St. Catherine's School Visit

Today I finally got to meet Karri Hedge in person, the editor of Billie B Brown, after working with her for over two years! It was a bit like old friends meeting together, hugs and chats as we greeted. With the lovely Jennifer guiding the way we finally arrived at St. Catherine's School (it was actually a bit of a challenge finding the building, then the entrance, then the reception, followed by a walk up stairs to a lovely library with the greatest views! Good thing we got there early!) we were welcomed by a lovely librarian :D

A lovely display of Billie B Brown Books in the Library

Today was a combined session with Karri and we talked about all the editorial and illustration process behind Billie B Brown and book in general.

Karri talking about her role as an editor.

Very interesting as it is first time for me to hear this too! 

Me talking about being an illustrator

After our talk we had a little "Designing New Billie" activity. In every Billie books, Billie B Brown's "B" stands for different words depending on the themes of the books. Such as "Ballerina", "Brave" etc
We asked the students what "B" words should their own version of Billie be. After many call outs and suggestions we landed on three "B" words, "Beautiful", "Bad" and "Balloon". So Karri suggested we should draw a "Bad Billie who popped her Brother's Beautiful Balloon".

Before I commenced on the drawing we asked the girls what expression, outfit and pose Billie should have. And below was the girls' order :D

-Cheeky smile
-Stripy Hair clip
-Pig tails
-Star Tshirt
-Shorts
-Leggings
-Gumboots
-Holding a pin (that she popped the balloon with)

So I began to draw! Feeling rather nervous as there were some serious Billie fans amongst the girls!!!

Done!!

After that we did another character designing exercise. Similar to what I did yesterday with the St Cecilia's Primary School. The girls came up with different words to describe their unique character, which then they had to draw. Being an all girl school, after some voting, we landed on a character profile "Sweet, Cute, Kitten". Awww

The girls got straight into it! There were so many creative and unique "Sweet, Cute, Kitten"s, shame I didn't get the chance to take photos of their pictures...

Then the challenge was on me! Here goes my version of a "Sweet, Cute, Kitten". Got positive feedback today. Phew :)

The girls named the kitten "Angel"

Some time were spent signing and meeting the lovely readers of the Billie B Brown books. Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside!!

THANK YOU St. Catherine's School for welcoming us! And thank you Jennifer and Karri for making me feel so at home!