• Home
  • 2022 Summer Micro Grants
    • 2022 Summer micro grants_Kerry Moran
    • 2022 Summer micro grants_Mary McMillan
  • Unearth Your Voice
  • Illustrating Nature with Sami Bayly
  • Quick Crime with JP Pomare
  • Unleash Your Inner Illustrator
  • Rachael McDiarmid workshop
  • The Illustrated Story
  • Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing
  • Illustration Prize for children's picture book illustration
  • Varuna-NEWC Fellowship
  • About
    • Our Board
    • Our Sponsors
  • Membership
  • Contact Us
  • 2021 Archive
    • 2021 Illustration Prize Winners
    • Varuna Fellowship 2021
    • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 >
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 winning submissions
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 Judges Reports
    • 2021 Summer Micro Grants >
      • 2021 Summer micro grants_Trish >
        • Beetle Hunt Stories
      • 2021 Summer micro grants_James
      • 2021 Summer Micro Grants_Fiona
  • 2020 Archive
    • Thunderbolt Prize 2020 >
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2020 Judges Reports
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2020_Winning submissions
    • Illustration Prize 2020 Winners
    • Varuna Fellowship 2020
    • 2020 Historical Novel Prize >
      • About the judges
  • Blog
  • Resources
    • Inside Story Book
    • By The Book video series
    • Stories Connect
  New England Writers' Centre

Drawing out your inner child

4/29/2022

 
By Lydia Roberts
ILLUSTRATOR Sandy Flett wants to draw out our inner child.  ​
So she has designed a “kit bag” of drawing warm-ups, tips and advice to help potential illustrators and writers achieve their goal of drawing and writing for children.

Sandy will share her kit bag, as well as her experience as a children’s illustrator, at a workshop organised by the New England Writers’ Centre. 

“I would love the participants in this workshop to have their dreams of becoming an illustrator made more possible,” Sandy says.

“It would be awesome for people to come away feeling more confident in their ability to create and to learn to relax into illustration work.”

Picture
Click the poster to find out more.
"Illustrating children’s books is a way of reconnecting with our own childhood."
Picture
​Think of Blinky Bill and Dorothy Wall’s cute drawings of a koala in patched knickerbockers.  Or May Gibbs’ cute gumnut babies in Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

A picture can catapult us back to our childhoods and be an escape from our present.
​
It is this which Sandy hopes to unlock in participants of her illustration workshop, to be held in Armidale on Saturday, July 2.

Sandy says it was the “bright colours, expressive characters, comedy and a bit of magic” of her childhood reading that stuck with her and made her mull a career as a children’s book illustrator.

It would be awesome for people to come away [from the workshop] feeling more confident in their ability to create and to learn to relax into illustration work.
Sandy has been a children’s author and illustrator for about six years.

“I started after a bout of pretty significant illness and I like to think that time gave me a bit of a reset in life,” Sandy says. “I started to really think about what my life was all about, what had I let lie dormant in me, in all the craziness of life. 

“So, as part of my recovery, I started drawing again, after probably 20 plus years of little or no drawing.

“During that ‘re-drawing’ period, I remembered that for most of my childhood and teen years I had been fascinated by cartoons and illustrations in the books I loved the most - and that in fact, I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator.
Picture
“I had forgotten that, until I reconnected with that part of myself.”
Picture
​Most recently, Sandy has illustrated the highly successful Juno Jones series of books by author Kate Gordon.

Sandy also wrote a short story, The Terrible Thing in the Spooktacular Stories anthology and has illustrated two middle-grade book series, Edie’s Experiments, by Charlotte Barkla.

“I’m very excited to meet local artists who are keen to illustrate, and to hopefully help give them a bit of a kick start into the world of children's book illustration,” Sandy says.
It doesn’t take a studio or workshop to begin your journey as a children’s illustrator, as Sandy can attest.
Many of her illustrations were completed on the dining room table (“the ‘posh’ one that we never used”, Sandy says).

“Currently, I am in one of our living rooms, which looks over our backyard where our new puppy, Teddy Arthur, the border collie, resides and gets into mischief. I’m basically minding him while I paint - doubly pleasurable.”

Sandy’s parting advice is to keep reading children’s books and to keep drawing, even if it’s only for a few moments a day.
​
Any other advice and you will have to book into her workshop!

Comments are closed.

    Author

    The NEWC Board

    Archives

    April 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018

    Categories

    All
    2018
    2021
    2022
    Competitions
    Festival
    Illustration
    Inspiration
    Poetry
    Symposium
    Thunderbolt
    Varuna
    Workshop
    Writing

​SITE MAP

Home
​Workshop Program
Thunderbolt Prize
Illustration Prize
Varuna-NEWC Fellowship
About
Membership
​Contact Us
Blog
Archive

Resources
Board
Sponsors
Picture
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Create NSW and our other generous sponsors
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which the New England Writers' Centre is situated and pay our respects to Aboriginal Elders past, present and emerging.
  • Home
  • 2022 Summer Micro Grants
    • 2022 Summer micro grants_Kerry Moran
    • 2022 Summer micro grants_Mary McMillan
  • Unearth Your Voice
  • Illustrating Nature with Sami Bayly
  • Quick Crime with JP Pomare
  • Unleash Your Inner Illustrator
  • Rachael McDiarmid workshop
  • The Illustrated Story
  • Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing
  • Illustration Prize for children's picture book illustration
  • Varuna-NEWC Fellowship
  • About
    • Our Board
    • Our Sponsors
  • Membership
  • Contact Us
  • 2021 Archive
    • 2021 Illustration Prize Winners
    • Varuna Fellowship 2021
    • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 >
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 winning submissions
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2021 Judges Reports
    • 2021 Summer Micro Grants >
      • 2021 Summer micro grants_Trish >
        • Beetle Hunt Stories
      • 2021 Summer micro grants_James
      • 2021 Summer Micro Grants_Fiona
  • 2020 Archive
    • Thunderbolt Prize 2020 >
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2020 Judges Reports
      • Thunderbolt Prize 2020_Winning submissions
    • Illustration Prize 2020 Winners
    • Varuna Fellowship 2020
    • 2020 Historical Novel Prize >
      • About the judges
  • Blog
  • Resources
    • Inside Story Book
    • By The Book video series
    • Stories Connect