Creator Profile: Jeni Chen

Presentation/Workshop Information:

Kindergarten to Grade 3 (age 5-8)

1. I will read my picture book Emet’s Box which is about discovering what makes you feel alive (5 minutes).
    
2. I will show the kids my sketchbook and my process of designing the characters. I will show that I tried many different face shapes, eye shapes, hair styles, etc to come up with the characters in my picture book (15 minutes).
    
3. We will do a live drawing exercise to see how many facial expressions we can come up with by just changing the eyebrows and the mouth. (10 minutes).
    
4. I will do a live drawing demo and provide prompts for the kids to draw what makes them feel happy. They can also ask me any questions (30 minutes).
    

Total time: 60 minutes (can be divided into two 30-minute sessions)

 

Grade 4 to Grade 7 (age 9-12)

First, I will read my picture book Emet’s Box which is about discovering what makes you feel alive (5 minutes).

Then, I will share my inspirations and my process of writing, editing, making a dummy book and submitting to publishers. I will show the kids my sketchbook and my process of illustrating. The kids can ask me any questions (25 minutes).

Finally, we will do a character development exercise where the kids can come up with their own characters (30 minutes):

1. Pick a type of character you want to create. For example, you can draw people, animals, plants, robots or imaginary characters. I will use robots in the live drawing demo.
    
2. Draw as many variations of the character as you can. Try different face shapes, eye shapes, mouth, hairstyles, body shapes, arms, legs or tails. Are they wearing clothes or shoes? Do they have props such as eye glasses or hats? What other special characteristics do they have?
    
3. Consider the different variations of faces and bodies from the exercise above. Pick one of your favourite combinations to be your main character.
    
4. We will do a little writing exercise to come up with a background story for the character by asking questions like: where is this character? What is it doing? How is it feeling? Who else is there? We will go through a list of prompts to get our creative juices going.
    

Total time: 60 minutes