Congratulations to Rebecca Bender for leading her first, and very successful, children’s workshop for Giraffe and Bird. The workshop was held at the Yorkdale Indigo store, and two grade 1/2 classes attended — a total of about 60 kids. Rebecca read from the book, encouraging kids to make the faces and sounds of the giraffe and the bird (which, not surprisingly, they were very adept at) and then showed the students her own paintings, a few of which inspired the story. In the second half of the workshop, she drew on an easel in front of the kids, showing them how to illustrate different expressions on animal faces (ideas for expressions were, again, eagerly offered by the kids). She has also just created a take-home activity sheet for future workshops, and for anyone who wants to try their hand at drawing expressions, feel free to download the PDF here!

There was also a lot of conversation about what it takes to become an illustrator — topics included research, practice, and education — which a lot of the kids seemed to aspire to be. I wish my iPhone had taken better photos, but here’s one that turned out less fuzzily, of Rebecca showing one of her paintings.