It's the Wessex Literary Festival again, and this time I've been booked by three schools to come in and talk about my children's books and assist the students with some cartoon illustrations.

Today I was at New Forest Academy with a fun bunch of Year 7s. We started off by looking at some different cartooning techniques and how they can be applied to interesting character design. The children produced all sorts of innovative characters of their own, from a penguin in a onesy to a baby vampire.

After a short break we then looked at what makes a good children's book picture. I then gave the children a short bit of verse and invited them to interpret it however they saw fit, but using their cartoon character creation. They had to produce the drawing as a sketched rough first so we could tighten up the layout before having a stab at a finished drawing which, in the time available, was always going to be a struggle, but they had a good go.

Lots of good work produced and a lovely good-natured bunch they were too. Perfect start to LitFest!