British Council Delegation

Yesterday we met a British council delegation who came by the London Print Studio as part of their UK tour. They were looking into what the UK has to offer to comics, and came to see the 'Thats Novel' exhibition. We were lucky enough to be able to show them our work and tell them about our project. We met representatives from Belgium, Algiers and Finland plus Paul Gravett who was showing them around the exhibition.

Screen Print Workshop

This week, we had the chance to use the londonprintstudio facilities, and take part in one of their screen printing workshops.

One of the print technicians, Paul, led us through the hand's on induction step-by-step: demonstrating clearly how to coat our own screens and create different marks in our work, such as with a lino pen or a brush and ink.

Even though a few of us already had knowledge of screen printing, we did pick up new skills that we are now keen to use and develop within our comics.

Below are some examples of the prints we created during the day:

Rachel Emily Taylor

Freya Harrison

William Goldsmith

Joe Kelly

Lynn's Workshop

On Tuesday December 7th we had a really good workshop ran by Lynn Weddle, an arts educator who has worked with a wide range of learners, from teenaged mothers to South American street children. Her workshop to us was very informative on how to actually run a workshop.

We took part in a series of games and activities and learnt how to complete detailed workshop plans. We also discussed our own definitions of what makes a good workshop and how this differs from the classroom environment of school. Lynn stressed the importance of running good workshops in schools, in order to make good impressions and to pave the way for future workshops with those schools and develop a good working relationship with them. She also briefed us on monitoring and evaluating workshops, again for the benefit of future workshops.

We discussed the diversity of kids that Lynn worked with, and some of the disciplinary difficulties encountered. Some kids wouldn't participate in the arts workshops because they didn't want to get messy, some even got kicked out of Tate Modern on a school trip because of behavioural problems. But ultimately these experience were rewarding for the kids - they eventually got to see their work displayed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth!

This was a really productive day for us interns and gave us plenty of food for thought on how to run our own comics workshops for the young comics enthusiasts at londonprintstudio.

Alien Ink

The comic creators of "Alien Ink" led a workshop at the London Print Studio last Saturday (4th December 2010).

We were joined by the talented David and Esther Bircham. They talked about how they first entered the comic industry, and what difficulties they had to face before they joined forces with Channel 4 Education to create "Alien Ink", an online graphic novel that reflects a series of teen pressures.

The Bircham's are definitely one's to watch. "Alien Ink" has potential to reach a worldwide audience through the internet; and their company, "Pulp Theatre", is the first comic book publisher to work with a major UK broadcaster on an online graphic novel project. They are definitely a very inspiring couple.

Have a peek at their website: Alien Ink

Alternative Press Fair

Last week I had a table at the Alternative Press Fair with fellow comic creator Tom J Hughes. Here is a pic of our spread! It was a good day, good and busy, and I bought some great zines and comics. There was a good mix of hand made crafty stuff, comics, anarchist and political zines and art school stuff. Highlights were the girls who had a tie die stall (they would tie die everything from long johns to baby gros right before your eyes) plus I got my first peek at the new Comics Reader. Its a broadsheet sized full colour newspaper solely dedicated to comics and on sale for the every reasonable price of £1. If you didn't make it down, definitely come to the next one!