Week 1: Authors communicate through words - artists communicate through colours. I feel very fortunate this week after launching a six week partnership with a Leeds primary school. Working with twelve of Year 4's finest, we will be exploring the creative processes of authors and artists using as a stimulus, The Island by Armin Greder. The book's beautiful but haunting pictures provide the perfect context for discussing how illustrators use colour to develop and change the mood of a text. Children discussed the emotions associated with primary and secondary colours and were surprised to discover they have both negative and positive connotations. Using Rothko's colour panels as a guide, the first group developed 'mood boards' using warm and cool colours. I was impressed with how they could discuss the significance of the colours they had chosen. Year 4's Rothko-esque colour mood boards The second group went further and used colours to indicate the c...

This workshop was an excellent introduction to empathy in children's literature and a great way for children to explore the skills and processes used by real author-illustrators.   What a great way to end the week! Spending some creative time with some Year 4 children at their school in Leeds today! Today, we got our teeth into the curious tale of Little Beauty  by Anthony Browne. Not all is as it seems at this 'special' zoo - home to one lonely but talented primate. With a comfortable arm chair, flat screen TV and with tea and burgers on-demand, this gorilla might seem to have it all. But the one thing he is missing is a true friend. Enchanting! A brilliant charcoal drawing of gorilla with a very effective painted background! Comparing the lifestyle, diet and habitat of this special gorilla with the REAL mountain gorillas of Central Africa, the children produced some excellent writing. They even turned their hand to some mixed media artwork to give our gorilla...

Our first workshop started yesterday with children from a Year 4 class from an inner-city primary school in Leeds. The ' On the Outside ' workshop is a six week masterclass in developing creativity through art and writing and is built around The Island a captivating picture book by Armin Greder. The children loved it and reflected that they had learned lots of new things in such a short space of time. Roll on next week! Follow the 'WORKSHOPS' tab to find details of this session.