One Hundred Thousand Jumpers - illustrations for a children's book about adoption

One Hundred Thousand Jumpers: written by Rachel Braverman and designed by Erik Christopher. Front cover typography, and all illustrations by Amanda Lillywhite. A book for children about an adopted girl.

When Rachel Braverman told me that she was looking for an illustrator for her story about an adopted girl I was immediately interested, especially when she said it was based on the real experience of adoption. I have an adopted daughter who came to live with us at 27 months old (she is now 14) so I am aware of the unique challenges that many adopted children face and I know that it is hard to find books that show the difficulties and joys of their experiences in an easy to read format*.

When I read the story I was impressed, Rachel has explored the fears of a newly adopted child but it is an uplifting read. Becca (that's her on the cover) has just arrived at her adoptive home. She immediately builds a rapport with her ready-made older sister, Fallon, and the family cat, Oscar. However her relationship with her new mother, Mummy Mo, is more difficult. The story is about how Becca learns to trust that this will be her forever family. It's also about knitted jumpers, Mummy Mo is a keen knitter, hence the title.

One Hundred Thousand Jumpers was designed by Erik Christopher. It is available in Kindle and print versions on Amazon.

If you have any comments or questions about the book please feel free to contact me via this blog, Facebook or Twitter.

*I am aware of the Tracey Beaker stories of course and I think they are brilliant but they are a bit too long and complex for some readers. This book has twenty four story pages split into five chapters and each chapter has an illustration.

Halloween craft session - a step by step guide to making and decorating a witch's hat

My daughter's hairstyling doll wearing a finished witch's hat. The doll's head is probably similar in size to that of an 8-9 year old child but, because it ties on, the hat can be worn by older ages including adults.

A few days before Halloween I will be leading a craft session for a group of children and teenagers and have made witches hats for them to decorate. I'm writing this blog post because, though I found a lot of information about making a witch's hat online, I couldn't find a quick and cheap way of producing them - important when you need to make twelve and are on a budget. Also, because I made the hats in advance I needed a design that would fit everyone up to and including those with adult sized heads. So I came up with my own version of a witch's hat based on what I saw in various blogs.

Making a witch's hat 

Materials used to make each witch's hat:
2 sheets of A3 (297mm x 420mm) 220gsm (reasonably sturdy) matte black card
Double sided tape
PVA glue
Two lengths of 500mm ribbon (for ties)
Plus an HB pencil, a craft knife, a stapler, scissors, a compass and a ruler

The template for the cone of the witch's hat sitting on a sheet of A3 card waiting to be traced. It would be possible to make a taller hat but bear in mind this would have an impact on the circumference of the base if you are trying to fit within an A3 sheet.

The radius of my cone template is 215mm. To create a similar cone place the point of your compass on the bottom edge of the sheet 215mm in from the left edge, start your line on the lower left corner and keep going until you hit the right side of the sheet, then draw a straight line between that point and where the compass point had been.

Cut out your cone using a craft knife or scissors.

To make a brim for the hat use a radius of 88mm for the inner circle, the radius of the outer circle is around 148mm to fit within the width of an A3 sheet (297mm). To find the centre of your sheet of card draw diagonals from the corners that cross in the middle.

Once you've cut out your brim(s) bend your cone(s) into shape.

Some of the witch's hat cones I made.

Overlap the two straight edges of your cone by about 10mm at the base (because of the shape it won't overlap at the point but the overlap will gradually widen to the base). Secure the cones with double sided tape and a line of tape on the inside. If you are using thick card I recommend bending it into a tight cone a few times before taping it together so that it holds the shape well.

Next use a stapler to add ribbon ties either side of the hat to secure it to the wearers head.

I used pink ribbon because I happened to have a roll of it but you can use any colour you like. Attach a 500mm length on either side of the inside of each hat, with the smooth side of the staples facing inwards (to avoid catching on the wearer's hair) and at least 15mm up from the bottom edge.

Make scissor cuts all the way round the bottom edge of the cone roughly 15mm deep and 15mm apart.

The cutting measurements are for guidance, it's fine if the tabs are uneven - they'll be hidden by the brim.

After cutting the tabs on the bottom edge of the brim fold them outwards. Test that the brim fits the cone. Some of my hats were a tight fit but once the edge of the brim was softened with glue I was able to squidge them together. However you can enlarge the inner circle if necessary. Don't worry if there is a gap because the inner circle of the brim is a bit too big, it will be covered by a hat band later. The most important thing is that there is enough of an overlap between the tabs and the brim to be able to glue them together.

Next tuck the ribbon ties inside the hat and secure them out of the way with tape so they don't get covered in glue.

Run a line of glue along the top side of the tabs at the base of the cone.

Slide the brim over the cone on to the line of glue and leave to dry.

A witch's hat on a drying rack made out of a storage box and two rulers. I found that I needed to keep pressing the tabs down as the hat dried, you can see here that they had a tendency to pop up.

When the hat is dry unstick the ribbons so they hang down and you are ready to decorate.

The staples and any rough edges on the join between the cone and the brim will be covered later by decoration.

Halloween workshop - decorating a witch's hat

Materials used:
White pencil or crayon
Black card left over from the construction of the witch's hat
Wool
Crepe paper
Scrap fabric
Halloween stickers
Also scissors or a craft knife, a hole punch, glue and double sided tape

I used an ordinary white pencil to draw on the brim of the hat, I doodled little Halloween themed drawings such as spider webs and skulls but creating textures or writing would also look good. It is possible to draw on the cone as long as you support it from the inside with your hand as you draw.

The card I used for the witches hats had a matte surface that took white pencil very well.

Using scrap left over from the construction of the hat I cut out a little bat to dangle from the brim.

Here is a bat but spiders and skulls would also look good.

I made a hole in the brim and the bat using a hole punch and hung the the bat from the hat on a length of wool.

Then I made some hair.

I bought a packet of crepe paper that had nine different colours.

The easiest way I found to make the crepe paper hair was to use fairly small segments (120mm - 150mm wide) and to build up the hair bit by bit starting from one of the ribbon ties and ending at the other. Each crepe paper segment was cut into strips that ended around 30mm from the top edge and a strip of double sided tape to attach it to the hat.

Crepe paper hair in a variety of colours.

I plaited some segments together and tied them with lengths of wool. Then I created a hat band out of scrap material (crepe paper could be used instead) and stuck it to the hat with a couple of pieces of double sided tape. A final touch was a Halloween spider sticker.

Illustrated poster / cartoon abstract for a PhD thesis about stakeholder influence

For a summary of Mark Panton's research go to
www.sportbusinesscentre.com/news/birkbeck-sport-business-centres-mark-panton-on-stadium-led-regeneration

Mark Panton asked me to create a cartoon abstract for his PhD thesis "How do stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration?" for use online and as printed hand-outs. Comics and cartoons are increasingly being used in academia to support and/or impart information. In this case the cartoon is a small taste of the research, a lead in to the thesis.

The cartoon format allowed me to pack in a lot of information via the conversations between the characters. Using two different colour ways was a means of giving a flavour of the differences between the case studies relating to football stadiums in East Manchester (Manchester City Football Club) and Tottenham (Tottenham Hotspur Football Club) that Mark used in his research.

For a summary of the research go to the Birkbeck College, University of London, Sports Business Centre website  www.sportbusinesscentre.com/news/birkbeck-sport-business-centres-mark-panton-on-stadium-led-regeneration. Mark can be found on Twitter at @MarkLPanton.

One Hundred Thousand Jumpers - illustrations for a story about adoption

Front cover for One Hundred Thousand Jumpers by Rachel Braverman

It was a great pleasure to work on illustrations for Rachel Braverman's story about an adopted girl struggling to fit into her new family. The title comes from the theme of the book: Becca's adoptive mum is a keen knitter. The front cover is above and the first of the five black and white illustrations that appear on the story pages is below.

Becca is feeling unsettled in her new home and can't sleep.

The book is not yet in print, I'll update this post when it is. If you'd like further information about it you could contact me via this blog.

Comic making workshops for teenagers and adults at Barking Learning Centre, London

My poster for the workshops - feel free to print it off or share it.

From October 22 to November 26, on Saturdays from 11.30am to 1pm, I'll be leading a series of six workshops for teenagers and adults on the process of making comics.

Participants will be creating characters, storylines, worlds and scripts then they will make their own story in comic form. Beginners are welcome and you don't need to be good at drawing, I'll give you some tips to make the most of your skills. You might decide to make a comic strip, a zine or to start a graphic novel - the skills we'll be exploring apply to all formats of telling stories. If you need it you can have help coming up with a story idea. If you have created a comic before please feel free to bring it along.

We'll also be looking at the wide range of comics, zines and graphic novels already published. I'll bring along some from my own collection and will show the group books from the library.

The workshops are suitable for people who've never attempted to make a comic and/or with little experience of reading them. They are also suitable for those who've tried to make a comic and would like to develop their skills. This will also be an opportunity to meet people that share an interest in comics.

I'm an enthusiastic reader of comics, zines and graphic novels and occasionally write about some of my favourites on my Sequential Art blog. I started my creative career as a graphic designer then became a freelance illustrator and writer. I make comics such as Duck and Bear (a story about an illustrator and a writer). I am currently working on a graphic novel for adults based around the murder of my great grandmother and a commission for three illustrated stories which will be published in a book for children.

The workshops are free and materials will be supplied, if you'd like to come along please make sure to register at Eventbrite. The workshops are part of the LBBD Pen to Print festival. As mentioned before there are six workshops but you don't have to come to all of them or could try one and see how it goes.

If you have any questions you can contact the library by email or phone 020 8724 8722. You could also send a message to me via this blog or Twitter or Facebook (though do friend me first to make sure I receive it).

If you've missed the first couple of workshops but are interested in coming along to any of the others contact me one the links above. 

CWISL ShoutWest! storymaking festival for school children 2015

Margaret Bateson-Hill's compilation of photos from the ShoutWest! Festival 2015.

ShoutWest! was my second storymaking festival since joining CWISL earlier this year (the first was ShoutSouth!) held at Brunel University in West London with local schools taking part.

The children, illustrators and writers were divided up into three groups: Leopard, Tiger and Panther. I was with the Leopards along with writers Sara Grant, Cate Sampson and Jamie Buxton plus around 30 school children and their teachers.

For Margaret Bateson-Hill's storytelling, Mo O'Hara's drama and Bridget Marzo's illustration workshops the Panthers, Tigers and Leopards all got together.

Other workshops were done within individual groups: The Spark (getting story ideas), Character Passport, Spot the Plot and Mad, Murky & Moody.

The Character Passport session was my first chance to lead a CWISL workshop. I love talking about creating and developing characters so this was ideal for me. I spoke about the importance of characters, how the look of a character can tell us a lot about them including their backstory, how the choice of character can affect the story and drive it along. Then we worked on a character profile as a group and after that the children worked on profiles for characters in their stories. Some wonderful, and highly imaginative, work was done by the children - some of it will be available to view on CWISL's website for under 16s www.shoutaboutmagazine.com.

CWISL are already talking about the next ShoutWest! Festival to be held again at Brunel University in November 2016. I'm looking forward to it.

Illustration talk/workshop for Level 2 students at Lesoco College

Students working on their responses to the creative brief I gave them.

Earlier this week I went to Lewisham and Southwark College (Lesoco) in south London to talk to Level 2 students about my experiences as an illustrator and I also set them a creative brief task to create a character.

As arranged with their lecturer, Mary Campbell, I had two hours to talk. I decided to give an overview of:

• My education.
• My background in graphic design and animation.
• The many and varied clients and projects I have been involved with. (I had quite a large portfolio with me!)
• How I work with clients.
• Sources of illustration work.
• How to look for work.
• Publicizing your work.
• Useful education and training for self employed illustrators.
• Support groups and networks for illustrators.

That was a lot of talking and unfortunately I didn't realise I was starting to run over time until shortly before I had to finish. The students only had 20 minuttes or so to draw their responses to the character based creative brief I had given them. They were amazing, they all produced something and many of them managed to create interesting characters that would be viable.

The students are looking for work experience placements in illustration, design or related businesses, studios or agencies in London. If you can help please contact art and design lecturer Mary Campbell at the college or send a message to me and I'll pass it on.