Doodling Toads

Challa Gardens Primary School

Every Friday, I jump in my car and head to the other side of town to the amazing Challa Gardens Primary School where they greet you like a celebrity and treat you like one of the family. At the beginning of the year with council funding we embarked on, "The Stobie Pole Project". I was given strict instructions from the ever smiling principal that the poles were to be entirely the kids work...from the design to the final product. The kids have been champions the whole way. They've brainstormed, shared ideas, argued, collaborated, challenged each other, developed designs, negotiated and charmed the neighbours, while colouring the surrounding streets of their school with totems of who they are as people, what they love learning about, where they are going and what they dream of. We inspire each other and they remind me every Friday the thrill of being an artist. We have two weeks to finish and then we are inviting all their friends and families to the end of year "Stobie Pole Parade"!

P.S Stobie is the pet name for power line poles in South Australia. 

Owlglass

Designed for my inspiring boss, L'hibou who is leaving today on her next adventure...

MetamorphFest

A little fun for the day job.

Pass it On - Illustration of the Week

PASS IT ON is a weekly, interactive, networking e-zine for anyone interested in the children's book industry. Thanks to the lovely Jackie Hosking, I'm super chuffed to be featured in their "Illustration of the Week" column. Here's the interview...

Please describe your chosen illustration. Is it a personal piece or is it for a particular project?

 
This is the cover illustration for “Tales of My Uncle Bob”, written by Tasmanian writer Chris Robinson and published by Xlibris. One day, late last year my lithographer friend K.K Green called me and vaguely said, “there’s a writer across the road looking for an illustrator”. So I called him and he sent me his manuscript.
 
I was captured immediately by the words. He told stories that were slightly unbelievable but that I wanted to believe were true. They were about a character I felt I knew, who had travelled across roads I had been in my five years living in the desert.
 
It was thrilling to work with someone I had never met but could draw what he could speak. He wanted ten black and white drawings plus a coloured cover illustration. I had an idea for the cover in my head but I had put off starting it because I was afraid I wouldn’t get it right. One day as the deadline loomed another writer friend rang me in a state, “Help! Can I come over? I can’t work at home by myself today”. It was kick up the bum I needed. She came and I set up two desks side by side. I cut and stuck and threw paper around the room and when I came to the hair, I cursed that I had no wool in the house….so I trimmed my unravelling carpet!!
 
How long have you been illustrating? How old were you when you started?

When I was 6, my dad who had a community theatre company did a production of “The Little Prince”. My sister and I learnt the story off by heart from cover to cover. We loved the boa constrictor digesting the elephant, how grownups never understand children and how tiresome it is for children to explain things to them all the time. I think we grew up trying not to, creating games and stories and disappearing into other worlds. Somewhere in this the illustrating began.
 
Did you study art beyond high school? Where did you study?
 
I grew up in the country, in a family of theatrics, with gypsy artists and musicians growing in our backyard. My parents coloured our life with imagination and storytelling so “study” happened both in school and out in the world. After school, I grew to love everything about colour and texture while studying Fashion Design at Canberra Institute of Technology. Later, I fell in love with the magic of moving pictures and animation at RMIT studying Electronic Design and Interactivity. But best of all, I discovered people you who inspired and drove me to be a better artist. Recently, I have considered studying again but nothing about it really excites me.  Somehow, I have gone back to my roots, surrounding myself with a unique and exciting bunch of characters. Every week we gather, chatter, scribble and scrabble. We talk over one another, invigorating, debating and making. It’s who I am right now.
 
What made you decide that you’d like to illustrate for children?
 
I’m not sure I ever thought there was another option. That is where stories begin. Children believe anything is possible and the more outrageous the story the better. They inspire me and challenge me. My own children especially, who constantly tell me they can draw better than I can (and secretly perhaps they can!)                           
 
How do you source illustration work?
 
Every time I see a book I wish I’d illustrated or a magazine I wish I’d made, I scribble down the publisher and go home and send them an email with my portfolio. It’s taken me a long time to be confident enough to introduce myself as an illustrator but you just have to get over it and be brave! Work doesn’t find you, you have to find it.                                                               
 
Do you have an agent that represents you? If so, how did you go about the process of finding an agent?
 
No
 
Do you attend conferences? Which ones stand out? Where they helpful in advancing your career?
 
CYA Conference is fabulous! But when money is tight going to gallery openings, book launches, film nights are the way to go. They are all great networking experiences.
 
Have you illustrated any picture books? 
 
At the moment I’m loving doing a lot of collaborating. Last year I worked with Newcastle based writer, Kim Miller on his book, “Brendan, his knees, his bees, his mysterious disease.”  I also have written and illustrated two unpublished children’s books that both won prizes at the CYA Conference and I have made several handmade books.
 
I also illustrate kid’s birthday cards for For Arts Sake in Sydney.
 
Could you share the story of how you published your first picture book?
 
My sister and I were big entrepreneurs as children. She is younger than me and has generally always been the brains of any operation. Being the eldest though, I would always insist on being in charge and taking all the credit for the idea (she graciously always let me!). We started a photographic business from our lounge room when I was about 8 where we would take photos on an old broken camera of my fathers and then draw the photos while our models waited for the result. In the backyard we had the very exclusive Tree House Club that produced a “Save-the-Planet” type zine. We created a mini-village with all our friends, had a car detective agency, were frequently fashion police and when we were older we opened a Dating Agency. None of this might seem relevant but in a world where self-publishing, e-zines and internet start-ups are the way to go, it gave us the hutzpah we needed to try anything.  The actual answer to the question…I was ten, it was about mermaids and it was for a correspondence school assignment…but you wanted a story!
 
Have you done any illustrations for children’s magazines? Which ones?
 
No, not children’s but I have illustrated for Alien She Zine and Threaded.
 
Have you worked with educational publishers? If so, which ones?
 
No, but I work at lot with schools and children as an artist-in-residence. I currently work at Challa Gardens Primary School in Adelaide, mentoring young artists to design and paint all the Stobie Poles around their school.
 
What materials do you use to paint your illustrations?
 
I generally always start with black fine liners but when I feel that I’m getting too uptight and need to shake loose, I do a lot of collage. I use everything around me – serviettes in restaurants, the leaves in the garden, jelly crystals that my children have scattered all over the kitchen bench, potato peelings and yes…my unravelling carpet.
 
How much time do you spend illustrating?
 
I illustrate with my printing friend Robyn on Mondays and that always starts the week off with a bang. If we are still creating by Friday without having been distracted, we are allowed to eat ice-cream!
 
How has the Internet been helpful for you?
 
I love the internet and I am nuts about researching new ideas. After working with a mad clever computer tech in the desert, when I am stuck, I always utter the words “What would Rongamai do?” – he literally googles everything!
 
It’s also absolutely the best place for networking. I am a big fan of Illustration Friday, Doodlers Anonymous, The Doodle Theory Club and They Draw and Cook (that’s my favourite!).
 
Do you use much technology with your illustrations? Computer programmes or drawing tablets?
 
It is true, I love my scanner. I have friends who take to their computer like an obsessed cult fan, but I try to never forget that my computer is only a tool. My scanner allows me to put the real me into my illustrations. It keeps them rough and unpolished and as a result my scanner is very scratched and dirty and has a short life span.
 
What are you working on now?
 
If you ask my friends they’ll say, she’s catching cockroaches…which is true. I am making a kind of graphic novel zine based on a newspaper article my dad sent me years ago about cockroaches escaping from a farm in china.
 
Where you can find me....
 
http://clairewildish.blogspot.com.au/

Halloween Picture Tag with J & H

Any excuse for a party in our house and while Halloween is not really an Australian tradition it does involves our two favourite things - dressing up AND cooking mad food. So, it is celebrated with great gusto. As usual the level of excitement is in the extreme!! It's all the boys will talk about from morning till night. Yesterday, for some unknown reason we ready for school EARLY (I hear you all gasp! Noooo!) So, I was roped into a game of Halloween Picture Tag. This morning, Jonah (10) was making a template for himself and Hugo (7) to design their Halloween costumes on. By the time Halloween comes around Hugo will have changed his mind 60 times about his costume and Jonah will still be be deciding whether he should be dressing up. 
In the meantime... I am off to make cockroach jelly!!!

Ice-Cream on Mondays

Robyn is back so we are printing again!

Illustration Friday - Sprout

But then Hugo (7) came home and said he was missing a bird....

Cause that's what you do on a Wednesday....

Uncle Bob @ Hahndorf Academy!

Experiment: Shellac + Egg Carton

How to Draw a Bum!

Jonah(10) and Hugo(7) regularly inform me I need a drawing tutorial from the masters. This week Hugo sternly instructed me that I needed to draw bums because that's what Jonah was drawing. And, as Hugo is also the house DJ, this would need to be done while listening to Sir Mix-A-Lot! (hence the dancing bums!)

The Book Thief!

My Dad sent me this funny photo today and I was so busy laughing my head off, it took me a while to recognise the book thief/mad shopper as our dear friend and fabulous artist KK (aka Kaye Green). When I was studying, my sister and I used to help out in her print studio and what's more, I have her to thank for introducing me to the quirky teller of Uncle Bob Tales, Chris Robinson.

Pacific Book Review Star!

Tales of My Uncle Bob

Title: Tales of My Uncle Bob
Author: Chris Robinson
Illustrations by: Claire Wildish
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-5245-2039-7
Pages: 108
Genre: Children’s Book
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Pacific Book Review Star
Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit

In this enjoyable children’s storybook, Tales of My Uncle Bob, author Chris Robinson takes to the lighthearted vernacular of the world “Down Under.” With the dusty and barren deserts, scorpions and snakes, Uncle Bob is the personification of a loner – a cowboy of the outback. Even the way he came into this world had a uniqueness – found in a hollow tree as a baby with his feet sticking out. He was brought to the local post office and dropped on the doorstep. An abandoned little boy, reluctantly adopted by his “Mum” and not having a name until he needed one – for a birth certificate. Fred and Mike would be just fine, but since the fee for the filing of a birth certificate was 2 Bob – hence Bob became his name. Uncle Bob was a man as course as the old fashioned cowboy image, living as a role model for a lifestyle measured by the calendar, not by the clock. Perfectly content to be left with a jar a Vegemite and a jug of water, Uncle Bob made his way among the horses and goats of the Australian outback, finding pleasure in the nothingness and needing little. Tough as nails, he taught himself how to write his name, and learned from the land the lessons of the world.

Tales of My Uncle Bob is filled with stories which are fanciful while being quite innocent. There is one about Bob, as a kid, noticing that ants would dig holes and dump the different colors of sand each in its own pile. Unknowingly Uncle Bob found the pile of yellow sand to be heavy and had a luster to it, so he put it in an empty Vegemite jar and kept it in his room. He managed to collect three jars of this sand when one day his Mum discovered it and noticed it was gold. After proving to his Mum he found the gold and didn’t take it, his Mum stayed up all night on the porch with a shotgun in her lap so nobody would steal it, and the next morning they took it into town for money.

Uncle Bob was a great horseman. Once he went to prove his skills by having his horse jump over a fence – as a bet. Little did he know on the other side of the fence was a rocky ravine which would kill anyone landing on it. Off Uncle Bob went into the air on his horse, but at the top he realized he made an error in judgment! Saying something into the ear of his horse, the two miraculously turned in mid-air, landing safely back on the side in which they started. What a close call!

Then my favorite was when Uncle Bob entered a goat race – the winner was to get $5,000. Well obviously Uncle Bob won, but in the excitement the goat ate the award money. Goats eat anything, you know. With the location, phrases and humor of the Aussie outback, Uncle Bob rivals Crocodile Dundee for the best of Australian export. Combining the master word crafting of Chris Robinson, complimented by whimsical illustrations by Claire Wildish, Uncle Bob takes children’s imagination far away, chapter-by-chapter, into the adventures of the outback. Each story can be read by youngsters and the Tales of My Uncle Bob will embellish the imagination of generations of children as this book is a keepsake to any family library. Because when all things are good in Australia, the expression is, “Bob’s your Uncle.” It’s nice to have an Uncle Bob.

Uncle Bob - Reviewed!!

Tales of My Uncle Bob
by Chris Robinson (writer), Claire Wildish (illustrator)
Xlibris

reviewed by Toby Berry

"The water at this place was deep enough to swallow a house, if that was a sort of thing you were likely to want to do."

This book will have readers smiling from page to page and front to back. Robinson is funny and drops quirky sentences and stories like little surprises between more serious verse. Each chapter relates a tale that may or may not be entirely true as recalled by the narrator whose Uncle Bob was "not so much born as discovered." He was reportedly found in a boab tree and then bundled up and left at the post office. He was then discovered and taken in by Miss Mary O'Toole. Hmmm, coincidence, or is this allegorical?

Uncle Bob's stories involve his life wandering the Australian desert droving cattle, at least mostly. In one story, Uncle Bob is swallowed by a snake. He escapes back out the mouth by climbing the rungs of the ribs of the shocked reptile. So, of course, readers are thinking Jonah and the whale. Then suddenly, "...he realized that as he had made his way out, he had turned the whole snake inside out, and the poor, enormous reptile...his insides on the outside, completely the wrong way round!" Did Uncle Bob destroy evil, or was it just a silly story and a snake?

The book is an easy read, and the sometimes quirky angles bring The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster to mind. The illustrator for Robinson’s tales, Claire Wildish, draws whimsical and fun artwork for the book, which is also reminiscent of the black and white simple sketches in Juster’s work. The author is brilliant at his craft, and his book is the kind that you pick up repeatedly when you need a lighthearted read. A good way to end any day, whether bad, good, or frightful, Robinson’s book should sit on the bedside stand, tattered and well worn.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review - Premium US Reviews

Buy "Tales of my Uncle Bob here"!

Fullers Bookshop, Hobart

Cockroach printing with Robyn Buttered Toast

Last year I considered studying again but nothing about it really excited me.  Somehow, I have accidentally, magically ended up getting printing master classes from my very good friend Robyn Finlay. She likes tea and rust and dirt, so she never thinks it's weird when I ask her to help me print cockroaches! 

(N.B My gorgeous children call her "Buttered Toast" because...she LOVES buttered toast!)

Picture Tag with Hugo (7)

Published!

Malvern Papershop

My Marketing Manager!

Alien She Zine

Super excited to be part of Alien She Zine's latest issue and be partnered with the very talented Josefina Huq. Very mysteriously, I was told that I would be partnered with a writer and I didn't know who it would be till it was published yesterday. I only had to read the first line to smile and know the editors at Alien She Zine know what they are doing. 

"By three o’clock we would be in the pool. Partially clothed, sometimes completely naked."
To read the story check it out at Alien She Zine.

Catching Roaches!

Some ideas sit in your desk for years before they properly form. This story is one of those. Finally I have got it out of the draw and am piecing it together excitedly. Be patient as it slowly unfolds....

Potato ABC's

Tales of my Uncle Bob

Just a little bit excited(!!!) about this project. My lithographer friend Kaye Green who lives in Tasmania called me a couple of months ago with a very vague story about a friend of hers who was looking for an illustrator and she wasn't sure whether I'd be interested etc etc. But I've had a fabulous time illustrating for Chris Robinson. His story is funny and quirky and reminded me so much of my desert travels and now it is in print! Available on amazon. Check it out!