Hello everyone, so Summer is here (kindof) and it’s time to put away the hot water bottles and switch down the central heating (well pehaps keep them on standby). But spare a thought for the polar bears, they must be freezing. I’ve never been there but apparently north of above Sheffield, it gets really cold.
Recently I and a load of other Bristol Illustrators went into a local primary school for ‘Book week’. Our mission for the week was to help the children develop characters, and encourage them to write stories about them.
I took into class my Polar Bear as an example of a children’s book character, showing them how to draw him and how simple it can be to come up with your own characters.
Some of the children decided that they wouldn’t come up with characters of their own but would just draw my Polar Bear instead. I did try to explain to them what ‘copyright infringement’ was but I suppose it was my own fault for showing them how to draw it in the first place.
At the end of the week we all went back to the school to see how the kids had been getting on with their projects and join them for a big scribble on the floor. See the attached blog for details brillustrationbristol.blogspot.com.
The books the kids had made during the week were truly impressive, but one story stuck out for me, a story about a Polar Bear - who is clutching a hot water bottle because he’s cold - who then trips over and drops his hot water bottle - which lands on and then melts a block of ice – releasing a giant dinosaur which was contained within – which obviously causes a great deal of mayhem and problems for our Polar Bear hero.
Sadly I didn’t get to see how the story ends, but it has left me with a moral/ethical question.
‘If a bunch a six year olds write a story based on a character you taught them to draw, am I allowed to pinch that story and then try and get it published?’
… And if anyone out there is intending to knick the story first then I would point out that I’ve already called dibs!
Nothing like Polar bears to remind you of a British summer. Thanks Sean!
