After all the excitement of painting a mural at Tanglin Trust School (see HERE), the rest of my time in Singapore was spent at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content at the National Library.
This impressively space age building is a state of the art setting for this fascinating, enlighting festival. Conference-like it it’s ambitions, it attracts delegates from all over Asia, with backgrounds in publishing, teaching and education, parenting, writing, illustrating and librarianship; and speakers from all over the world. It was wonderful to see the events well attended by people who really were keen to share information and experiences.
For me, it put into context the background of many of my students at Cambridge School of Art. We have people from all over Asia studying on the MA in Children’s Book Illustration, and this was an excellent opportunity for me to appreciate first hand the cultural and practical differences in publishing in these territories. A country like Singapore, whilst successful and affluent, faces challenges simply because it is a small country, and there is undoubtedly a bias in the West to use Western writers and illustrators. How, then, can they break that down? This festival is an excellent first step in bringing the two worlds together so we can all share and learn from each other.
I had four events programmed, the first was to face an illustrating duel with local Singaporean artist Dave Liew. He proved to be such a charming and kind person it was very hard to be remotely competitive. But as New Zealand author Gillian Torckler read a Chinese Folk Tale (The Water Dragon), we both frantically sketched the stages of the story.
It was actually a really funny event and we were mobbed by school children afterwards, a great start to the festival. The result of this baptism of fire was two new friendships!
Next was a panel about Picture Book analysis with American historian, writer and reviewer, Leonard Marcus. He proved to be the perfect colleague. We instantly understood each other and realised we shared much common ground in our love of pictures and visual storytelling, and the words and thoughts bounced rapidly and naturally off each other. I loved every minute of working with such an esteemed commentator, and felt genuinely honoured to share the spotlight with him. He has written books on Maurice Sendak, curated exhibitions of Eric Carle illustrations and interviewed all the great and the good in the children’s picture book world, so this was a real privilege.
I then had to deliver a solo talk called Every Picture Tells a Story, looking at visual literacy. I wanted to show how children need images of depth and ambiguity and emotion if they were going to grow up sophisticated viewers of the world around them. As we wish children to develop as readers and tackle more vocabulary and more subtle inferences in more ambitious writing, so they should develop the ability to appreciate, interpret and understand image. Many children’s book illustrations make the mistake of being too simplistic, colourful, slick and shallow. They linger on the surface; they have no depth. I wanted to get across the importance of honest illustration, of being true to yourself as an artist. So many students in Cambridge, including those from Asia, fall back on being over-influenced. Generic, homogenised, cute… often their work is completely different to their sketchbook studies. To put it simply, they illustrate how they think children’s books should look, rather than could look.
I also made the point that not only children but adults – parents, publishers, books sellers – they all need to be visually literate too.
To give examples, I showed images by many students I’ve worked with, including a Singaporean illustrator Joo Hong, who I also met with while in Singapore. Here we are, on the town in Kampong Glam, the Arab quarter. I had just given him a book as a thank you.
The last session was another panel again with Leonard Marcus, but also joined by Professor of Reading and Language Junko Yokota, Author Kathleen Ahrens and the superb Spanish illustrator Javier Zabala. We saw seven sets of illustrations – work in progress – by Asian illustrators, and passed comment on them. There was much that was inspiring, also much that fell into the area of generic illustration that I’d spoken about in the solo talk. This was proven afterwards by looking through sketchbooks – the work inside was wonderfully free and exciting. So I encouraged them to be courageous enough to be honest and illustrate as they sketched. As I repeatedly said, illustration is an act of courage. You have to take a risk!
My new friend David Liew was on hand to illustrate that thought:
He also sketched the panel:
Throughout the festival I met so many wonderful people who I now count as friends. I’ve never been to a festival quite like it!
Emma Nicholson, a local writer, took me under her wing and led me around Raffles, the famous hotel, then to Little India for a vibrant and authentic meal. Her delightful book Princess Petunia’s Dragon was launched at the festival. And accompanying us was the completely charming Andrew Weale, prize-winning picture book writer and a really fascinating man, one who has led such a varied and interesting life. We will undoubtedly keep in touch, we had so much in common. And local author David Seow, also funny and witty and a pleasure to meet.
I bumped into Sally Gardner too, who abducted me and carried me off shopping, where I helped her choose the perfect outfit (resplendent fuchsia silk, with beading). Much hilarity and inspirational conversation followed over lunch.
New friendships across Asia were forged too, including Charlene and Candy from Taiwan (who raised the possibility of a visit there) and the lovely Ashvina – thank you for your kind enthusiasm!
So in all it was a supremely rewarding time. My thanks to all those involved in hosting the festival, especially Kenneth Quek, the director, for inviting me. It was a huge honour to take part. My thanks also to the bookshop, Woods in the Books for supporting the festival, all the team organising everything behind the scenes. The moderators too. I have made so many contacts and friends in the space of just a few short days. It was a unforgettably warm welcome. My last evening was spent at the farewell party at the top of the National Library, watching the sun set over Singapore. Here I am with David Liew – we’d been sketching together, and were showing our efforts. Kenneth Quek reveals his sense of humour behind me. (Thanks for that, Ken!)
The party also gave me a chance to catch up with Javier Zabala again and we had a wonderful, funny, long chat. What an excitement it was to spend time in his company. A lovely, warm, charming man, and a brilliant illustrator. Here’s what he put in my (now very valuable) sketchbook:
To see what I put in my sketchbook myself will have to wait until next time… but soon!
A report on the festival can be read here: http://anashell.com/
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