Here’s a FREE video that shows you how to draw Lena from my new picture book, There’s Something Weird About Lena !
Category: for teachers
Toffle Towers: old-school hand-lettering & a rocket-powered bus
Ever wondered how the title type for a series gets designed? I’ll show you my inspirations for the title type of the Toffle Towers series. I’ll also show you how I designed the series’ quirky shuttle bus vehicle.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: old-school hand-lettering & a rocket-powered bus”
Toffle Towers: designing a hotel interior
The Toffle Towers series takes place in and around the eponymous hotel – it’s historic, a bit shabby and definitely quirky. In this post I’ll show you how I designed the hotel’s lobby.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: designing a hotel interior”
Toffle Towers: how to draw Chegwin
Here’s a free step-by-step video tutorial, showing you how to draw the main character from Toffle Towers.
Toffle Towers: designing a hotel exterior
Many scenes in the Toffle Towers series happen in and around the eponymous hotel. So it was down to me – an illustrator with absolutely no architecture experience (!) – to design the exterior of the building. It needed to look historic, a little shabby but also exciting and quirky. Here’s how I designed it.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: designing a hotel exterior”
Toffle Towers: designing the cover
Ever wanted to know how a children’s book illustrator designs a book cover?
Toffle Towers: designing the characters
Designing characters is one of my favourite parts of the job. There are lots of little tricks and techniques you can use to design great characters – here’s how I do it.
Free online workshops in June
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Month of June: drawing demo and Q&A (for kids, ONLINE)
AVAILABLE: the month of June ***PLEASE NOTE – THIS WORKSHOP IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE***
COST: free!
Thanks to the City of Gosnells libraries for commissioning this session.
June 20: Character Design workshop – (for 10-17yo, ONLINE)
In this workshop participants learn how colour, shape, costume and body language all make great unique characters, and learn to design their own characters for their own stories. Thanks to Victoria Park library for organising this session.
A link will be sent to registered participants prior to the workshop for access.
WHEN: Saturday June 20th
TIMES: 1-2pm
WHERE: online
AGES: 10-17 yo
COST: free
BOOKINGS: essential, via the Victoria Park website.
Win $500 in prizes in the ‘Connecting Through Creativity’ competition
Calling all young creatives in Western Australia – it’s your time to shine and WIN up to $500 in prizes!
To explore how creativity can play a part in staying connected, Scribblers Festival and CBH Group have joined forces to launch a new visual storytelling competition: Connecting Through Creativity.
Connecting Through Creativity – what’s it about?
Create your artistic response, to the theme Connectivity, in any visual method that inspires you! Some examples include 2D Arts (drawing, illustration, painting, collage, photography, comics, etc.); Video (video diary, performance, stop motion, interview, short film, etc.); and 3D Arts (ephemeral art, land art, sculpture, pop up books, etc.).
The competition is open to Primary and Secondary aged kids from ALL OVER Western Australia, with $500 in prizes up for grabs!
Want Some Inspiration?
I’m one of four ‘creative mentors’ helping the project (along with Cristy Burne, Beci Orpin and Remy Lai ) – we’re sharing tricks of the trade through a series of video and blog posts over the coming weeks. We’ll help guide you on your artistic journey with inside peeks to our own creative processes, how-tos, and answers to your burning questions.
I made a video for the competition about how being curious helps your creativity.
I also wrote a blog post about curiosity and creativity which you can find here.
How To Enter
Check out the official competition page on the Scribblers website for more info. Entries close June 26.
Good luck!
Free online comics workshop this Wednesday
Join me this Wednesday May 6th for a free online workshop called Writing and Illustrating Comics 101.
I’ll show you the basics of how to make your own comics. You’ll learn how to write and edit a script, design characters, and use speech bubbles to make a short comic story.
This workshop is provided by the State Library of NSW but is open to kids across Australia.
WHEN: Wednesday May 6th
TIMES: 8am-9am (WA time) / 10am-11am (Australian Eastern Standard Time)
WHERE: online (link provided when you register)
AGES: 8-12 yo
COST: free
BOOKINGS: essential. Click here to reserve your place.
