Archives and learning

Beth, our Learning and Participation Coordinator at Seven Stories, explains why #archivesrock. She uses our collections to inspire children to love books, to love writing and drawing, and to feel confident to create.

As Learning and Participation Coordinator, using material from the Seven Stories archive is my favourite part of my job!

Although we hold some sumptuous final illustrations and masterfully crafted typescripts in our archive, for me the magic of our collection material is that a lot of it ISN’T perfect. Because Seven Stories collects all items relating to the process of creating a book, our Collection Team treats scribbles, crumpled research articles, notes, scruffy sketches, incomplete letters and coffee-stained manuscripts from authors and illustrators with just as much special care as their final printed books.

DA/02/01/06 - Manuscript notes on the plot, characters and setting for 'My Dad's a Birdman' by David Almond. ©Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books. 

One of my highlights has been sharing David Almond notes and Polly Dunbar’s artwork for My Dad’s a Birdman with teachers. When education professionals see the ‘mess’ that goes into creating a seemingly perfect finished book, they often have a lightbulb moment about how to approach creative writing or arts activities with their classes. I remember one teacher saying during a professional development session - “we’ve been teaching it all wrong, haven’t we?”   I think she meant that there can be too much expectation on children and young people to create something that is perfect first time, when actually the true creative process is surprising & full of tangles along the way!

Photograph ©Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books. 

However, the best reactions often come from children and young people themselves. During one partnership project, we used Michael Rosen’s notes and scribbles to inspire children in their own creative writing. When they saw that he had jotted down funny poem ideas on the backs of torn envelopes and letters from his child’s school, it opened their eyes to the real lives of writers and changed their perception of what ‘proper’ writing is. In that way, the archive material helps children to see that being a confident writer is achievable and that there is no right or wrong way to approach writing for pleasure.

MR/01/08 - Draft material  by Micheal Rosen relating to various poems first published in 'The Hypnotiser' in 1988.  ©Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books. 

Pictures created when illustrators were children can also be hugely inspiring. Judith Kerr’s childhood drawings from her time as a refugee during WWII, which were carefully protected by her mother during the years that the family travelled through Europe, are a perfect example of this – when children see the pictures it is as though they have a window into Judith’s life. They can see that she is not an untouchable celebrity but a warm human being, who was once 11 years old and interested in drawing exactly the kind of things that they are interested in. The fact that these original children’s drawings are so many years old makes the children gasp, but so does the fact that they are considered to be special enough to be framed in a gallery. It’s a powerful realisation. The 11-year-old children have a new confidence when later on we ask them to create their own illustrations telling the story of their own life.

Inspired by Judith Kerr. Photograph ©Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books. 

When school groups visit us at Seven Stories, we ask them to look closely at the collection material in our exhibitions and to share what it tells them about how authors and illustrators work. They tell us that it’s brilliant to see that even ‘real’ writers make mistakes. We agree, it is brilliant – after all, mistakes help you learn! At the end of our sessions we ask the children and young people, “Would you like to have an exhibition at Seven Stories one day?”

Photograph ©Damien Wootten for Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books. 

It’s an important question, and we listen carefully to their answers, because (if they make enough mistakes, and keep their notes and sketches safe)…who’s to say that they won’t?

- Beth Coverdale

Explore our archives and join in the #exploreachives conversation.  Join us on Twitter, and Instagram using the handle @7stories and on Facebook by searching for 'Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books'.

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or leave a comment. 

Hartlepool Festival of Illustration

Seven Stories have been happy to be involved in a brand new event around illustration in the North East - the Hartlepool Festival of Illustration.

Working with the festival organisers, we loaned several pieces of artwork from the Seven Stories Collection to an exhibition held at Hartlepool Art Gallery. Artwork from the below has all been on display alongside additional loaned works from Chris Riddell, Sara Ogilvie and John McCrea, amongst others. 

• Edward Ardizzone
• Shirley Hughes
• Polly Dunbar
• Sarah Garland
• Angela Barrett
• Helen Craig
• John Burningham

As part of the festival, we have also been out on a whirlwind tour of the local area, working with an amazing 730 participants over 10 days. The sessions took place in nine primary schools, one college of further education and in Hartlepool Art Gallery itself. Lynn hosted a spectacular 29 illustration workshops over this time - and is now on a well deserved holiday! This is what she has to say about the experience:

Having completed a two week residency in Hartlepool schools, I feel very privileged to have been involved with such an exciting outreach programme, using original materials from the Seven Stories Collection to help inspire the next generation of illustrators and designers.

Knowing that the exhibition would include materials to illustrate the creative processes in the making of a picture book, I was very keen to develop a primary workshop using illustrator Sarah Garland’s sketchbooks, and Polly Dunbar’s sketches and finished artwork for My Dad’s a Birdman, written by David Almond.

Based in a new school each day, I arrived each morning with 90 sketchbooks, HB pencils, graphite sticks and a gross of felt tip pens. Needless to say these were put to great use, the children hugely excited to have their own sketchbook and pencils, all kindly provided by Cleveland College of Art and Design. The workshops were planned to last between 75-90 minutes. Most followed a similar format with variations depending on the age and maturity of the pupils. 

Of courser it  wouldn’t be a Seven Stories workshop if it there wasn't any book chat! We talked about the children’s favourite storybooks, the authors and illustrators they knew and liked. We browsed picture books selection to look at style. Children talked about why they liked the illustrations and considered where authors and illustrators get their ideas from.

I wanted the children to experience quick sketching, and told them:

“We are going to look, talk, listen, draw, draw, draw again, draw some more, more talking, more drawing, more looking, talking, listening and if there is sufficient time, even more drawing!”

We looked at some facsimiles of artwork in the exhibition. They saw how illustrators use sketchbooks, sometimes drawing multiple images on one page. Sarah Garland’s quick sketches of families in the swimming pool show how little information is needed in a sketch for it to work as a preparatory drawing. They noticed how Polly Dunbar uses just a dot for an eye or a line for the mouth in her Birdman sketches. They considered how an illustrator develops a character from an initial sketch. From the slumped posture in the sketch of Lizzie’s dad, they started to understood how an illustrator can portray a character’s emotions in the pose or facial expression. We looked at Angela Barratt’s graphite sketch and finished drawing for The Snow Queen, and Helen Craig’s artwork for Angelina Ballerina.

An illustration workshop needs drawing time! We started drawing birds.

“How many different birds can you draw in a minute?”

We drew more, changing the size of beaks and wings to see how that affected the drawing. We handled feathers and a selection of soft toy birds. Talking about their achievements at the end of the sessions, many highlighted using graphite sticks to draw their real and imagined feathers as a favourite part. Graphite can be used for clean sharp lines or blended and smudged to create featheriness. It was a new medium for most of the young artists.

Examples of the students work

Next: drawing a human. I wanted the children to try drawing a simple human character, with not too much detail, as we would use our experience of drawing feathers and birds to transform our character. There was a real buzz throughout the entire workshops. I read extracts from My Dad's a Birdman or retold parts while the children were busy drawing.

Throughout the workshops children proudly showed back their work to each other and talked about their achievements. Every child participated. No one once said that they "couldn’t" or "didn’t" know how to draw a bird, feather or human. They were working as illustrators.

Next step storyboarding. We compared different approaches to storyboarding. I had included some additional storyboard facsimiles from the original Picture Book in Progress exhibition, held at Seven Stories visitor centre in 2014. The groups compared these with John Burningham’s storyboard which features in the Festival  exhibition. Children pointed out that some of the frames have very little detail, yet the sketches of animals are drawn in greater detail.

We were able to see how Sarah Garland’s storyboard for Doing Christmas was roughly sketched on lined A4 paper, how Judith Kerr used very faint drawings in her storyboards for Mog the Forgetful Cat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. In contrast, Helen Cooper’s storyboard for Little Monster Did It includes everything she wants on the page including minute text. I heard  “wow” almost every time someone looked closely at this one. There is no right or wrong way in developing a storyboard - illustrators use them as they need.

Everyone had created a new character so the next stage was to think of what happened to them.  Everyone had a go at storyboarding 3 frames to show the participation: Frame 1 getting ready to start. Frame 2 character mid flight, to show the shape they make in the air.

Frame 3 Success? Failure? Cheers or splash?

In the extended workshops children then worked for some time developing one of their storyboard frames into an actual illustration. In her finished artwork, Polly Dunbar portrays   dad and Lizzie tumbling through the air wearing their beaks and feathers. Many of the participants worked on their own version of this scene.

On the second last day of the residency I led the illustration workshops in the Art Gallery surrounded by world class illustration.  I adapted the session for working with the older B Tech Students from East Durham College to include David Almond’s initial character notes for his Birdman, asking them to try to think along these lines when developing their own characters. They considered appearance, their character’s fears and desires. Would they have a special object? Several students annotated their drawings, finding this a useful way to develop ideas.

In addition to exploring the creative process through the original materials from the exhibition, the students were able to compare how different illustrators respond to the same subject, and compared Ralph Steadman’s illustration from Treasure Island with Chris Mould’s interpretation of the same scene.

On display, next to our workspace were several illustrations from Chris Riddell’s Ottoline books.  Chris had been named as the ninth Children’s Laureate days earlier. In his five point plan he includes the joy of sketchbooks and celebration of reading for pleasure. I talked about this with the groups and how Chris had been one of the key speakers at the festival launch.

We were doing just what he was suggesting, doodling with our birds and feathers and enjoying drawing in a beautiful sketchbook.

The  feedback has been  very positive with children reflecting on  what they had learnt or enjoyed,  including finding out how much works goes into the making of a picturebook. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. When asked to reflect on something they had learnt as a result of the workshops, one 8 year old boy wrote:

“ I learnt I could draw!”

Lynn Telford

The Picture Book in Progress Illustration workshops were part of the Hartlepool Festival of Illustration, a partnership between Cleveland College of Art and Design, Hartlepool Borough Council and Seven Stories.

  

Writing for Pleasure Project

Thanks to funding from the Equitable Charitable Trust, Seven Stories has recently been able to share exciting examples from our Collection with the lucky Year 5 class and teachers at Waterville Primary, Newcastle. For seven weeks the children have been playing with words, celebrating making mistakes and looking at archive material on their journey to becoming motivated and confident writers.

Students working with facsimiles of work from the Seven Stories Collection.

The class were introduced to doodles, photos, notes & research from the archives of David Almond, Philip Pullman, Berlie Docherty and Sarah Garland among others, and saw how much the styles of different authors vary. 

Draft storyboard by Sarah Garland for Doing Christmas, Bodley Head 1994. Sarah donated work for three of her books to the Seven Stories Collection in 2010 - Going Swimming, Billy and Belle and Doing Christmas

Character notes by David Almond for Heaven Eyes, Hodder Children's Books 2000. David donated work for two of his books, Heaven Eyes and My Dad's a Birdman, in 2008. The Seven Stories Collection also holds the artwork by Polly Dunbar for My Dad's a Birdman.

Handwritten notes and sketches by Philip Pullman. Created whilst writing The Tiger in the Well, Knopf 1990. Philip donated work for several of his books in 2002, including typescript drafts of Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife. Pullman often works by writing on only one side of the paper, and using the back side of the previous page for notes and scribbles to help his flow and to work out ideas.

After marvelling at how messy ‘real’ writers are, the children got messy themselves! They experimented with all the different stages of the writing process - from the initial marks in a notebook to the final draft – and tried out the authors’ methods to work out which styles suited them best. Seven Stories staff provided inspiration for all the senses through illustrations, music and drama (and even some tasty strawberries!), and also worked with teachers to help them to encourage some truly creative writing with their classes.

This special project has been created by our Learning & Participation and Collection teams in consultation with education professionals and professional writers, and it will continue to develop into 2015 - so watch this space for Seven Stories Collection material inspiring young writers at more schools soon…

Beth (Learning and Participation Coordinator)