A storm of Dragons!

Over the past week I have been helping children from Cherry Hinton, Chatteris, Bar Hill and Cambridge to make colourful, crazily collaged, crafty dragons. We had a lot of fun at the library workshops, there were wings, claws and teeth and flames everywhere and the children created a spectacular array of fire-breathers! I’d like to say a very big thank you to Cambridgeshire libraries and to the lovely librarians who helped me with my dragon workshops. Another big thank you goes out to all the children who left their dragons behind so that the libraries could make Mythical Maze displays with them! Here is my dragon together with some of its new friends…

...a storm of dragons... — …a storm of dragons…

August 18, 2014 0

summer workshops

Next week is going to be a busy one for me with workshops in Cherry Hinton, Chatteris, Bar Hill and Cambridge Central libraries. I haven’t 100% worked out what I’m doing yet but it is very likely to involve cutting, sticking and generally having quite a lot of fun making monsters! The theme of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge is Mythical Maze so I’m going to be creating some monsters that haven’t been seen in a long, long time….Sort of like these guys:

August 7, 2014 0

Dragons at the Book Jam!

On the 7th June I am going to be taking part in the St Ives Book Jam for the third year running. The theme for this year’s summer reading challenge is “Mythical Maze” which has inspired me to want to make DRAGONS! This year I will be holding a collage and drawing workshop at 11am at the St Ives Library and the children who come along will be making dragons from all sorts of collage materials including glittery stuff and anything suitably dragony that we can make stick.

I will be writing a bit more about this before the event but for now here is a little dragony inspiration to be going on with from my book Ready, Steady, Ghost!

May 28, 2014 0

Owls and Pussycats at Cambridge Central Library

A few weeks ago I held two children’s workshops based around the tale of the Owl and the Pussycat. The first was in Cambridge Central Library and the second at Linton Library. They were both great sessions and the children came up with an amazing array of lovely pussy-cats, elegant fowls and beautiful pea green boats. I don’t think anyone went for a runcible spoon but never mind. Here are the pictures from the Cambridge workshop – Linton photos will follow very soon!

December 3, 2013 0

Jarrolds Fimo-fest!

On Saturday I had a Fimo demo in Jarrolds in Norwich – admittedly it’s a little early for Halloween but any excuse to start making ghosts and pumpkins is fine by me. I made the below steam-pumpkins to Staedtler’s secret recipe and this is my little ghost who glows in the dark….!

This beuatiful castle was the creation of one of my rather clever pupils on the day - nice work. — This beautiful castle was the creation of one of my rather clever pupils on the day – lovely work and the start of a much bigger project.

This is an example of another tutee's excellent efforts - full marks! — This is a fine example of another tutee’s excellent efforts – full marks Mia!

September 16, 2013 0

Elephant Card

Here is my new elephant design for Cards from Africa. Cards from Africa are a charitable company employing young, orphaned Rwandans to produce their handmade cards. This is my third card for them so I think they are going down well! This is my little elephant all made up.

February 22, 2013 0

Jarrolds Fimo Demo

I had a great time at my Fimo demo on Saturday! I spent the whole day showing the children how to model all manner of things from Christmas tree decorations to dragons, beads and fruit and veg! I really enjoy my Jarrolds demos, they have a lovely art department there and always make me feel very at home. Here are some snaps of me and the kids hard at work.

November 5, 2012 0

It’s all going a bit Christmassy around here…

These are some of the things I’ve been making ready for my Fimo demonstration at Jarrolds on Saturday. You may notice there’s a bit of a Christmas theme going on… Sorry, I know its only November – I just like making tree decorations! I have used lots of sparky “effect” Fimo here as well as seed beads and I picked out the patterns with a pin.

November 1, 2012 2

Absolutely terrifying Halloween Fimo creatures….!

Next weekend I’ll be holding a Fimo demonstration in the art department of Jarrolds department store in Norwich. In case you have never heard of Fimo, it is a polymer clay, which is to say a special kind of modelling clay which you can cook in the oven so that your models turn hard become permanent. Fimo is great stuff and I’ve been making things from it since I was a tiddler.

Fimo demos are always lots of fun as I show children and adults how to make all sorts of colourful creations from model animals to jewellery and everything in between. This weekend I will be limbering up my fimo fingers by making Christmas creatures for the demo, but for now here are some little horrors I made earlier…

October 27, 2012 0

Histon Library visit

A few weeks ago I paid a visit to Histon Library to do a colouring workshop with some of the children from the village. I drew big line drawings of some of the characters from my books such as Bertie from Ready, Steady, Ghost! and Evie and Ping from Ping! The children coloured and collaged until we had some lovely work to decorate the library with! Here is the Bertie-ghost picture we made together:

I particularly like the way you can see through Bertie to the footprints beyond! Nice work.

October 1, 2012 0