So here I am still finishing the Horrible Histories book, still drawing rats and it’s still raining. Two of those things I really like. Coming from Australia as I do, where summers tend to be summers, I’ll let you work out the one I DON’T like.
Luckily, drawing is pretty much an indoor sort of thing. So is writing. And so is talking about drawing and writing. So whatever the climate throws at us in September and October we’ll be OK for the Festival – downpour for Helen Dunmore or frozen for Michael Rosen – it won’t matter. The Bath Festival of Children’s Literature is weatherproof!
I was talking about drawing just last week when I was invited to St Michael’s Primary School in St Albans. It was a great day. I started by telling everyone a few historical horrible bits and then explained how the illustrations are done for the books – how a Horrible Histories drawing happens. Then we just mucked around and drew some silly faces together – because I think that’s the most important thing about drawing – having fun. Never get too worried about it not looking ‘right’. If you have fun you’ll keep drawing and if you keep drawing you’ll get better anyway.
Like those rats I’m drawing at the moment – there’s fifty of them! I started a bit slowly but now I’m on rat number twenty-two they’re getting easier. So you can see what I’m doing, here’s rat five. He’ll go at the top of the page about Hanibal and his elephants.
rough pencil sketch
pencil drawing
finished line (colour happens later)
So have fun drawing. Drawing well is fine but drawing lots is better. And that’s what we did at St Michaels. After lunch every classroom went cartoon crazy. What a brilliant way to spend a watery wet day – indoors.
Martin Brown
