Illustration Workshop for writers

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here in Melbourne, crisp and clear. The morning was cool but the sun was shining and the breeze gentle. I went to CERES (Community Environmental Park) for an Illustration Workshop with illustrator Elise Hurst. This was a SCBWI-organised event but open to interested others.

The workshop was primarily pitched at writers who wanted to understand a little more of how an illustrator works, including basic drawing, water colouring, and storyboarding. It was hands-on with participants having a play in pencil and paint at shaping images. We saw how some realistic images easily lend themselves to adaptation as book characters.

We learnt about ‘happy accidents’ in painting and how illustration often uses empty space to indicate personality eg placement of a character on a page can indicate their state of mind.

The workshop was three hours but this was a whistlestop tour and I’m already keen to go back for a longer play.