SQUIGL Club – James Foley

I’m honoured to have some artwork included in the 2026 SQUIGL calendar! But the artwork isn’t just mine – it’s a collab between me and a kid living in regional Queensland called Will Thomas.

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I was given Will Thomas’ excellent whiteboard drawing of a toucan …

… which I worked up into a very scribbly rough …

… then a more detailed rough.

My next step was a colour test, which I liked …

… but once I had my final artwork together, I felt like mucking around with the colours.

I tried a purple background instead, which helped the toucan beaks to pop.

Finally I added a sunrise in the background and some shading, and voilá – the artwork was finished!

Big thanks to Will for the excellent initial drawing – I hope you like how it turned out!

More about the calendar

The 2026 SQUIGL Calendar is a fundraising initiative by Andy Geppert’s SQUIGL Club, an online drawing group for kids living in remote Queensland.

All calendar sales support sending these remote community kids to visit regional writers’ festivals run by Somerset Storyfest.

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SQUIGL Club is an awesome online drawing group for kids in regional Queensland. It was developed by author-illustrator Andy Geppert along with Somerset Storyfest and the Longreach School of Distance Education.

Andy had a brilliant idea – let’s raise funds for regional kids to visit a writers festival, and let’s sell calendars to do it! Each month’s artwork is an artistic collaboration between a kid living on a remote property and a professional illustrator. The kids each drew a bird or a flying creature, then the illustrators worked it into a schmick piece of art.

And now you can take the artwork home with you! The 2026 SQUIGL Club Art Calendar looks great on kitchen walls, fridges – even dunny doors.

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Check out the illustrators involved: Niña Nill, Sami Bayly, Peter Cheong, Matt Stanton, Mandy Foot, Natasha Carty, Terry Whidborne, Tony Flowers, Brent Wilson, Kate Isobel Scott, Andy Geppert, and me!

All proceeds support literacy in regional communities by funding transport and tickets to regional Somerset Storyfest events in Longreach, St George, and Emerald.

Here’s a little bit about my piece for the calendar. I started off with Will Thomas’ excellent drawing of a toucan …