Workshop Fun

Imagine in one room a guy creating hilarious cartoons at a rate of knots (with sound effects!) captivating the attention and humour of a bunch of kids, whilst in the other room a lady tells an edge of your seat tale to a spellbound audience.
Last Sunday I was lucky enough to be part of a fantastic workshop run by my local branch of the CBCA( www.cbcasutherland.org.au ) called Children's Story Blast Workshop. We had the lovely Sue Whiting and the very fun Dave Hackett ( Cartoon Dave ) to entertain and teach the children plus the talents of our own Chris Frogatt doing his debut workshop. I got to sit in on each class and I loved seeing all those imaginations spilling out onto a page with great enthusiasm. I thought-" I want to do this one day!"
Dave had every child drawing simple and fun cartoon illustrations. Later on he had them writing zany, hysterical descriptive narrative. Sue handed the kids all character pics and had them coming up with great character idea's and showing how to get to know your character. The kids lapped it up. She had a great system of audience participation that ended with a draw for a book at the end. As an extra bonus, she very kindly gave each child a free book. Chris did a more detailed illustrating session that had the kids all creating their own world and their own character inhabiting it which they were all enthused about.
A bit of work for our group to put the workshop together but seeing all those young imaginations alight was Oh so worth it!