My studio is in a Leederville complex called The Ward, and on Nov 25th we’re having an open day!
Come see where I work and what I’m working on next. I’ll have prints from ‘The Last Viking’ for sale too.
Plus you’ll get to meet all the other amazing artists here: filmmakers, photographers, illustrators, painters, textile workers… it will be awesome.
Come down and say hi! We’ll be open from 2-5pm.
More info at Artsource’s website.
The Last Viking has won the Hoffman Award in the 2012 West Australian Young Readers’ Awards.
The Hoffman is awarded to the highest-ranked book by a West Australian creator (in this case, 2 creators!).
It sure is an honour to have kids pick and then vote for their favourite book. Thanks to all the WA young readers who voted, we couldn’t be happier.
One of the best parts of school visits is seeing the great ideas that schoolkids come up with. Here’s a bunch of viking god and goddesses, designed by students during children’s book week this year. 
God of Wind, by Tom 
Isabella the Goddess of Patterns, by Maddy 
Bothgolong, God of Fire, by Rohan 
A portrait of Thor that also folds up into a paper plane, by Christian 
This guy looks familiar… The God of Literature, by Catherine 
And finally, Optimus Prime, by Brayden. It’s not a viking god but it looks really cool.
That’s right- junior judges around Australia voted The Last Viking for winner of Early Childhood Book of the Year 2012.
The Junior Judges Project is a free online program offered to schools by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. It’s a great way to get your classroom interested in the shortlisted books, so if you’re a teacher, consider it for next year.
Norm and I were stunned to see the following Viking-inspired artwork from year 2s at Guildford Grammar in Western Australia.
There’s Viking helmets, self-portraits with rune-encoded titles, and longships all over the place! It’s no wonder they won an in-school Children’s Book Week competition for best classroom decorations.
Well done year 2s. This really made us smile 🙂
As part of my Children’s Book Month, I was invited to the Cocos Islands.
Yep. You heard right.
I was flown out to the middle of the Indian Ocean, to a beautiful tropical atoll, a ring of 26 islands of which only 2 are inhabited, and I was paid to be there and draw with groups of schoolkids.
My job is tops.
I spent the last week of August in Kalgoorlie, an old mining town in Western Australia’s goldfields. The Library hosted me, and I saw three school groups a day for 5 days.
I’d been to Kalgoorlie twice before but only ever briefly (my first visit was for year 7 camp back in 1994). This time around I got to explore it more, and also see the nearby towns of Coolgardie and Kambalda.
Out there I was struck by how big the sky was. Sometimes you can see all the way to the horizon with nothing in the way.
And a big pit- a superpit, in fact.
Children’s Book Week has become Children’s Book Term for me this year.
Thank you Mt Hawthorn Primary, Rockingham Library, Tranby College, Melville Libraries, Clarkson Library, Kwinana Library, South Perth Library, Manning Library and Subiaco Library for inviting me.
Some feedback from the sessions so far:
“Inspiring!”
“James’ wonderful storytelling captured everyone’s attention, great research and great activities.”
“Best Book Week session I have ever attended… Subiaco Primary School”
“The combination of drawing, history facts about Vikings and storytelling was fantastic and really captured the children’s attention and engaged them.”
Here’s some pieces of work that students gave me after the sessions. In one activity, I ask students to design their own viking god or goddess.
Earlier this year I worked with Alzheimer’s Australia on an interactive website.
The website shows how to adapt living environments for people with Alzheimer’s.
I did the illustrations for each living environment. The illustrations stretched my perspective skills (and vice versa- I stretched the perspective in quite a few of these!). Here’s some examples.
You can check out the Enabling Environments website here.
On July 30, my friends, family and the Perth SCBWI crew gathered at Beaufort Street Books to launch my new book In The Lion.
My cousin, author Jon Doust, launched the book. Thanks Jon!
Then on August 11th, we had a family day at Beaufort Street Books! It was an all-day extravaganza featuring:
Continue reading “In The Lion launch and family day”
James Foley 