Tina Matthews: Report from the field
by Ciara Hadley (Year 10, O'Connor Catholic)
Tina Matthews
was the first of the writers and illustrators in residence for 2014 and visited
from the 25th of May to the 9th of June.
She ran a range
of activities within the community, which included ‘From Puppets to Picture
Books: A Conversation with Tina Matthews’ and a minizine-making workshop.
‘From Puppets to
Picture Books’ was held on the 29th of May in the Arts Lecture Theatre
3, where she discussed, amongst other things, the process of creating a picture
book, her previous jobs, and the challenges of publishing andpromoting her
work.
Tina’s website;
‘From
Puppets to Picture Books: A Conversation with Tina Matthews.’
On the 29th
of May at 4.10pm, Tina Matthews sat with Dr. Elizabeth Hale to discuss her work
in the Arts Lecture Theatre 3.
Tina has three
books published (Out of the Egg, A Great Cake and Waiting for Later) and one
book due to be published in august (So Many Wonderfuls). While in Armidale she
was also working on another book based of an old story called ‘The Three
Sillies’ about the consequences of worrying too much.
As well as
writing, Tina has previously worked as a puppeteer and a musician. She talked about the way she felt puppetry
had influenced the structural nature with which she made the pictures for her
books.
She was involved
in many children’s shows- such as the Bananas in Pajamas and the movie
Labyrinth, but claimed she always found picture books important and had planned
her first book, Out of The Egg for a long time.
Tina also
discussed the process of making a picture book, especially making pictures out
of woodblock and stenciling, which many of her books include.
She talked, with
Dr. Elizabeth Hale, about planning one of her books, and how she managed to
organize her ideas into the correct format using small paper books called
‘zines’ or ‘minizines’.
Finally, Tina
had some words of advice for budding authors, saying you ‘shouldn’t write just
to get published’.
Tina also held a
minizine-making workshop on Thursday the 5th of June at Gallery 123
where she showed people how to fold an A4 or A3 piece of paper to make a small
8-page book.
She explained
how she uses these zines to plan her own books and found them helpful because
of the book-like format and the way they could be easily photocopied.
Tina also helped
some people make miniature hardback covers for their books and provided
magazines for inspiration. It was a fun and interesting workshop.
To create
your own minizines, visit: