Monthly Archives: August 2013
Boats, Books and Boingz!
Inspiration
I love when things are clever and funny at the same time, when it is ‘art’ too, well it’s a triple whammy! The down to earth Scottish sculptor and artist George Wyllie is sadly missed for these attributes. Who else would create a machine to applaud a painting, and what Glaswegian in the 1980’s can’t remember the straw locomotive hanging from the Finnieston Crane or the even more iconic paper boat? Well, this coming Saturday sees school children celebrating the paper boat and launching their own into the Clyde at Greenock (Beacon Arts Centre). So today I’ve joined in the boat madness and learned how to make a paper boat. JoJo Gnome is onboard complete with life belts (just in case of any sinking incident). I will let you know how it goes!
Listen Up, A Sound Hunt.
In JoJo Gnome and the Sound Machine, my little gnome discovers the joy of listening and collecting sounds. In this very visual world its good to get our kids back to appreciating their surroundings using all their senses … so here’s a good work out for little ears.
A sound hunt, which will keep under 5’s amused inside or outside the house …a listening walk. There are lots of ways to do this but here are a few suggestions
(a) Use the chart with the picture symbols and go looking for the sounds near by…it shouldn’t be too hard. There is a chart for outside and also for inside the house. Add in your own sound symbols too.
(b) For older children be more specific in your instructions. Listen for 3 kinds of different birds. Listen for 2 different water noise (drips and water from the tap) etc.
(c) Let the kids create their own sound hunt …here’s hoping you are up for the challenge!!!!
Enjoy having fun with sound and happy listening!
Kids’ Authors
The start of this week saw the last event at the Edinburgh Book Festival, the School Gala Day. I saw a couple of great booky people. The award winning Janis Mackay shared the inspiration for her latest book, The Accidental Time Traveller (which was incidentally the diary of a young child who died in Victorian times when she was very young). The other was illustrator Sarah McIntyre, who was talking about her latest book Super Kid. She showed us all how to draw her Super Hamster character (mine’s not very good..see above), great fun event! Loved the fantastic deck chairs they had there with great quotes.
Sound Sewing
The sound quilt is coming on…back finished now and construction about to happen. Sent away for the sound bits (notice lack of technical detail here!!!) to make it interactive for the kids…well you can’t have a sound quilt without actual sound. That would be cheating! Doing an event with the quilt in September so better stop writing and start sewing again.
JoJo finds inspiration in Edinburgh
Edinburgh Inspiration and Christmas pudding
Sitting in the garden, on what is probably the last lovely day in summer, waiting for the paint to dry on the back of my Sound Machine Quilt just now. The front is shaping up quite nicely …so fingers crossed it all fits together. Typically I am making it up as I go along!
Spent most of last week working in Edinburgh at the Festival. I love this time of year in the capital with all the buskers and mad looking people handing out flyers. Top favourite sights were a really sad looking puppet (which seemed to follow me round the town), the very tasty food market just off Princes Street and the Man Ray exhibition at the Portrait Gallery. I didn’t know what to expect from the exhibition but found out quite a bit about this surrealist photographer and documenter of the literati and glitterati of his time. I hadn’t realised he was also a painter and surprise surprise I have a couple of postcards of his work on one of my mood boards (love those kind of coincidences). Best of all was the bus I spotted with the exhibition advertised on the side…much better than buying a tee shirt, catching the bus!
On the book front, met a couple of interesting children’s authors at the Edinburgh Book Festival this week. Adam Britten is a teacher who writes about Super Heroes and did a great talk. He really made the young folk in the audience think about the stereotypes they carry with them and challenged the whole notion of heroes. Delighted when he shared his all time hero as Stephen Hawking. Another author who caught my attention was Gareth P Jones, his latest book is called Constable & Toop and is all about Victorian ghosts. He gave a great interactive talk, which included the opportunity for the young audience to decide what direction the story was going and finished up by playing the ukulele. Both of these authors really underline the fact that when an author gets up in front of children with their work they have to really lift the work off the page and engage. It might not just be enough to write a great book!
As for my writing, the coming week will be about Christmas as I am putting finishing touches to drawings for my book, which will be out in November … working title JOJO GNOME AND THE SMELL OF CHRISTMAS. Drawing Christmas pudding is making me want to eat some. The sad thing is they will be in the shops any day now!
Hello There!
Welcome to the JoJo Gnome site, the place to find out lots about , you’ve guessed it… JoJo Gnome. Drop by and hear what’s new and going on with this wee fellow (and of course me – Jo).
The latest JoJo Gnome book JoJo & the Sound Machine is available to buy at the Amazon Kindle Store now. I am currently working on an audio version of JoJo Gnome and the Sound Machine, I will let you know when you can hear that. I will also give you a sneak preview of the fantastic music which Al Flemming has composed for it.
Have a look in the Gallery and see the fantastic pictures which Primary 1 in Strathblane Primary School (2013) did of JoJo. I would love to see pictures which you have drawn of JoJo Gnome so please email them to me (jojognome@gmail.com).
Coming soon to the site will be pictures which you can print off and colour and some other fun stuff. Also planned are some activities for teachers.
If you have bought a JoJo Gnome ebook and would like a personalised picture of JoJo just email me your receipt/ the spelling of your name and the email address you would like it sent to.
As you might know this year they allowed gnomes into the famous Chelsea Flower Show for the first time…what you might not know is that a certain gnome attended the Royal Garden Party at Holyrood Palace earlier this year. No photographic proof from inside the event as cameras were not allowed but this was taken just before arriving.
JoJo at Holyrood!
Thanks for dropping by …come back soon.