James Foley is tired of hearing about how people can not draw stick figures to save their lives.
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The Western Australian illustrator and children’s book writer has been travelling around the country trying to nip the fear of failure in the bud.
Visiting Scotch Oakburn College junior school, he soon had a group of students drawing zombie rabbits – a homage to his shortlisted children’s book My Dead Bunny.
“A lot of kids as they get older in primary school, they would like to draw more often and they would probably like to write more except, particularly with drawing, they get to an age where they start comparing themselves to others,” Mr Foley said.
“They start to say ‘that kid’s the good drawer, it’s not me, stop trying so much.”
He hoped his classes would stop children becoming adults who said they could not even draw a stick figure.
“Drawing is essentially a language, you learn how to draw things. You learn how to represent things, it’s not impossible to learn,” Mr Foley said.
He started his career working at Western Australia newspaper The Quokka, illustrating the covers for seven years.It was there he learnt how to tell stories with pictures.
The Quokka remained as his reminder to set and stick to deadlines, which helped him create more than 300 covers in his time there.
He joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, giving Mr Foley the opportunity to meet with established writers.
When writer Norman Jorgensen approached him about working on a book together, they pitched the story to Mr Jorgensen’s publisher.
“That’s not normally how it works, normally a writer writes a story then a publisher, if they like it, will choose the illustrator,” Mr Foley said.
Their risk paid off and The Last Viking was published in 2011 – his “first foot in the door”.
“I’d always been given lots of books to read as a kid … I really loved visual storytelling.”
He was awarded third place in a state-wide ‘make your own storybook’ competition when he was in year six. “I was really, really proud of that and that was a very influential event in my early life. A bit of a turning point that idea I could maybe do it as a job.”
His next book Dungzilla is set to be published by September this year.
Tess Brunton
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
