When not scribbling away in my studio, I love going out to meet and chat with fellow bookworms and budding illustrators. I am happy to work with both children and adults and would be interested in proposals for doing events, workshops or residencies. I can offer events in the form of practical, activity-based workshops or illustrated talks and am able to guide participants through the step by step processes I follow when illustrating a book, show how characters are created and developed, explore the depiction of stories in pictorial form and explain how I came to be an illustrator. I’ve visited numerous schools and presented at lots of festivals including Edinburgh International Book Festival,the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Aye Write!, Wigtown Book Festival, The Borders Book Festival and Lahore Literary Festival. Having worked a lot with people who live with dementia, I would be very happy to adapt an event to make it dementia friendly, for example, encourage participants to ask questions as they come to mind, rather than having a Q & A session at the end, and making sure that pens and paper are readily available so that participants are free to make notes, memos or doodles during the session. I also have a CELTA qualification (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and can therefore offer events especially adapted for participants learning English as a second language. All my talks are illustrated, using a powerpoint presentation, and some of my most popular activity-based workshops include –

How to illustrate a story

Suitable for ages 10 and upwards
Recommended number of participants: approx 20-25
With the aid of a powerpoint presentation and using lots of my own work as examples, I explain the process and techniques I use when illustrating a book. I then invite participants to design and illustrate their own double page spread, using stories from the Treasuries as inspiration.

Selkie Tales

Suitable for ages 7-11/adult and child if the event is outwith school
Recommended number of participants: approx 20-25
In this very hands-on workshop we look at seals and the tradition of Selkie stories. Selkies are magical seals who can remove their skins and take on human form. They are popular amongst the fishing communities of the British Isles, particularly in Scotland and Ireland, and come with a wealth of folklore. Participants are invited to make their own Selkie sock puppet (using both sides of the sock for the Selkie transformation) and I also share one of my favourite Selkie stories.

How to create characters/How to draw your dragon

Suitable for ages 7 and upwards/ has also worked well with both adult groups and mixed adult and children groups
Recommended number of participants: approx 20-25
This event looks at ideas on how to create and develop characters visually and is great for both children and adults. “How to draw you dragon” follows the same idea and theme but is aimed more towards groups of younger children. I use both the Treasuries and The Book of the Howlat as inspiration in this workshop.

I’m also very open to working with event organisers who are looking for a workshop which addresses a particular topic or theme (eg. a festival may be linked to a theme, a school teacher may wish to link the event with a class project/study). Recently, as part of a festival celebrating the work of Dickens, I was invited to give a workshop aimed at adults and older students. Using Dickens’ writing as inspiration, we looked at the different techniques for visually represent characters, after which participants were invited to sketch out their own Dickens character studies. (We had great fun and there were lots of super drawings! )