Judith Kerr & Shirley Hughes in conversation at the Society of Authors

So glad I braved wet, windy London (streets jam-packed last night due to a tube strike) to see Judith Kerr and Shirley Hughes in conversation at the Society of Authors. Feel I should share some nuggets for those that couldn't make it.  A big thanks to the Society of Authors for making it happen!

left to right Shirley Hughes, host Ann Sebba and Judith Kerr

Born in 1923 and 1927 respectively, with many classic picture books to their names,  these two world famous author-illustrators could be resting on their laurels but far from it.  They are still very much working, excited by future projects.  Such lively, lateral thinkers, such wit and emotional intelligence!  A true inspiration for us all.

I've been to so many talks by prize-winning picture book authors and illustrators at SCBWI conferences and such  Often, and perhaps surprisingly, picture book authors avoid any reference to their child audience in their speeches.  Some even assert that they don't think of kids at all, creating for themselves or for their own child selves. This talk stood out in that both Kerr and Hughes clearly related to their main readership - children - as well as to their own childhood.  

How did they come up with characters?    Shirley Hughes said it all came from sketchbooks. Alfie, the perennial pre-schooler just appeared fully formed in a sketch, and was very anxious to get into a story. She was conscious that Alfie's books are for an age group that can't yet read so a good deal of the story is in the pictures.  His friend Bernard,  she said, is the kind of kid, she said that only a mother could love, the kind who at 16 will get the girl.  They struggle with things that all young children struggle with, doing up laces, leaving their comfort blanket behind to go to a party... Less about her own children, Hughes would  lurk in parks watching and drawing kids move, "how they run and scatter like starlings..."

Judith Kerr

Kerr's characters were first inspired by cat.  She'd longed for a cat as a child and couldn't have one until she had grown up and settled down.  Mog was the first of nine cats she has had, including a truly weird cat who hated heights.
 The Tiger who came to tea was her only book which started with the story.  She told it to her daughter every night long before she wrote it down.  And when she and her daughter went to London Zoo, they didn't think of tigers biting but just marvelled at their orange stripes.  It's good said Kerr to include things you like drawing in stories. Do avoid writing about things you don't enjoy drawing!   Kerr confessed she killed Mog off after 16 books, before she informed her publisher.

What of their experience of war time?  Judith Kerr's novel,  When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit is based on  her own childhood fleeing Germany to Switzerland then France and London during the Blitz. Her life-affirming child's perspective offsets the underlying gloom of her family's situation. When they fled to Paris, Judith told her father that she enjoyed being a refugee.

Shirley Hughes found childhood on Merseyside during the Blitz extremely boring if not frightening at times.  Barbed wire, not much to do.  She escaped into stories.  I look forward to reading Shirley Hughes's novel Hero on a Bicycle. Inspired by a true story, it's set in Florence during WW2.    Hughes is delighted what the internet can do thanks to a site that provides children and anyone interested with more historical background to the story.

What of the business, the process?  Both said they started by analyzing other picture books, copying out and counting out pages, though Judith confessed she counted wrong at first.  Both said how lucky they are to have great editors - how important the partnership is.  Judith Kerr confessed that she dropped her agent when she told her she was "using too much paper" to write a story, and since then has used the Society of Authors legal advisors to check over her contracts.

Kerr touched a familiar chord in me, talking of the worry when you finish a book - what next?  The casting about for ideas...how to get it right?  It takes a long time.  And unless the story is right, it's hard to draw.  

Shirley Hughes appreciated the Society of Authors for the community it offered in what is an otherwise pretty solitary profession. And when she was on the S of A committee in the 1970s, she had defended illustrators' rights in getting equal payment for library loans from the Public Lending Right - thank you Shirley Hughes!

Back to children. Shirley Hughes read out some priceless letters from children and really appreciated teachers encouraging children to send them.  One boy wrote "Dear Shirley Huge (sic) - I think your books are great but my friend doesn't like them. Are you published wildly (sic) abroad?"
Shirley ended by turning the roomful of us authors into children. I was lucky enough to be sitting in the front row to see her draw to a rhyming ditty about Oswald and Jessie who were terribly messy...

I felt like a kid leaving a party.  And now I'll show off my going-away gifts to myself with signed plates in them by each author.

 Judith Kerr's Creatures starts
"There are drawings and there are illustrations.  I first discovered the difference aged four and a half at my German kindergarten".
Coming up to her 90th birthday  the book is a big treasure trove whic tells the full and amply illustrated story of her life and work from childhood to her 'last years': roughs, manuscripts, photos and illustrations, fabric designs, cat sketches, oils, thumbnails...

And I can't wait to read Shirley Hughes and daughter Clara Vuillaumy's  beautifully designed and illustrated chapter book, Dixie O'Day In the Fast Lane.

 How much fun it has been, Hughes said, to come up with ideas with her daughter Clara.  There are more books to come.
When the young Clara  came home from school, she would use up the discarded watercolour from her mum's palette.  In short she'd provide the tools but leave her to get on with her own thing. My own artist father did the same thing.   Clara's illustrations are very different from her mother's - plus she can draw cars which Shirley Hughes does not like drawing.
Their work and Judith Kerr's too is bursting with vitality, wit, generosity.  Their conversation was testament to that too. Precious ingredients for picture book creators!

Got to dance with Tate Publishing and Bologna and all.

Got to dance, Tiz and Ott!

New contract signed with Tate Publishing UK for Tiz & Ott's Big Draw due Spring 2015.
More to post later...meanwhile just got to dance despite the rain!

Rain, rain - time for a rhyme!

Rain in London, floods out west.  Here are a couple of illustrations I've just done for Storybox magazine for young kids.

A belated "Bonne année!" with a bit of Bridget's Book of English.

Worked hard over the holidays and finished a lift-the-flap word book for young children for Bayard France. Bridget's Book of English is the French title. (Bridget with a French accent sounds like Brid-Jette and I'm told, sounds sweeter to a French ear than Brigitte).
I used coloured pencils for the first time in years. Here's a bit of the classroom scene for anyone who lands here who missed my earlier wishes!

Counting forwards day by day Advent calendar - and backwards month by month...

Whaaaaa!  Was it really June I was last here?   What happened?
Well here's an Advent Calendar game I designed a few years ago.

www.bridgetstrevens.com/advent/

Let me know if you can't open each day - on the right day.
Children might like to guess what's inside each present before they click on it.  If they jump ahead of the day, they'll get a pop-up which should animate.  I designed it some years ago and though I did not manage to change the old fonts as I'd like, it still works - thanks to my Sidney-based web hoster Simon Specker.  Since the late 1990s he has hosted me at Planet Homepage in exchange for having hosted him years before during his trip around Europe.

There's another advent calendar I helped the SCBWI Words and Pictures team  put together.   This one is new this year.  Have a look at our Society of Children's Book Writer and Illustrators' advent calendar which will grow day by day as a different illustrator is added on until December 25.

I haven't been idle since my last post in June.
And it's brought me two exciting new contracts, one French, one English for two very different picture books that I'm writing as well as am illustrating (more about those soon).

Time now to recapitulate the months I missed on this blog with a highlight or two per month.

July - an inspiring SCBWI Picture Book retreat with Helen Stephens and Gerry Turley in a dream location on the River Avon, alongside other authors and illustrators and visiting publishers from Egmont and Hodder.

August -  alongside the books I was working on a series of paintings for the Time for a Rhyme feature in Bayard's English Storybox Magazine.  Here's a glimpse of the first one for the September issue...

My son and I managed a week off and a long drive from London via Paris to the Lot to sketch scenery around Les Eyzies for another story I'm working on.

Incredible rock formations...quick crayon 

watercolour sketch in the heat

September - a dose of picture book dummy doctoring with fellow author-illustrator, the wonderful Sue Porter for a SCBWI BI illustrator masterclass we hope we gave fellow creators a fresh angle on their projects for picture books texts and images.

October  - A big sorting out and new storage in my home studio -  10 big wide smooth moving draws, and lots more shelf and desk space, built by a brilliant carpenter (contact me if you need a good one in London!)  and no less than 34  big delicious pears on my little Conference pear tree  which I  planted a year and a half ago, in my garden near Brick Lane.

November - work on my books, another commission for Highlights High Five, and a last minute charity sale to set up of SCBWI Showcase illustrator prints, at the SCBWI Winchester conference in aid of the Philippines Typhoon Appeal . An inspiring conference - a lot to take in but I had a moment to relax afterwards on the Eurostar to Paris for a working meeting with Bayard.
I managed to fit in the Grand Palais to see the huge Braque show.

No photos allowed - fortunately I had a few coloured pencils to record a thumbnail of
Braque's 1934 Still Life with Red Tablecloth

The Vallotton exhibition was huge and full of work I didn't know...Somehow the same day I managed an hour at the French kids book fair before the train back to London.

A couple of days later, this weekend, two seasonal fairs in South London with other CWISL authors and illustrators.  I read Mini Racer, at Feast Fair's CWISL stand today. The children coloured in snails on skateboards, and "dotty dog" cars and boy did we make tracks with them!

 There I've caught up with myself - not too late for December 1st and the Advent launch...and  just in time to make dinner - phew!

Inspiration from children's writing and illustrating at our CWISL Shoutsouth Festival

A spark to set us off from storyteller Margaret Bateson-Hill at the start of  Shoutsouth  

"There are some events you do that blow you away. Shoutsouth Festival was one of those."

So tweeted Margaret Bateson-Hill today after 3 days of writing and illustrating workshops with over ninety 8-13 year olds from a range of South London schools.
We're all part of a group called CWISL - published writers and illustrators promoting the love of reading, writing and illustration with children from all backgrounds. The children's stories and pictures will be published on CWISL's  Shoutsouth website when they are all scanned and typed.
Until then, here are some photos I took to keep me inspired!

I found this lost-looking man among the cuttings...

Designing book covers with my Leopard team

Mo directing  tableaus of emotions
as a prelude to our workshops

Writers Beverley Birch smiling
and Mo O'Hara inspiring kids

Helen (H L Dennis) centre showing off some covers that our 23 'Leopards' in my workshop
with two Leopards of different ages from different schools.

Author J L Buxton and ME  (ahem Bridget!)  with our Leopard display...pity our other Leopard leader
author Sara Grant couldn't be there today - some great stories to read online later! 

"Cold Joker" a great cover with a story behind it

Tissue paper helped  make this cover suitably mysterious

A cover by a WW2 expert aged around 8

Cover to a sad and gripping story
by another Leopard aged around 12

A collaborative cover and story with a political twist
  by two Primary schoolmates - 

The Panther team's display with "sharpie" focused drawings inspired by author -illustrator Gillian McClure's workshop.

The Lions' display with some covers inspired by author-illustrator Jane Porter's workshop

This cover from Jane's Lion workshop caught my eye! 

SCBWI illustrator Anne-Marie Perks got the Tiger team sculpting characters

Author Andrew Weale Master of Ceremonies entertaining at the grande finale

London South Bank University offered us workrooms and an auditorium, other sponsors like Rymans donated materials, but the hoped-for public grant didn't come through because of cuts.  So all the work that Carnegie shortlisted author, editor and CWISL founder Beverley Birch, and chair Sarah Mussi, and all of us others put into preparations, school visits and workshops, was entirely voluntary.

The week before many of us prepared for the Festival by visiting libraries and schools.
I loved Battersea Park Library and meeting fellow CWISL authors HL Dennis and Lydia Syson at Bessemer Grange School.  (Coincidentally I had just enjoyed reading Lydia's book "A World Between Us"  which starts with the battle at Cable Street which her grandfather had seen and ends with the Spanish Civil War battle of the Ebro which my Catalan uncle fought in aged 17.)

It was a commitment which meant a lot of time away my own writing and illustrating. However never have I felt more rewarded.  And humbled.  It was heartening to see kids of varying ages, backgrounds and schools work together - all thanks to books!
It's all here - what books can do for kids.

And to witness the energy the kids put into their work, the thought and dedication over 3 days was truly inspiring.  

What it's all about, really!

Feedback from one child : "I think Shoutsouth is a very eye-opening experience which reveals the work and success of illustrators and authors. You feel like a real author illustrator!"


I AGREE!

Creativity is letting your mind go wild, on the way to work. From Dallington School to Courtyard Studio

On my way to work last Thursday in Courtyard Studio in Clerkenwell, a window in Dallington Street caught my eye.
A builder nearby told me I was the third person that morning to stop and photograph it.  Despite the problem with the glass reflections I had to record the stunning variety of children's paintings and collages under a panel
"We asked 130  3-10 year olds What is Creativity?" 

The watercolours that first caught my eye in morning son (plus a reflection of the  builder...)

"A creative person is someone who creates things,
for example a guy who does plastic surgery is a creative person."

LEFT "A creative person has a rule you would most probably not have."
RIGHT " If someone is creative they make new things that have never existed before."

Collages by younger kids

Close up of above with reports of comments by younger kids - bottom left "A superhero with special powers.  It is going to be a three-eyed surperhero from the factory."

LEFT The Roman Empire was creative.  It created sandwiches, sewers and books!
RIGHT Creativity is letting your mind go wild.

I get to Panther House which is a warren of film, animation, design and illustration studios like our Courtyard Studio far left of Reception.
Surprised to see these metal stencils of intriguing texts lying near the entrance - cast offs?

In our studio  there was Viv Schwarz with her patchwork monster  - I asked her to sit on it,  like a flying carpet.
She says she often adds to it when moving house as she is at the moment...  

Some smaller metal stencils rescued from the bin  - and a parrot etc - near illustrator Jane Smith's desk.

Karen Littlewood's corner with  a life size Immi from her book.

Our old and friendly Grant Enlarger which helps us redraw at greater or lesser size,
That way, unlike with scanning, we can keep lines at the same pencil width.

On top of Grant sits a couple of mannequins near fabric designer Nicola Gregory 's corner.

Some inspiration on shelves behind my desk...
Adrian Taylor's art corner is behind my 'wall' on the right.

View from my desk over my wall to the kitchen corner  and the window
You can see  the skip where we find the odd treasure to recycle...