Children’s author and illustrator Rob Biddulph visited the Infants at Bolton School for a live Draw Along with the whole school! All of the children from the Pre-School Class to Year 2 congregated in the hall with paper and pencils for this special occasion.
Rob mentioned that one of his last in-person events before the pandemic hit the UK was a visit to Bolton School’s Infants at Beech House for World Book Day 2020. Many of the children and staff are also familiar with him from his Draw Along sessions online during lockdown, including the very special whale drawing that broke the Guinness World Record for the largest ever online art class.
The presentation began with Rob reading his book ‘Odd Dog Out’: a wonderful story about being who you are. This led Rob to ask the children what they want to be when they grow up. He talked about his own childhood and how winning a prize for a drawing in Year 1 was the beginning of his career as an artist! He said that there is ‘a straight line between that first drawing and being an illustrator’ and told the children that the most important thing was that he didn’t give up. He advised them not to give up on their dreams either.
Rob then led a live Draw Along session in which he talked the children and staff through drawing a picture of Odd Dog wearing a Santa hat. Everyone really enjoyed following his instructions to create their drawings.
At the end, Rob asked everyone to hold up their drawings and it was great to see all the different Odd Dogs that had been created. As Rob said: ‘With drawing, there is no right or wrong answer. Everybody can’t help but put a bit of themselves into their drawing.’
Finally, Rob read his new story ‘Odd Dog Christmas’ before a book-signing session in the school Library.
Watch a video recap of Rob’s visit on Bolton School TV or via the play button below:
