Creating Hello, Hello · 2020-07-01 · Creating Hello, Hello Hello, Hello is a picture book written by children at the third Spinifex Writing Camp. It was hosted by Tjuntjuntjara

Creating Hello, HelloHello, Hello is a picture book written by children at the third Spinifex Writing Camp. It was hosted by Tjuntjuntjara School in 2018, as an initiative of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, involving twelve students from Menzies,Laverton, and Tjuntjuntjara schools working with singer songwriter Chris Aitken, illustrator Ann James and members of the ILF. It was published in March 2020.

This was my fourth visit to Tjuntjuntjara community over seven years and my third Spinifex Writing Camp. These camps are the wonderfully creative initiative of Tjuntjuntjara School principal Charlie Klein, in partnership with the ILF and a number of remote schools in WA. Each camp has resulted in a picture book written and illustrated by students working with professional children’s writers and illustrators Over the three camps these have included Sally Morgan, Gregg Dreise, Judy Watson, myself and, most recently, singer songwriter Chris Aitken. The Writing Camp time is full of play and work, words and images, inside and outside, cooking up stories and great meals together!

The Spinifex Writing Camp team

Ann James

Writing, singing and drawing... stories! Our goal for Spinifex Writers Camp 3, was to make a song book over 3 days. Of the three songs they wrote together, ‘Hello, Hello, off we go…’ was the kids’ favourite. We sang it as we bumped our way out bush in the troupie…

Sketching with charcoalA couple of hours out sketching in the Tjunjuntjara landscape was very productive. It was the catalyst for a flurry of spontaneous charcoal drawings created as soon as we got back. Within half an hour many of the spooky scenes for the Hello, Hello song had been illustrated on the library floor, then more when we moved off to the multi-purpose room!

Chris Aitken & the kids writing lyrics

Charcoal drawing on the library floor. Edmond and Phillip created the dingo and the hawk.

Playing with pastels, paperclay and paintOver the next couple of days more illustrations for all three songs were cooked up in the multi-purpose room using a variety of media - pastel illustrations for Thing and paperclay with acrylic painted backgrounds for Shorty, Monster, Ace and Titch.

Pastel drawing Thing by GizellePastel drawing for Thing by Thomas

3D paperclay and acrylic painting illustrations for Shorty, Monster, Ace & Titch

Pastel illustrations for Thing

Charcoal illustrations for Hello, Hello

The exhibition

Coming togetherOn our last evening, an exhibition of all the kids’ art was presented to the community. Everyone was very proud and amazed at the creative work produced and back in the library we sang the songs to the families.

The exhibition

It’s Hello, Hello!The next stage was for the ILF production team to meet and decide on the content for the songbook. We unanimously decided, like the kids had, that Hello, Hello was our favourite song and would make a great picture story using their fabulous charcoal drawings.

Production and designLee Burgemeestre, as the book’s designer, has done a masterful job marrying the text and illustrations – and that is quite a story in itself. For most of the pages Lee has collaged different children’s images to advance the story. She created a limited colour palette from the kids’ pastel drawings for Thing, subtly adding to the mood of the story. The font she created herself, writing with a stick dipped in ink!

Each of these drawings was used to create the final, published illustration below

Lee and Ann checking the proofs

Preps, proofs and printingThe Splitting Image company in Melbourne prepared the illustrations for printing and Lee and I were extremely pleased with the results.The prepared layouts were shipped to China where the books were printed and bound by 1010 Printing International Limited.

The published version of Edmond’s dingo illustration with text

While Lee and I were working together on the book’s layout we realised we needed a few more illustrations including a family of humans with a dog or two, a bush turkey and some footprints. Back in Tjuntjuntjara, a small team of illustrators went into action and a few more beautiful charcoal images were posted across to us.

Kayden working on extra drawings

The book launchThe whole team reassembled in Kalgoorlie to launch the publication of our song book.Safe from the hot Kalgoorlie sun under the cola at East Kalgoorlie Public School, the budding authors, along with lots of students from local schools came together to share the story and sing it. At the end of the launch, the authors sat down to sign their book for a long queue of happy readers eager to receive a signature.

Seeing their book for the first time

The launch audience

Our creators signed over 50 copies!

Front endpaper signed by the creators at the launch

Later we grouped together in a Kalgoorlie studio to record the kids singing their song. You can hear the recording yourselves as there’s a QR code printed in the back of the book.

Hello Hello was published in March 2020.What a journey. What an incredible story. What a wonderful result.

Ann James is an Ambassador of The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF). Over seven years she has visited remote communities and worked with Indigenous children, played with art materials and words, and used a mixture of these to tell stories. English is sometimes their fourth language but it is a key to open the door to many opportunities. Learning to read English through stories chosen in consultation with communities and supplied by the ILF has been excitingly successful.

The ILF recognises that Indigenous languages are the key to each community’s identity, to their history and to their continuing culture. Many projects include developing books especially with and for the communities in their own languages. Some books are bilingual and someare written in English. Reading stories created, written and illustrated by their own people and set in their place is brilliant.

Read about the work of the ILF at:http://Indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au