Art envy, a diary deep-dive, and a Scottish poetry path

Story Street #30

Welcome to Story Street – a monthly newsletter from children’s author and illustrator Jane Porter. Read on for ramblings about my life as a picture book maker, community artist, comic diarist and under-confident fiddle player.

Well, I survived World Book Week. After hundreds of children and hundreds of miles, I managed to avoid norovirus and flu, but I came down with a serious dose of art envy after one child produced THIS in one of my workshops: that treatment of the sky and sun actually makes my heart beat faster with excitement.

Mostly my sessions were built around my, ‘story map’ which tends to bring gasps of amazement when I unfurl it, and this year even got a spontaneous round of applause. Once I’ve explained the map to the children, we make a collaborative story together and I draw a new map for them - and they are always BURSTING with brilliant ideas. I love doing this, even though it’s exhausting to be a performer when I’m really not by nature.

For one of the schools, I ran a collage workshop and made this little dog as a demo - I’m wondering if I should take it for a walk in a story? What should I call him/her?

I dropped into my favourite local school on World Book Day itself to do an assembly, and I took along this invitation:

The theme for the poetry book is: ‘an invitation’! I can’t wait to see what they come up with. And here’s a couple of invitations for you…

Would you like to join some summer comics fun?

How much do I love Zine Swap Season? A LOT, is the answer. Just look at these beautiful bundles from my comics students - they travelled to my doormat from all over the world, before voyaging out again so that each student gets a set to keep. I even got sent a beautiful hand-carved decoration from India, a cheerful carrot and a collage.

If you are looking at those bundles thinking, “ohhh, I’d like one of those to arrive in the post for ME please”, you are just in time to sign up for the summer term. Classes are for two hours on Zoom every Wednesday for ten weeks, starting 23rd April.

"Your comics class has been such a fantastic experience for me. It has given me many new ideas and ways to illustrate topics, which used to feel very challenging earlier. Your class has such a joyful vibe that it's just a beautiful place to be.” Sakshi, New Delhi, India

“Thankyou for the amazing class...Wednesdays always end on a good note because of it." Jane, Sheffield

"I have LOVED the course! So much fun. I particularly enjoy your gentle teaching and how the process soothes and quietens my busy head." Lucia, Gloucestershire

"Jane's comic class is brilliant... if you are interested in making comic diaries, do it!" Helen, Berwick upon Tweed

“This was such a fun class!! I will miss it and my group….thank you for creating such a fun course to help people learn more about comics and gain that confidence!” Lala, Florida

You can find all the details about the class, with dates and pricing, by clicking the button below. If you’d like to join, don’t delay as it fills up fast!

Would you like to see inside my diaries?

I promised back in January to make a video marking the tenth anniversary of my comic diaries - and here it is at last. One of the key aims of my comics course is to encourage students to keep a comic diary - a visual record of day-to-day life. I’ve been doing this for ten years now, and there are so many benefits, from appreciating life’s tiny mundane details, to remembering chance encounters, as well as processing difficult events.

Here’s the video I made, featuring lots of glimpses inside those pages as well as some tips to get you started. It’s just ten minutes long - perfect to watch with a cup of tea, so put the kettle on and enjoy. You’ll see my doomed attempt to learn magic tricks, my fiddle-learning journey, a glorious celebration of snakes’ head fritillaries (I’m going to see them again this month), some fancy fungus and much more…

A Pourquoi story

Remember in the last issue of Story Street I showed you the beginnings of my ‘Pourquoi story’ for the British Library? Well I can now reveal the finished article, as it’s now live on the BL website. This video shows the whole hand-made book, which was a lot of fun to create:

You’ll find all the British Library Learning resource for this project through the link below - do share this with schools and families who might enjoy the projects. There’s a beautiful pop-up book about birds from Viviane Schwarz - don’t miss it!

Poems and tunes in Scotland

I spent a couple of days in Perthshire last month, where my friend Imogen introduced me to the Corbenic Poetry Path. It’s a woodland festooned with so much moss and lichen you can barely see the tree bark, and the floor is so soft you can’t hear your own footsteps - the only sound is braided ribbons of bird song. As if that wasn’t lovely enough on its own, every few steps there’s a poem inscribed in stone or wood. Each one moves the spirit in a different way. Thankyou Imogen!

I was in Scotland for the Niel Gow Festival, a weekend of joyful fiddle-playing celebrating Perthshire’s finest composer and player (1727 - 1807). The tunes were non-stop and often at 900 miles an hour, but luckily the organisers had kindly laid on a ‘slow session’ to nurture less experienced players.

Birnam and Dunkeld, where the festival is held and where Niel Gow lived, is a special place for me because it’s where my great grandfather lived - and it’s his fiddle that I took back there. Although my great grandfather John Wallace lived there 100 years after Niel Gow, he almost certainly would have played some of his tunes, such as ‘Highland Whisky’ and ‘The Stool of Repentance’.

One of Gow’s most beautiful tunes is the ‘Lament on the Death of His Second Wife’, and it was a magical experience to go on a guided walk to his cottage and hear it played right where he lived by Pete Clark, who founded the festival 20 years ago. There was a lovely surprise there too. Last year when I went, I posted my diary drawing of the Taybank session (you can see it in Story Street #18 from this time last year), and someone from the festival asked if they could print it. I said yes - and discovered that it’s now framed on the wall of Niel Gow’s actual cottage! I was bursting with pride when I found out.

A fully fettled fiddle

I might have given up on trying to make a fiddle, but I have managed to restore one. Here it is with all the furniture back on, following a bit of retouching, polishing and re-glueing around the button, as well as fitting a new chin-rest and strings. Eagle-eyed luthier-types will notice a bit of slippage in the cork under the chin-rest - I’m going to fix that too. I was given this fiddle over a year ago and I am happy to report that it sounds rather nice - thankyou so much Fen, I am going to enjoy playing it.

No icing required

I was back at Paper Cat Books last week for the launch of Momoko Abe’s latest picture book, Dotty Doughnut. Here’s Momoko with the book and a wonderfully dotty dress to go with it…

The story is about an unadorned doughnut who sits on the bottom shelf in the bakers, gazing at the fancy iced specimens on the shelf above and questioning her identity. Momoko’s books always have a huge depth to them underneath the gorgeous artwork. If you’d like to know more, check out Momo’s Doodle Den where Momoko reveals the inspiration behind the book, from Japanese print-making to Princess Beatrice’s fascinator. And you can watch me chatting with Momoko about the making of one of her previous picture books, When The Sun Goes Home, here:

Hitting the right notes

But what’s Bob been up to this month? After visiting lots of schools he is having a nice rest - but was thrilled to read this review: “Porter’s warmly soothing text carries Bob along to a triumphant ending sure to embolden other reluctant performers. A tale of stage fright conquered that hits all the right notes.” Kirkus Reviews

(illustration by Jenni Desmond)

Be Bold Bob by me and Jenni Desmond will be published in the US by Candlewick Press on 3rd June.

It’s funny to think that this is issue no. 30 of Story Street. I hope you have enjoyed reading it - it’s a sort-of diary for me, so it’s fun to look back and see what I was up to all those months and years ago. If you’re new to Story Street and would like to catch up on old ones, you can find them all here:

And if you are at Hampton Court Palace over Easter with family, you might enjoy joining in with the Lindt Gold Bunny Hunt which features some of my illustrations - hope you enjoy it if you do. That’s it until next time. Do share and subscribe if you haven’t already!