Sue Grayson Ford Director of the Campaign for Drawing launched Big Draw 2010 on Monday. This year - Make Your Mark on the Future – will feature events and activities around the country throughout October.

The event also saw the official launch of the website drawandfoldover.com (as mentioned previously) with a special drawing by Posy Simmonds, Steven Appleby, storyboard artist Nesta Morgan and Bloghorn’s own, Matt Buck. The results were projected on a giant screen in the auditorium as they drew.

Winners of the Drawing Inspiration Awards received a certificate drawn by Quentin Blake and a cheque. These were presented to a variety of organisations and institutions for their work in promoting drawing and it’s use in education and for the public benefit. Winners included the Prema Arts Centre in Gloucestershire, Stockport College and Worcester Porcelain Museum. The Arts Award Prize was presented to 15 year old Phoebe Hill for her Giant’s Garden project at Lyme Regis ArtsFest. The Awards this year also featured the first overseas winners, with the Playeum Play Centre in Singapore being co-winner of the Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Awards and the Kecskemét Cultural and Conference Centre in Hungary being a runner-up.

Bloghorn should add that the adaptation of Posy’s drawn book Tamara Drewe premiered in Cannes at the film festival and will be out later in the year.

Bloghorn enjoyed this Drawandfoldover from contributors to the service made by our friends at the Campaign for Drawing. We were at the 2010 Big Draw national launch event yesterday and will have a report about it soon.

The Campaign for Drawing – the group behind such events as the Big Draw and the Battle of the Cartoonists – have launched a website to encourage the general public to get their pencils out called Draw and Fold Over. The site is an update of the Exquisite Corpse parlour game, where the player first draws a head, then folds the piece of paper over and passes it on to a friend to draw the torso and so forth until the finished picture is revealed. In keeping with the games humble origins, you can pick to draw with a variety of implements including ballpoint pen, marker or pencil, but for the internet generation you can also share your contributions with your friends by email, Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, and watch the image be redrawn in front of your eyes.

After several years as the plucky underdog, the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation’s team, this year rebranded as Team Bloghorn, has finally emerged victorious from the annual Battle of the Cartoonists.

Our team came joint first with Private Eye in the Big Draw event in which four teams completed a large banner on the theme of “Now We Are Ten”, celebrating a decade of The Campaign for Drawing. They faced stiff competition from teams from The Sun and The Independent.

A banner year: The Bloghorn team was made up of, left to right, Andy Bunday, Clive Goddard, captain Pete Dredge, holding the cup, who oversaw proceedings, and Nathan Ariss

Work in progress: Clive and Pete get drawing. Click here, to see the full, completed banner

In a post-match interview, Pete told the Bloghorn: “Justice and victory at last for the PCO’s Battle of the Cartoonists’ team, albeit jointly with the Eye (Shurely shome mistake – Ed). What seemed like a clear-cut decision was mysteriously drawn out into a “cheer-off” head-to-head. And even then our clearly louder decibel reading was insufficient for us to be declared outright winners. A big draw indeed!”

Joint winners: The Private Eye team, left to right, Simon Pearsall, Richard Jolley and Ken Pyne, also a PCO member, with MC Andrew Marr, who is a patron of the PCO

But the event is not just about the glory of winning. PCO members Tim Harries, and Cathy Simpson were on hand to run drawing workshops for children and adults at the event, which took place at the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch, London.

Drawn to it: Cathy Simpson hosted a workshop for children

The workshoppers were ably assisted by The Surreal McCoy. All photographs here are by Gerard Whyman, who was on hand as the official PCO photographer.

Teams of participants from the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation who run Bloghorn will be participating in the annual Big Draw next weekend. Cartoonists Clive Goddard, Andy Bunday, Pete Dredge and Nathan Ariss will be representing the trade in the Battle of the Cartoonists. Colleagues Tim Harries, and Cathy Simpson will also be a running a series of workshops for visitors at the Idea Generation gallery in central London.

UPDATED: 9th September 2009 11.30am. You can also find details of the lots for auction here

Clive Goddard, Andy Bunday and Nathan Ariss will be representing the PCO in the form of Team Bloghorn at this year’s Big Draw Battle of the Cartoonists challenge on Saturday 12th September, 2-5pm at the Idea Generation Gallery, 11 Chance Street, London E2 7JB (map).

Team Bloghorn is understood to be up against Dave Brown’s Independent and Andy Davey’s The Sun teams with, possibly, Private Eye too.

The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation previously competed in the Battle of the Cartoonists in 2008 and 2007

Members of the Professional Cartoonists Organisation are taking part in a Travelling Moleskine project, as part of this year’s Big Draw event.

The idea is that a cartoonist makes his or her mark in the Moleskine notebook then passes it on, via Her Majesty’s post, to the next volunteer. The theme for the PCO’s Moleskine is “Naughtiness”. Ooer!

So far Matt Buck and Royston Robertson have drawn a couple of pages each, and the book has been passed on to fellow Bloghorner Alex Hughes. Other PCO members who have volunteered so far are: Chichi Parish, Bill Stott, Noel Ford, Nathan Ariss, Steve Bright, Jonathan Cusick, Cathy Simpson and Tim Harries.

Around 30 Moleskines have been sent out by the Culture Vulture, the organisation acting on behalf of the Campaign for Drawing, which stages the Big Draw every autumn.

More details on the Moleskines can be found at theculturevulture.co.uk

Back in November we blogged about the PCO’s team for Transports of Delight – a cartoon banner competition held at St Pancras rail station in London as part of the The Big Draw.

Well, now you can own a piece of cartooning history as the four banners in the competition (from The Guardian, The Independent, Private Eye and the PCO) are being auctioned off on eBay, with all proceeds going to the Campaign for Drawing, a charity whose purpose is to promote drawing as a tool to support learning, and cultural and social engagement for all ages and abilities.

The winning banner from The Independent (Dave Brown, Tim Sanders, Chris Burke and Bloghorn Editor Matt Buck)

The Guardian (Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, Tim Pond and PCO Chair leg Andy Davey)

Private Eye (Andrew Birch, Richard Jolley, Simon Pearsall and Ken Pyne)

and last but not least the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (Pete Dredge, Robert Duncan, Kipper Williams and Bloghorn writer Royston Robertson)

Hurry though, if you do want to make a bid, as the auctions end on the evening of Monday 22nd December!

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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The PCO provided the all-day cartoon and drawing workshops at The Big Draw. Here, two of our members report on what they did there. Click the images to enlarge

Paul Hardman writes:

The title of the workshop I ran was “Who Do You Think You Are?” It involved a very long roll of paper on which I had drawn about twenty train carriages. Participants were invited to draw a self portrait in each window and then put their names and where they were from underneath. After a slow start (10am) the activity grew and proved to be a great success, continuing throughout the day until we had run out of carriages and children were left asking for more!

An interesting metamorphosis developed as several windows became visual puns on the word “coach”. We had the football coach and the stage coach for example. The results were pasted to the side wall of the “Battle Arena” and made a very effective display.

Tim Harries writes:

Judging by the of amount paper and sponsored pencils we went through, this year’s workshops were thoroughly enjoyed by cartoonists and public alike. Any available large space (blank walls, concourse pillars, some of the heavier cartoonists) was turned into a gallery to proudly display the transport-themed cartoons, comic strips and characters produced. Next door’s Starbucks aided flagging artists and parents as the kids kept us busy from 10am til 5pm, with quite a few families staying the entire day and taking part in each of the five workshops.

My “Creating First Class Comic Strips” workshop was fun to do, as always, and produced some quality work from quite a few attendees who, thanks to the microphone provided, could actually hear my instructions (including the slightly loud and embarrassing “How do you switch this thing off?”)

Other participating PCO cartoonists were Terry Christien, Chichi Parish, Robert Duncan and John Landers. Photos by Gerard Whyman and Royston Robertson.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

A stylish performance in North London yielded nothing but glory for Team Foghorn as the PCOers narrowly failed to carry off the much-coveted Battle of the Cartoonists cheer-off trophy.

The squad of Pete Dredge, Robert Duncan, Kipper Williams and Royston Robertson delivered a fine performance on the competition theme – Transports of Delight – which we are republishing here. Scroll down to see all of the “First Class Gags”. Here are some pictures of the team in action (click to enlarge):

Wounded artistic pride was however much salved by the excellent surround sound as legions of keen children got stuck into the all-day cartoon and drawing workshops provided by the PCO. There was heroic work from Terry Christien, Paul Hardman, Chichi Parish, Lou McKeever, Robert Duncan, John Landers and the indefatigable Tim Harries, who in his spare time, also puts together large parts of our regular cartoon magazine – Foghorn.

The PCO had representatives in all of the competing teams in the Battle of the Cartoonists and as such can report exclusively from inside all of the competitions efforts.

Correspondent Ken Pyne, who played for Private Eye, said: “It’s like Rorke’s Drift with all these crowds.”

PCOer Martin Rowson moonlighted for The Guardian newspaper alongside Andy Davey. We paraphrase slightly: “We were robbed.”

Chris Burke played a blinder as a late substitute for the eventually victorious Independent team. Bloghorn’s Matt Buck, who played here too, said: “What a pleasant surprise.”

The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation would like to thank the organisers and supporters of the Campaign for Drawing who organise the annual Big Draw events.

Here are the PCO’s “First Class Gags”. Click to enlarge. Images are copyright the various cartoonists. Photos by Royston Robertson.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent