Seven Stories

I've visited the Seven Stories gallery in Newcastle several times in the past few weeks and thought I'd share some images of my experiences there in this post.

There are currently lovely exhibits of Judith Kerr and Enid Blyton's life and work, as well as a 'Picture Books in Progress' exhibition showing several illustrator's letters, sketches and dummy books. 

It was inspiring to see original pieces of work and the different processes the illustrators used from sketchbook to final artwork.

Tea with the tiger in the Judith Kerr exhibition!

Original artwork for 'The Tiger who came to Tea', one of my childhood favourites:

Picture books in progress: Dummy Books:

Author Event: Alex T Smith 08/03/14

I went with work colleagues to the Alex T Smith author event where he talked about the inspiration behind his stories and characters, and even did some live drawing for us of his pet dogs!

Alex talked us through a step-by-step method of how to draw Claude. Despite the simple instructions, as can be seen below, our results all ended up looking rather different…(and quite appalling) in comparison to his own doodle!

 

Photo by Holly Sterling

Alex was also kind enough to take the time for us to have a photo with him after having our books signed, Sir Bobblysock even got to make an appearance in the picture :)

'Ink and Drink' with Chris Haughton 10/03/14

Yesterday evening me and a few work colleagues went to the Ink and Drink event where Chris Haughton (author and illustrator) gave a presentation of his illustration work, children's books and fair-trade products.

He read us his new book 'Shh! We Have A Plan' which looks beautiful and has a lovely minimal blue colour palette with spots of bright colour for the bird character. 

We then all had a go drawing our own failed animal capture scenario on big sheets of paper. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of our table's efforts, which is probably as well, because the woman drawing next to me was such a good artist it made my attempt look rather pathetic!   

Fair-trade products of Chris's designs. I fell in love with the owl rug!

We got to have a peep at his sketchbooks which contained lots of wonderful scribblings, doodles and thumbnails for his books.

Chris's presentation was followed by a book signing where we each got to have a one-to-one chat with him which was awesome. I got some great advice on how to approach publishers and Chris also shared his experience of being a digital artist in amongst other children's illustrators using traditional media.

My signed books!

As well as the two books I got signed at the Seven Stories, I also bought some graphic novel books at the weekend from Travelling Man, my favourite shop in Newcastle.

It's been an inspiring few weeks and I've definitely been re-motivated to get some picture book and story ideas sketched out. Also can't wait to get stuck into the books I bought and have a play with the stickers we got from the 'Ink and Drink'!