Illustrator's Workshop with Liz Million

Primary school pupils were not left out when the Doncaster Book Award committee organised some workshops to celebrate World Book Day.

Liz Million illustrates and writes children’s books and visits schools, libraries and museums all over the world to talk about her work and to show people how to draw. She came to Doncaster North CLC on 3rd March and in the morning met pupils from Bentley New Village, Tranmoor and Southfield primary schools.

Liz had us all in stitches talking about illustrating and how she invents her characters. Apparently she often makes faces at herself in the mirror, or talks out loud to herself so that she can see what her face does and can then use that to help her create a character! She showed us some of her books and explained how illustrators work with authors and publishers to put a book together.

After a break pupils got down to some real work, sketching along with Liz to show different expressions on face outlines. There were some hilarious results and everyone worked really hard! Then pupils went on to create their very own characters, building them up from the different body parts on the worksheets provided by Liz and colouring them with pencil crayons. There were some really stunning results and at the end we all got the chance to view everyone else’s work.

At the end of the workshop pupils had the opportunity to buy a copy of Liz’s books and she signed them all, drawing an individual character in each one. Everyone went home very happy, having enjoyed the workshop and having learned a lot about the life of a book illustrator.

In the afternoon Liz repeated the workshop with pupils from Branton St Wilfrid’s, Owston Park and Toll Bar primary schools with exactly the same success.

Artwork from the workshops will be on display at The Point Arts Centre in Doncaster from 1st April 2009.

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