The Travelling Workshop

Julie Hunt and Dale Newman have been visiting schools to share their work and inspiration with Tasmanian school children. Discover some of the imaginative and engaging activities that children have participated in and the powerful  mentoring these award winning children's book creators provided.

During Book Week, artist Dale Newman and I had the rare opportunity of travelling and working closely for days on end as we visited schools around Tasmania.

If a picture book is a conversation between words, images and the spaces in between, our journey was something similar. I see it as a week-long storyboard, the roughs for a comic strip in which children and book creators collaborate to create the beginning of multiple stories.

Squint - inspired by St Helen's District School students;
illustrated by Dale Newman

Our workshops evolved along the way and included live drawing, map-making and the creation of promising characters. Here’s Squint, a pavement artist invented by Grade 4/5 students at St Helens and drawn up by Dale under their instruction. He’s either an orphan who lives on the street or else a wealthy boy with a secret life who goes home each night to his family mansion. The students continue their various versions of the story after the workshop ends.  

A highlight of the week was the CBCA High Tea at Devonport. High winds and wild weather provided us with a power outage which made for a cosy atmosphere – candles, torchlight and no powerpoint (literally!).

The days were full of talk, stories and pictures and the after-school conversation would have continued into the evening if Dale had not been busy working to meet her deadline for our next book, Shoestring – The Boy Who Walks on Air. It was lovely going to sleep to the sound of drawing, the charcoal pencil moving across the page, and exciting to wake in the morning and see another finished illustration.

Dale Newman illustration for Shoestring - The Boy Who Walks on Air

Thank you to CBCA and the schools for inviting us!

Julie Hunt

Children's Author
W: http://www.juliehunt.com.au/

Dale Newman
Children's illustrator and artist
W: http://www.dalenewman.com.au/

                                                                    

Editor's Note: I was one of the privileged and highly entertained guests at the Book Week High Tea. What a memorable and delightful candlelit evening it was with both Julie and Dale sharing their inspiration and talents.