making books with steve cole

Today the writer Steve Cole and I spent all day at Writtle College in Essex making Alice-in-Wonderland themed books with 50 nine- and ten-year olds, as a joint project between the Royal Opera House and Chelmsford’s Just Imagine story centre. The idea was that it would accompany their Alice in Wonderland opera, but we went a bit wild creating Steve in Wonderland/Sarah in Wonderland/Insert-kid’s-name in Wonderland stories. Here’s my super-fast drawing of Steve in exploding pants, which somehow managed to fit the theme.

Here’s the kids’ reinterpretation of the Alice character. (I just drew what they told me.) Oh, and Steve stuck sparkly heart stickers all over his t-shirt… stylin’!

Doing a workshop with Steve is great; he’s full of energy and keeps the kids on the edge of their seats, never knowing what outrageous thing he’s going to bellow next. Half the time he had me jumping in surprise, and the other half, standing there open-mouthed wondering if he’d gone completely nuts. Good times. (Here’s the link to the Monster Mega-Challenge workshop we did a few months ago.)

Edit: Click here to read Steve’s blog about the day and find out WHY HE HAD EXPLODING PANTS.

Other news: Last night, BBC Radio 4’s programme All in the Mind featured my friend Darryl Cunningham‘s graphic novel Psychiatric Tales and did a great interview with him. You can listen to it for the next six days on its BBC Listen Again page. (Darryl’s slot starts at the 7:35 mark.)