Hey peeps. This stuff is for kids to use for projects or just for fun. Let me know if you have suggestions, comments, or requests for anything. Enjoy!
Material is copyright Elise Hurst 2009 and can’t be used for commercial purposes.
COLOURING-IN SHEETS
MAKE YOUR OWN STRANGE BOOK
I know it’s really hard to have a character on lots of different pages doing lots of different things so here is a page of images of Strange, the black cat from The Night Garden. Just print them out, cut them up and stick them onto your own pictures. So what’s the story? What backgrounds are you going to draw? What crazy adventure will Strange have today? When you’ve made your book, send me a picture and we’ll make a gallery of Strange’s adventures! I’d love to see them.
Tips:
Make Strange bigger or smaller by reducing or enlarging it on the photocopier.
Don’t want to see the cut-out edge?
Stick strange onto your paper, photocopy it and then draw on the photocopy. You shouldn’t see the outline any more. You can do the same for any writing you add.
Try making your own front cover!
WORD JUMBLES
Can you find all of the words in these jumbles?
Answer page 1 here. Answer page 2 here.
SCHOOL VISITS
I regularly visit schools to talk about the process of creating picture books. As part of this I show roughs, sketches, ideas and dummy books. 
I also take the kids through the steps for drawing up a character’s face, making changes to develop different characters and then, at the diriection of the audience, I creat a big character in front of them. This is then left with the class.
Here are a few of my favourite characters. They make great story-starters. Ask questions about them…
Who are their friends? How about their families? What’s the weirdest job you could imagine for them? What if they’re really good at it? What if they’re really bad at it? Do they have a secret identity? Try making daggy characters cool and cool characters daggy. Phobias? Pets? Hobbies?
Bookings can bemade directly through me. More info here.
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[...] a new page here (top right) called SCHOOL THINGS. It has colouring-in sheets, a word jumble, the sheet of images of “Strange” the cat [...]
[...] Three things: 1. Just had a great meeting with Allen & Unwin to talk about a new project. It’s been a long time in the wings and is finally getting ready to start (after the epic is finished). A little archaeology, a little mayhem and a lot of film noir! 2. I’m off to Traralgon this weekend to lead a session about picture books at their local library. My favourite topic 3. There’s a new word jumble on the Schools Page. [...]
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