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.

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.

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

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 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

And PCO members will be working at this weekend’s opening events for the month-long festival. Much of this weekend’s activity will be taking place at University College in central London (UCL). There is an enormous range of activity for the opening weekend. You can find details on how to get there here.

PCO member Patrick Blower explains more about Saturday’s digital cartoon masterclass:

The event cartoonists be drawing cartoons on digital tablets and projecting the resulting film of their work onto walls and large screens. We will be running hourly cartoon master classes – on the hour – from 11am. And when the cartoonists aren’t talking, or drawing, we will be encouraging visitors, of all ages, to have a go too. In fact, we will be encouraging visitors to help invent a monster each. These will be turned into an ongoing slide show through the day as the gallery develops.

Simon Gould, UCL’s curator of Drawing on Life, the national launch for The Big Draw added;

We are really looking forward to a jam packed day of all kinds of drawing and are thrilled that cartoonist Patrick Blower, one of UCL’s illustrious alumni, will be taking such a prominent position. His cartooning master classes will definitely be a real highlight for children and adults alike.

There are many hundreds of local events in towns across the country too. There will be one going on near you and you can find it on this page. London will also host another large set-piece event at London’s St Pancras station during mid-October – it’s called Transports of Delight.

There will be further PCO participation in the battle of the cartoonists on Saturday October 18th. We will be writing more about that event in the next few weeks.

The Big Draw

PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Team PCO hard at work – from the left, Alex Hughes, Neil Dishington, Bill Stott(c) and Roger Penwill

The task the teams were given in the Battle of the cartoonists was to ’create the most sensational banner’ to a theme of High-Life, Low-life.

Select (publishable) and verbatim quotation from our anonymous correspondent follows;

The PCOs initially lacked the studies panache of Martin Rowson’s colouring and the sharp wit of Private Eye. Their drawings appeared in a vague and piecemeal way but there was much interaction between the evident team leader and his team, which definitely paid off. The skillful use of colour enhanced the drawings and gave the different styles of drawing a coherence, which added to the banner’s effectiveness. The layout and style was that of a comic which gave it integrity and a strong identity. I think this was the best!

Anonymous concludes;

A banner, by its very nature has a function as a standard or ensign denoting identity aand this is where the PCO and Private Eye romp ahead [of The Guardian and the Independent]. Their banners reflected the identities of their organisations very clearly. Of the two, the PCO banner had the greater visual coherence and presence. I would have marched under it and it should have won.

The finished PCO banner hung up, or out, to dry.

Thankyou, Mr or Mrs or Ms, anonymous.

British cartoon talent

Bigging it up with Mr Blake; Quentin advertises the art while the PCO did the serious PR

I’d seriously under-prepared for this year’s Big Draw. The marquee where our workshops were taking place displayed admirable tardis-like properties, with seating for what appeared to be about 60 people, but actually managing to contain around twelve thousand scribbling children and parents at any given moment.
I’d optimistically brought along 50 worksheets which were used in the first thirty seconds. I briefly contemplated hiding behind the flipchart, but luckily someone somewhere found a photocopier, which I suspect had a nervous breakdown before the weekend was over, such was the sheer amount of paper we went through.
Tim Harries reveals his inner torment while Royston Robertson just laughs at him
The workshops went brilliantly for all involved, and tended to run over into each other, with several things going on at the same time. It felt organised and wonderfully chaotic at the same time. At any given time, I could see caricatures being drawn, the huge chalkboard being used for a spot of reverse caricaturing, and comic strips, cartoons and funny faces being produced on any available workspace.
Anne and Andy Gilbert hard at work enlightening the tiny masses in one of their Saturday workshops
As the day(s) went on, the whole marquee became a gallery with the finished art hanging from the walls and frame. It just needed the music from Vision On to make it perfect. Thanks to all the cartoonists, helpers, and of course enthusiastic public who attended the cartooning marquee. Same time next year…

British cartoon talent