Back yesterday from France, I had an amazing time and met some amazing people!
I arrived to the little Village of Books, Montolieu which is in the south of France close to Carasonne. Straight into workshops in the School! I gave my workshops through a mixture of French and the international language of illustration... no words required. It didn't really matter that my french was pretty bad. I did an interesting thing with Penni Cotton the organiser. We asked the children to tell the story in french without anyone reading the words. So it was the children's interpretation of my images. It was hilarious! We 'read' The Ravenous Beast this way and they were pretty close to the mark.
On Saturday I met some great people that were also taking part in the Book Festival. We all gave a talk on our work along with other writers, academics and the Mayor too!
Gunter an illustrator from Belgium.
And Sabien and her sister Dorine who were last spotted heading off down a hill towards Toulouse 100km away on their fold up bikes!
On Monday I did some more workshops with the really little ones. their teacher Magali was amazing! Bonjour Magali! I drew Hugglewugs with the children for about an hour. Some little ones as young as three did amazing drawings. Once we all starting drawing and looking at the images in my books the language barrier did not exist anymore. There was a lively discussion and lots of questions for me. It was really wonderful. I will post up the photos later...
