Book & Literary Festival Sketching (new zine)

I drew at both the Carlisle Borderlines (Book) Festival, and the Berwick Literature (not Book) Festival this month.


I like books,
I like authors, and am curious about how they speak
I like events organised by volunteers in different places
I like drawing
I like drawing people when they are staying still
I like doodling in meetings, it helps my mind zone in (or out)
I like doing things that people appreciate


So this year I contacted the organisers of events at the different edges of what I consider to be 'my' realm: Carlisle to the west, Berwick north and east. I live bang in the middle.


Members of both organising teams responded positively, and made me welcome, and gave me a pass to wear, and let me in for free. Thankyou Wendy and thankyou Michael!


I am just really happy to have taken part, by sketching the scene at some of their events, and if you are free next year you should definitely think about attending Carlisle Borderlines and Berwick Literary Festival


To mark this activity I will produce a free zine in time for a print fair in Shipley, town of my birth, on the first weekend of November.


It will include pages depicting, first, the engaging and lively talk by Jenn Ashworth and Andrew Michael Hurley, in an intimate Sunday morning session at Carlisle library :

 

 

 

It will also include a sketch of Jacob Polley, as he presented his new Jackself pieces to an appreciative crowd in the Tullie House Museum :

It will include my best drawing, of Jenny Uglow running through the life and art of Edward Lear, in the Crown & Mitre :

Then there was a weekend in Kendal where my drawing was done with kids in a shopping centre (not to be featured in the zine), but this was followed by a weekend in Berwick that I was kind of combining with work (so I had to pop in and out).

Here I drew Ian McMillan as he got the whole room laughing out loud and (later) singing along, accompanied by (actual) cartoonist Tony Husband.

 
Then in the morning I kayaked across the Tweed to Spittal, where Christopher Smith gave a popular talk on PG Wodehouse, in the United Reform Church :

 
My early evening sketch of Max Adams, talking of the giants who were seen in this old landscape of ours, was done in a bit of a rush and has come across too cartoony :

But in the morning I had one more chance to sketch and I'm very happy with the way that the crowd came out, listening to Katrina Porteous and Northumbrian piper, young Alice Robinson :

The zine will consist just of the scans, so the glimpses of actual backs of heads you have here are the evidence, unasked for, that they were done on the spot, that I felt welcome and appreciated, and was thrilled to get to take in all this intelligence, wit and drama, as an equal participant, giving quid pro quo and mutually beneficial exchange!