1 Story Down, 99 To Go

On Monday, we gave a tour of 100 Story Building to a very special group of VIPs. Students from St Johns Primary School and Footscray City Primary School wandered on over to our papered-up premises, and were greeted by Lachlann in a hard hat and fluoro vest. They loved the idea of being the very first students to set foot in 100 Story Building, and the work-in-progress interior got a tick of approval.‘It looks like a place you can draw stuff’ said one. Lachlann explained that we could only show them one storey of the building, as we were still working on the other 99. Then he introduced our special guests, author Sally Rippin and illustrator Aki Fukuoka, creators of the Billie B. Brown and Hey Jack series.Sally and Aki captivated the students with their live illustration demonstration, showing how authors and illustrators work together to come up with the characters in books. When Sally asked the children to describe a character for Aki to draw, a fireman lady dog with a skirt and footy shoes appeared on the easel. Then it was clipboards out and heads down, and Aki took the children through ways to draw a spooky house and its inhabitants. There were some mighty fine looking bats and ghosts.

We also asked the students to think about what to put on the other 99 storeys, because we were having trouble deciding.One student was much more pragmatic than that. ‘But how will you get it all finished in time?’ she said.Thank you to Sally Rippin and Aki Fukuoka for a wonderful first workshop in 100 Story Building, and the students of St Johns and Footscray City for the first stories(eys)!