[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-drawing-monsters-with-sam":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"One of the best things about staying with the Reeve family (besides being right in the middle of Dartmoor) is getting to draw with Sam. He'd just had an artist named \u003Ca href=\"http://mildlyartistic.co.uk/\">Scott Walker\u003C/a> come to his school and lead them in making murals together, and Sam was all inspired.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/reeve_monsters2_zps7ece863c-fe22bfa7d5.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSo we drew a similar wallpaper kind of picture, starting with lots of monster shapes, and then joining them with different coloured patterns between them. It reminds me a little bit of \u003Ca href=\"http://jonburgerman.com/\">Jon Burgerman\u003C/a>'s way of working. Sam says our picture's not quite finished, but he was planning to fill in the last background bits after school.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/reeve_monsters_zps13a92e0a-761ba8164e.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nIt's not easy filling a big space quickly, I remember spending a full day and not sleeping at night to finish a mural \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/337389.html\">at Nottingham Game City\u003C/a> while the guys in the next stand had it down to a science and finished in two hours. It's a subject worth studying, how to fill a space quickly, with lots of colour and energy. \u003Ca href=\"http://www.billyandalex.com/62170/projects\">Billy and Alex\u003C/a> are also good at that sort of thing. \u003Ca href=\"http://philipreeve.blogspot.co.uk/\">Philip\u003C/a> worked on this one with us, a proper collaborative picture:\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click for more under the cut!-->\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/reeve_monsters3_zps6b22935f-b7bc8828c1.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAfter my Woodroffe School event with Philip in Lyme Regis, I stayed on one more day to talk with children's lit students from \u003Cb>Montana State University\u003C/b>, who were making a literary tour of Britain. Here's Philip lecturing them on the roots of \u003Ca href=\"http://www.philip-reeve.com/arthur.html\">\u003Ci>Here Lies Arthur\u003C/i>\u003C/a> (his Carnegie-award-winning book about King Arthur, or more specifically about Arthur's spin doctor and spin doctor's assistant). And Philip also talked about the world of \u003Ca href=\"http://www.philip-reeve.com/arthur.html\">\u003Ci>Goblins\u003C/i>\u003C/a>, his viewpoint-switching take on Tolkien. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_group_3_zps5f303fe8-f043c06e86.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nNeither book is set specifically on Dartmoor, but the mossy, gnarled trees and boulders of \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman%27s_Wood\">Wistman's Wood\u003C/a> inspire settings in both of them. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wistmans_wood_3_zpsc972d7bf-fbbac25e9e.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI was impressed by the amount of prep work the students had done for their course, reading over 30 books for the trip. Here's a detailed notebook with a divider for each book and painted sketches from the trip:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_sketchbooks3_zps5030ff5f-758eb3ea88.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAnd here's the most of the gang. You'll notice the children's lit course is quite heavily weighted toward women. (If it was a comics lit course, I wonder how evenly divided it would be.) The students are all planning to go on to become teachers.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_group_2_zps48ea780d-d7d9c202f1.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nA few more sketches from their trip. I talked with some of them a bit about making travel comics, and gave them the link for the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.jabberworks.co.uk/my-comics/\">China travel comic\u003C/a> on my website. You can read \u003Ca href=\"http://literacyandtheartstravelers.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/here-lies-arthur-by-philip-reeve/\">their blog post about the visit here\u003C/a>! \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_sketchbooks1_zpsfdd87657-06fa68acce.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_sketchbooks2_zps26205382-a9e75678e3.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere we are with the professors. That's organiser Joyce Herbeck on the left, and her colleague, Kim, on the right. Kim specialises in making woodcut prints and it was fascinating to hear how she's introducing these teachers-in-training to art and ways to use artwork in the classroom. Nothing better than doing it themselves, really.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/msu_professors_zpscffca650-30f1e8b5e3.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nWistman's Wood is almost ridiculously beautiful. Here's Philip and Frodo, in their element.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/philip_reeve_wistmans_wood_zps52a815ca-cc09a5bfa1.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nA bit more Middle Earth:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/widecombe_wall_zpsaddb64d1-c5658d1e4a.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere I am, hard at work in the Reeve garden, trying to work off the previous night's rhubarb crumble.  \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dartmoor_gardening1_zps9adb367a-961c9db08c.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI am a good weeder. But don't tell my mother or she'll make me do it next time I visit. She has an \u003Ci>awfully\u003C/i> big garden.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/dartmoor_gardening2_zps4e454a93-09b51ce0f7.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nYou can read more about the Wistman's Wood Walk over on \u003Ca href=\"http://philipreeve.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/seawigs-in-lyme-regis-arthur-in.html\">Philip's blog here\u003C/a>. Oo, and a new blog post about it from Leah about it \u003Ca href=\"http://montanamarynotmartha.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/britlit-hiking-in-wistmans-wood.html\">here\u003C/a>!","2013-06-25T06:46:00.000Z","drawing-monsters-with-sam",[],"drawing monsters with sam",1776628725310]