From the studio

Shopping and Drawing

Shopping alphabetically During the past week, I’ve been drawing a series of pictures featuring children with their parents, for Grade 1 readers. It’s a fun little story, each child buying something that begins with the same letter as their name does. After a few thoughts about herding the children of our land into rampant consumerism, I got down and enjoyed drawing them happily shopping as if money was no object. From one little tyke – (Bulelwa) choosing a banana, to a very happy little Quinton wanting a quad-bike, the last page shows the shoppers going home, ‘tired but happy’ as those mandatory school essays about school outings always said. I should add that in this story the kids are happy and the parents are tired… I became conscious that life-drawing is a Good Thing and should be practised often, the more the better. Sadly it’s something I don’t allow enough time for, and it would improve my draughtsmanship hugely, […]

The delights of fruit

Savyra From the studio 0

Here’s a heads-up from one of my latest jobs: a picture book all about fruit for English Second Language readers in Grade 1. The client requested the fotomelt style since I’d done a previous story for them in this style, featuring kids at a birthday party. View more pics in the fotomelt style here. Client was Via Africa, Cape Town. Back to News/Views

Classroom materials

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Birthday month cards Am excited about my latest project to go to print, i.e classroom teaching materials for very young learners, commissioned by Early Childhood Development. The favourite part for me was the birthday months, in which South African wild creatures cavort and celebrate any birthdays occurring in the classroom during that month. There are also the Seasons and the Weather charts, which were fun. Meanwhile, here are the birthday months. Click on any image to view the slideshow. There is more to the Birthday month cards… These cards form part of the Birthday Charts, along with birthday cakes to denote the child’s age on their special day. Little pieces of paper are placed over the birthday month cards to carry the names of the children born during that month. (see below) On the child’s birthday, their name is put into the chart and they are the star for the day. It’s a great system because the candles on […]

Huis Jabes

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Huis Jabes: a sanctuary for survivors of abuse. Click on the image to see the inspiring story of how Huis Jabes came to be the force for good it is today. Adin Ryneveldt went to Huis Jabes in Brackenfell to video the various people making up the team. I tagged along to volunteer to do their website and wanted to get a feel for the personality of the place. We discovered great passion behind the work. At the end of our time filming these inspiring women, Adin wondered how he was going to get his little movies edited. Since I’d edited an animation a year or so ago, I ended up doing that instead. And after many struggles to get music donated, finally I found mobygratis.com who cheerfully took 24 hours to give the nod to three pieces of music. Thank you, Moby! Do go and check it out on http://vimeo.com/20703832 It’s 6 minutes 30 seconds long. The narrative is […]

Drawing with Children: ‘My Children’s Act’ book

Savyra From the studio

Picasso spent most of his later life trying to draw like a child. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he meant, until I was commisioned to enhance children’s drawings for a book called My Children’s Act, a massively difficult project and a huge achievement by Emma Attwell, who is herself the mother of two adopted children, both with different health challenges. Emma managed to simplify very complicated legislation to a level that children can understand, and produced a 48 page book which is appealing to any child. Many of the abuses in South Africa happen because the perpetrators count on the children’s ignorance of their rights and I believe this book addresses that problem. It was a privilege to work on it, and it certainly opened my eyes to the beauty in children’s drawings. There were drawings (for a subsequent poster) that I would have been keen to blow up to door size and hang on my wall. The lines […]