Today I had the wonderful opportunity to give a couple of presentations at Our Lady of Lourdes here in Vancouver. One hour for the pre-school to third grade, and then another hour for the fourth to eighth grade. I talked about what it's like to be an illustrator, and showed them the children's books I've finished, The Searcher; and The Little Leaf by Jairo Penaranda; and the interactive website I built.
Then we did "How to Draw" to wind things up. It was sort of like career day, before a much larger group. They have a great school there, from what I saw. The faculty were warm and friendly, and the kids were very well behaved. I had a lot of fun, and enjoyed talking with the students. I was amazed at how many very good artists they have there.
A special thank you from me to my friends Kim Wellman who thought the whole thing up and suggested it; to Beth Anderson the librarian at Our Lady of Lourdes for setting everthing up; and to Iris Wellman and my wife Angela for encouraging me to do it.
Here are some very cute kids drawing away.
They were really having fun here, drawing an elephant.
I really liked this young man's drawing of Chip.
At the end I walked down to the door, and as they filed out the kids showed me what they had drawn. It was so cool, to see their creativity on the page. I'm very glad I did this. Several kids asked me to autograph their drawings for them, that was kind of nifty. I also signed many copies of The Searcher which the kids had purchased and brought in.
Some were too shy to show me their work, while one girl was so excited she could hardly stand it. She wants to be an illustrator when she grows up, and gave me a drawing of a unicorn, which is now proudly on display in my office.
