Sparking creatvity
Last year I took part in Getting Paid To Draw, Mike Lowery's 8-week portfolio-building class for illustrators. I absolutely loved it, created new illustrations for my portfolio, and found it so brilliant to be learning again, like I was back at uni after so many years!
I started this year with The Good Ship's planning party, which was so good (doing a review of the good and the bad from 2024 - and then picking controllable goals for 2025).
My dream has always been to write and illustrate a picture book - so I've planned to do at least one workshop or online course a month to help me to write my own children's book.
So far I have loved it -
In January, I did a Domestika course with Ross Montgomery to explore the process of writing a fiction story for children. It was really fun thinking about how to write my story (and learning new things, and things I'd forgotten I knew!) - and it gave me quite a few ideas for stories.
I enjoyed the Orange Beak Studio talk with Harriet Birkinshaw, Chief Editor of Post Wave Books - especially her thoughts on bringing a personal touch and working on projects you feel very close to (and I discovered Marc Majewski's book; Butterfly Child - which is just beautiful).
I entered the Alice Corrie picture book writing competition, to force myself to write a full story and to submit it.
In February, I did Storytime with Jarvis: Let’s write a Children’s Picture Book - he's an amazing children’s book maker - and his idea workshop was totally brilliant.
I also did an another Orange Beak Studio talk with Mac Barnett - writing for children. I loved his outlook on making the reader work, so they're invested in the story.
And I entered my story into the competition! What's great about this is that I have never properly 'finished' a story before. And my plan is to illustrate the story - when I have the time to do this!
