Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Telling Connected Stories Across Platforms: Roald Dahl Day With Quentin Blake

Creating a live event as an entry point into your story is a great idea-especially if your audience is made up of captive kids waiting to meet their favorite authors & illustrators.
Penguin is doing this with their Virtually Live events, a "series of free interactive webcasts from Puffin's bestselling authors." They tweet and take questions from their online community & audience.

One of their most popular Virtually Live events is Roald Dahl Day , coming up again on September 24, 2012.
EXCERPT FROM THE PUFFIN WEBSITE: 

An unmissable Puffin Virtually Live interactive webcast including:
  • Roald Dahl’s legendary illustrator Quentin Blake drawing live and in conversation with the award-winning writer Michael Rosen, author of the brand-new Fantastic Mr Dahl
  • Michael and Quentin will be answering your questions
  • Special guest appearance by actor and comedian David Walliams as The BFG
  • Behind the scenes footage from the Roald Dahl Museum and Storytelling Centre. See inside Roald Dahl's writing hut
PLUS you can:
  • Suggest your favourite Roald Dahl character and be in with a chance of Quentin drawing it live during the webcast
  • Tell us your best dreams in celebration of The BFG's 30th birthday and be in with a chance of them being read out during the webcast


You can watch Quentin Blake doodle here at  Roald Dahl Day 2011 . Cheering kids watch Blake draw some of the famous characters from the Roald Dahl book, Matilda along with other characters never before illustrated from Big Friendly Giant (BFG)




Other on demand videos in this series include interviews with Eoin Colfer, the best-selling author of the Artemis Fowl  books and Charlie Higson, author and comedian.

RELATED ARTICLES
Quentin Blake is As large As Life -Telegraph


Watch this beautiful hand drawn animation based on his book Patrick, published by Henry Z.Walck INC in 1968.
animation by Milan Klikar & Bohumil Sejda, color & backgrounds by Miluse Hluchanicova






I can't say enough about Quentin Blake! He is one of my all time favorite book illustrators. His economy of line and ability to tell stories using only pictures is awe inspiring.
Aspiring picture book illustrators would benefit from studying his line work.