My dream man, a golden coach, and a celebration of yellows

Story Street #33

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.

I’m always secretly glad when we tip past the solstice and I can say ‘the nights are drawing in’ - I find it impossible to rest while it’s daylight and I usually end up feeling frazzled by midsummer. I celebrated the switch to longer nights with a late-night swim in a thunderstorm, and it was exhilarating.

In this issue of Story Street: where to look for inspiration, dabbling with kittiwakes, remembering my life-sized papier-maché man - and a little flavour of my online comics class zine swap. Enrolment is now open for the autumn term starting Wednesday 17th September - read on for more about the class later in this newsletter, but if you are in a hurry here’s a link:

Do read all the reviews, they are RAVES! Here’s just a couple of recent ones:

“I’m currently taking Jane Porter’s fantastic Diary Comics online course, which has been pushing me to think about storytelling in completely new ways. Jane is brilliant at helping you see the narrative potential in everyday moments.” Emma, Somerset

“Thanks for the fab course, I’m loving it and I don’t want it to end!” Catriona, Scottish Borders

The golden coach sparkled as it bumped along…

For the past couple of years I’ve been a regular visitor at a local primary school. It’s something I volunteer to do, as I get so much joy out of the visits. The children know me now, and say hello with great excitement when they spot me in the public library.

For the summer term, the school made my picture book King Otter a focus for the whole of Key Stage 2 - what an honour! The velvet toy I made has been on a couple of visits to the school already, but when I went to the nursery there last week, I was thrilled to see that they had made a golden coach for his majesty. King Otter was delighted to be towed around in style by ‘unicorns’, to many cheers.

Year 2 then showed me the picture books they have been making, and I was dazzled by their imaginings - and a little bit jealous too. ‘DJ Flamingo’ was a favourite - in the story, the flamingo’s parents wanted him to be an archaeologist, but turned out to be tricking him as they loved music all along: a great plot twist. Meantime I’ve also been working on a new story, and I took the opportunity to test an early draft on Year 1 - their response was most encouraging and they gave me a few useful suggestions too. I tried the story with my regular nursery group too - and when I showed them some early sketches they all wanted to kiss the cat, who is now a bit smudgy!

My dream man

The new story I’m working on is about a small creature who has a big dream. While I was writing it I remembered that when I was in my early 20s, I dreamed one night of making a huge papier maché crocodile. When I woke up the next morning, I had a strong urge to make the dream come true, but instead of a crocodile, I made a larger-than-life man. Make of that what you will… I think I was definitely feeling inspired by Tim Hunkin at the time. Here he is:

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that my dream man is holding a copy of Horticulture Week - where at the time I was employed as an editorial assistant. He went on to live for a few years in my sister’s bathroom where he scared child visitors, before ending up in a scrap store in Swansea.

Wild Detectives

I was recently asked about where my ideas come from by Katy Dycus for The Wild Detectives, a bookstore and bar in Dallas, Texas. It’s not just from dreams! Katy asked all sorts of interesting questions about what motivates me to write and draw - as well as about the process of collaboration and all the highs and lows along the way to publication. And why reading is so important for developing empathy. Here’s a snippet, and there’s a link to the full interview below.

Katy: Lastly, what motivates you?

Jane: I suppose what completes the circle is doing school visits and reading stories to children and seeing their response. You can tell straight away whether a story is working or not. It’s always very touching when they come up afterwards and say things like “this was the best day of my life!” Those are the moments that make it all worthwhile.

Here’s a snippet from my diary that shows just how magical school visits can be:

I can’t tell you how much I treasured those tiny clouds!

Egg yolk and primrose

Sometimes inspiration comes from being out and about. Just soaking in a new place replenishes the creative juices like nothing else. I spent the day in Edinburgh recently with a friend, and we had a delightful potter in galleries and charity shops, all of which left me itching to start painting. I really enjoyed this mural in Stockbridge…

But the thing I was most excited about was this detail, spotted on the way home: freshly painted yellow lines where classic egg-yolk suddenly meets unorthodox primrose. I couldn’t take my eyes off it…

A few days previously I’d been to Newcastle with my cousins, and we loved seeing the kittiwakes nesting below the iconic lettering at the Baltic. I’d recently picked up and primed two charity shop canvases, so I had a go at painting the birds. Definitely a work in progress - I have no idea what I am doing with oil paints. But I’ll keep at it. Any tips welcome! The ‘not drying for DAYS’ bit is hard to get my head around.

Online Comics Class enrolment is now open

A huge amount of inspiration also springs from my online comics class. Each term we play a drawing game, loosely inspired by comics genius Lynda Barry, in which students take turns to describe someone in their life (a grandparent, their first teacher etc). We all then draw that person, but as an animal. I now have a big fat book of characters ready to go. Recently I picked three, and made them into a story - let’s see what happens next.

The highlight of the class is the Zine Swap. Zines have been arriving from as far afield as Tasmania and the Philippines, New York and Switzerland. Feeling globally connected is one of the (many) things I really love about teaching this class. Here’s just a taster of some of the lovely zines (and stamps, and envelopes) that have been pouring in:

If you’d like to join the fun next term, here are the dates - it’s still just £190 for the ten week term, and the class is live on Zoom with lots of interaction and feedback.

Autumn 2025: Wednesday 17th September to 26th November, with a one-week half-term break on 15th October (NOTE: there are 4 classes before half term, and 6 after). Enrolment opens TODAY, July 1st.

Full details through the button below:

I’m going to end with an embroidery update: weeds are growing all over my denim jacket. The question is, when to stop - but not until I’ve done some cow parsley with French knots…

The world is a distressing place, and I do sometimes wonder what the point is of this idle chatter while self-aggrandising despots are trampling and crushing people and the environment alike. But I hope this has at least lifted your spirits a little. And if you want to do something to help, there are some lovely risograph prints by lots of talented illustrators including Melissa Castrillon for sale to help families in Gaza here:

See you next month! Don’t forget to subscribe and share - and check out my recommended books if you need to buy a child a lovely present.