[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-one-last-growl-for-monsterville":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Today was the closing party for MONSTERVILLE! This morning I tried to figure out which outfit would best suit my Monster cake shop, and decided this one would do nicely, it looks like a whole tub-full of sweets piled up on top of my head. (I got it at the Vintage Fair in Birmingham's Custard Factory from Julia Gandy at \u003Ca href=\"http://www.hole-buttonjewellery.co.uk/\">hOle button jewellery\u003C/a>.) Dylan Owen on Twitter said it looked like my brains are exploding out of my head, which pretty much sums up Monsterville; it was a mind-blowing project to work on.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_hat-716a3a07a9.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSo I trotted back to the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.discover.org.uk/\">Discover Children's Story Centre\u003C/a> in Stratford, northeast London, for one last fearsome hurrah.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_2-65fe0db2ec.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThere were three of us illustrators who worked with the Discover team to make it happen: \u003Ca href=\"http://www.neallayton.com/\">Neal Layton\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.neallayton.com/\">Ed Vere\u003C/a> and me. Neal's wife just had a baby, so he couldn't come, but Ed and I had another wild Monster Draw-off. It was SO much fun! \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_sarah_ed-20a2b05a4e.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nWe drew loads of 3-minute monsters, including 'Cutest Monster in Pyjamas' and 'Silliest Monster in a Car'. I didn't get photos of many of them, but here's Ed's 'Monsters in Love' and my 'Most Disgusting Monster'.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_drawoff-a528c03a49.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for lots more under the cut!-->\\r\nEd gets very competitive. Here we are, sabotaging each other's paper. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_sabotage-2a8cb5872e.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nIt was a great party! Here are some lovely outfits from the day, including a fab-looking member of staff (\u003Ci>Discover, can you remind me of her name?\u003C/i>) and our excellent DJ, \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/#!/LauraHolden\">Laura Holden\u003C/a>. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_laura-4ef53c5d51.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI couldn't get a non-blurry photo of the 1950's themed disco, but you get the general idea...\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_disco-06bf13ac62.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nEd and I had a wander through our creation with Director \u003Cb>Sally Goldsworthy\u003C/b>, quite sad to see it all come down, but thrilled we could be a part of it.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_tongue-76c7211805.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nConsidering the monster village had to be rebuilt almost every day, with the kids going nuts in it, it's amazing how well it held together. But when we looked closely, we could see a bit of wear and tear. Here's the window display in the Lolliplops cafe; apparently someone has chewed off the eyeballs on top of the cake.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_cake-9202434420.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAnd Ed's most excellent miniature cinema. He might get to keep that.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_1-b0a0e5df3d.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThe party was part of a week's festivities for \u003Ca href=\"http://www.discover.org.uk/whatson/event/the-big-write-1st-9th-march-2012\">The Big Write\u003C/a>, so there was lots more fun stuff going on today, including a \u003Ci>Giraffes Can't Dance\u003C/i> presentation by illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://guyparkerrees.com/\">Guy Parker-Rees\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_guy-237b178262.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nChris Haughton also had an event (you might remember I went to \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/444388.html\">his textiles launch\u003C/a> not long ago). Both Ed and I are fans of his work, and we all ended up buying each other's books and getting them signed.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_chris-09c5f728dd.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nBook signing love-in:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_chris_ed-8cc626312d.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThanks to all the kids and parents who came along, you were good fun!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_books-f4c4445974.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's comic artist/illustator/designer \u003Ca href=\"http://tempolush.com/\">Richy K Chandler\u003C/a>, whom I only really knew as 'Tempo Lush' on the Internets, and it's lovely to be able to put a name to a face and meet the whole family. Here Ed's showing his kid a photo of a mouse he caught in his kitchen the other day.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_tempo-177c700eca.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI got to meet \u003Ca href=\"http://www.huglessdouglas.co.uk/\">Hugless Douglas\u003C/a> in the staff room, just as he was finishing his shift. And I took this second photo because, well, you've always wanted to know what the insides of those costumes look like, haven't you?\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_bear-5158d15b18.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's Discover Administrator \u003Cb>Eleanor Butler\u003C/b> giving me a little peek into the upcoming exhibition featuring... a littie trolley full of fake food, some construction hats... oo, a digital 3-D model... \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_future-e97a957173.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n... featuring \u003Cfont size=\"3\">COMICS!\u003C/font> Comics will be the theme of the next exhibition, hurrah! Here are some mockups by \u003Ca href=\"http://www.stevemay.biz/home/\">Steve May\u003C/a>. Not all comics are about superheroes [puts on didactic lecture voice] but a lot of kids love superheroes, and this show will be jam-packed with them. Exciting!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/monsterville_final_comics-d01b692dc9.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Ci>If you want to see earlier pictures from Monsterville, click on \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/tag/monsterville\">my Monsterville tag here\u003C/a> and scroll through older blog posts.\u003C/i>","2012-03-05T08:14:00.000Z","one-last-growl-for-monsterville",[],"one last growl for monsterville",1776628721540]