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Tag Archives: Craig Smith
Presenting – the Lockyer Arts Festival
Can’t remember when I’ve had so much creative fun with such a fantastic group of multitalented folk! 13th to 16th January we arrived in from all over – WA, NT, Vic and ‘locals’ Christian and self. We were housed in the Gatton Motel, a leg stretch away from the main venue, not that we needed to walk. We were chauffeur driven everywhere by local Minibus/taxi owner Sue.
This is the door to my room, the non-existent No. 13, on 13th January, a Friday, how lucky can you get! Interesting how many places omit room 13, floor 13 etc etc. Do folk really think we are so bound by superstition and hangovers from the dark ages that we will eschew a room or a whole floor just because of a place in a numeric sequence? Evidently it is so.
Presenting
Craig and I had joint sessions with small groups of ardent attendees in a series of workshops. All interacted with us freely and kept us on our toes with their questions.
We started with a draft of my story about the cow that swam the Brisbane river during the January 2011 floods. It was over 700 words [too long for a picture book] but gave the background Craig needed to locate the story and characterise the little cow. This is a link to a newspaper article about her amazing survival swim.
It was a revelation and a privilege to work with Craig one on one as he sketched out his visual thoughts on the story with me reading excerpts and the audience interspersing with comments. I cut swathes from the text as Craig’s expert hand created wonderful image after image.
This is a glimpse of the creation process –
- A view of the Brisbane Rive in flood provided by Kim Byron from her newspaper collection on the event.
- Craig working on a charcoal image of the little cow. He has a strong feel for movement and can create a whole range of emotions with sometimes the barely there addition of a line or a smudge.
I love the way illustrators climb into the visual universe of a story. Text says a family is sitting in a kitchen. The illustrator will look over their shoulders, look out the window, go out into the next room, climb the stairs to the attic or down to the yard and see where the house is located in a community.
[more coming… I just need to sleep now…]
Animals, animation, Australian Children's Book Awards, Australian Poetry, books, children, children's books, children's literature, children's stories, children's verse, creative arts, creative writing workshops, drawing, e-books, Education, Fiction, Gloria Benjamin Yates, grief, humorous poetry, humour, illustration, imagery, inspiration, Library resource, Literacy, loss, memoirs, narrative verse, non fiction, nonsense verse, numeracy, performance, picture books, Poetry, Reading, Short Story, sick children, Speech and Drama, story books, Teacher Resource, teen fiction, toys, Uncategorized, verse, YA, young adult fiction Christian Bocquee, cow, Craig Smith, Danette, Hetty Verolme, J R Poulter, J.R.McRae, Leonie Norrington, Lindsay Pow, Lola Berry, Marlish Glorie, Michael Salmon