Marzo)

Tiz and Ott are basically simple shapes. 
At the end of the book  Tiz and Ott show you how to draw or paint them, step by step.

Bridget sharing character drawing tips at St John's school Pop Up Peterborough in during 'Big Draw' October 

In my story Tiz and Ott get stuck and in their very different ways,  draw themselves out of their own creative block.
For many older chidlren the 'I can't draw' syndrome is a killer phrase for creativity.  I often hear adults say it, and the damage often starts age 10 or so - with self-conscious comparisons to peers who CAN draw.  I like to share a simple remedy for this.  if  you know how to write' capital letters O, U and V and I - and dots - you can draw simple characters. Adults are often the most inhibited about drawing, and at family workshops it's fun to see young children take the lead for once in encouraging their parents.

I show how starting with big round O for a face, you can  construct characters, placing letters within and around the face in different directions.  The fun bit is ending with the dot of the eyes,  the pupils,  placing them carefully in a chosen area of their round eye sockets.

Looking at pupils - with pupils at the Pop Up Peterborough pilot at St John's School!

If you save the dots - the pupils - to the end - it really feels like  you are breathing life and drama into your character.
Giving a direction to a gaze with a dot can be one way into a story.
 You create a relationship between characters or reveal their view of the world. It's a device actors use. Follow a gaze - and see how a character connect  - or not -  to others or to what they are doing. And when you have met your 'quick draw' characters, story telling becomes easier  to create.  Here's an example for starters:

Young Charles informed me that Cherub (right) is looking at Bob because he wants to be friends
but Bob is not interested - "you can tell from how he's looking up..."

Using my quick draw recipe,  my Big Draw October got rolling and literally on track at the Guardian Education Centre's Big Draw family day. New families arrived every hour to draw characters to fill the windows of Tiz and Ott's train which grew and grew. Sharing out some of my own favourite drawing gear including my favourite Pentel Brush Pens, children and adults created characters and 'graffited' the carriages with a range of marks inspired by Tiz and Ott's squiggles at the end of the book.

I asked the children as they finished, what were their characters thinking or saying?

Arabella told me "Bear is shy and doesn't know where to look when Rabbit 
says hello and wants to meet him"

Tiz and Ott's whacky trains full of characters,  grew and grew with drawings by children from 3 up, as well as by parents and grandparents.

For the Pop Up Peterborough festival I showed classes of 5 year olds about my work as an illustrator and author  - how I started with characters and mark making

Showing 5 year olds my sketchbook mark making and on screen
the final storm where Tiz and Ott  get carried away.

And Tiz and Ott's train travelled with me from London to the Isle of Wight then Peterborough.

  At  my workshop with Years 1 and 2 at St John's School, Peterborough
one hour allowed time for my presentation and for 5 year olds to get drawing...

...a long character train along the floor  St John's School, Peterborough

And here is another character train, along a clothes line across the class at  
Queen's Drive Infants School Peterborough

I love seeing how teachers work.  In different Peterborough classes teachers had used Tiz and Ott's story for all kinds of activities before I came - from story re-ordering to modelling a brick house, rainbows and mark-making.

These two characters reaching out, made me laugh - monkey is clearly more interested in baby while baby focuses on what is on his head!

Longer intensive workshops with 8-9 year olds at Nineacres school at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival  gave me time to  help children use their characters as springboards for folded picture book stories.  A big thank you the festival organizers,  teachers and all the brilliant children at Nineacres,  Gurnard and Northwood Schools for making me so welcome!

You can see some close-ups ofwork to see by Nineacres year 7 and 8s 
in the gallery slider of Kid's Corner on bridgetmarzo.com

Here's a dad displaying his instant characters at  myYouth Zone family workshop at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival (a penny for the guy down below!) 

See here  to read how a mixed group of 7 to 10 year olds too their animal characters further into stories for my 3 hour Chelsea Young Writers holiday workshop.

And there was a chance to use to Ott's favourite tools - paint and brushes to thanks librarian Rosemary Marchant at the Hillingdon Culture Bite family workshop in the happily thriving Ruislip Manor Library. After my quick draw character recipe we did mixed primary colours and white paint to create a huge variety of skin and fur colours. We had fun painting head shapes and then drew over or painted into the shapes to create another bunch of wierd and wonderful characters.  What a fun crew we created!

Can you see Tiz busy holding brushes in the midst of my Hillingdon Culture Bite workshop?  

More about the 3D printable 'Tiz pen and brush holder'  soon!

Last week these 'quick draw characters'  were generated by over 70  8-11 year old children from several schools, their teachers - and a few fellow authors too - at my plenary illustration  talk for CWISL's Shoutwest Festival at Brunel University.

Back on the blog!

Does anyone other than a fellow illustrator, have any idea how long it can take to be 'fresh and spontaneous' on paper?

Just SOME of the Tiz & Ott trial covers above my desk - obsessive moi? 

I did so many versions of the cover for my next book, TIZ AND OTT'S BIG DRAW  and there was always some (admittedly often tiny) thing that was just not quite right - a bit stiff, not fresh enough. Early this morning, in desperation, I totally redrew and re-painted the front cover, for the umpteenth time.  And this time it worked! The cover took less than an hour to finish. That said, days of struggle lay behind that short burst. By noon I was showing it to my lovely editor at the Tate and it worked for her too - oof!
Tate Publishing is right next door to Tate Britain so I popped in afterwards for another burst of the great Late Turnershow, Painting Set Free.  Talk about fresh!  Vortexes of light radiating out from storms and skies...

So here I am, back on the blog, to share some good news and some work done this year.
I was so surprised and honoured to find that this picture from TIZ AND OTT'S BIG DRAW

Tiz and Ott brushed and doodled (...) scrawled and splattered.....and together they made their own way....
TIZ AND OTT's BIG DRAW ©Bridget Marzo

was selected for the prestigious Association of Illustrators 2014 Shortlist in the children's book category.  Great company - including favourites like Katherina Manolessou, Nadia Shireen and my fellow SCBWI member Julia Woolf.
Chris Haughton was the category winner and deservedly so. By chance I had written about him not long before for Varoom - focusing on one of my favourite illustration topics, empathy.
This rainbow picture above has also been selected to tour with the juried Illustrator Showcase which opens at the SCBWI British Isles Conference in Winchester this Saturday November 1st.
A few prints will be on sale there for the charity War Child. It will then tour next summer to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle.

The rainbow follows the storm which Tiz and Ott whip up as they fight over their crayon and brush and get carried away.  When I painted this picture months back, I hadn't looked at a Turner storm since I was a teenager.  But something must have sunk in - not that I am comparing myself to the master I should add!

Tiz and Ott are carried away.  TIZ AND OTT's BIG DRAW ©Bridget Marzo

Oh and Bridget's Book of English is out with Bayard Jeunesse France.  This Saturday I'll be showing it at the SCBWI Mass Book Launch party.  It's a book of 200 first English words following a furry family through the day with 30 lift-the flaps - AND on the back there is a QR code link on line to me pronouncing every single word - I kind of sing a couple of songs too.  I'll create a proper web site page for it as soon as I have a moment and before I sign it at the French Children's Bookfair in Montreuil, Paris on Saturday November 29, 2014 and do a workshop for the Anglofun schools in Paris the following day.

In September I was asked to blog on the Words and Pictures  about working for children's magazines, just as I was finishing  illustrations to  a picture book length story in record time for Belles Histoires, the French children's magazine published by Bayard.
Here's what my studio wall looked like in July...

Roughs for Belles Histoires story 'Princesse Alice perd son dent' -  ink, brush and wash scanned in with texts 

There are lots of cats in the story - that was the easy part - but I've never been asked to illustrate a spoilt princess  - a new challenge, let alone an indulgent king talking to a mouse - all in costume.

Last news but not least is I have broken my own record doing more creative workshops than ever before with children this year in schools, libraries in and out of the UK - and I love it workshopping.  But more about all that later!

My books ready for signing at the British Book in Paris - Bridget's Book of English and a reprint of Petites Mains Dessinent just out with a new blue cover