Where Passion meets Paper: Happy Birthday Paper Runway!

BIG congratulations to our VERY fabulous designer, Maree Oaten who together with Niki Buckland has just launched Issue 5 of PaperRunway. Hooray! The print magazine includes a world first in that it features iPR(Intelligent Print Recognition) a particular digital interface causing much intrigue!  Buy a copy and find a little bit of BIG hidden in the pages for you to send to someone you love.  

To coincide with their FIRST ANNIVERSARY in print Paper Runway have a gorgeous new website AND are curating The Paper Trail  from May 25-27 in Byron Bay featuring some very cool artists, events and creative paper workshops for kids and grown-ups.  Try making a paper winged insect with James Gordon,  creating origami stars as part of a take home tic-tac-toe travel game set or imagining papery monster fun with Kimberly Amos. Artists on the Paper Trail will contribute a portion of their sales to NAPCAN, which works to eliminate child abuse. Looks set to be a great celebration!

Dub Leffler shares a secret story in the making!

We think Dub Leffler is one of Australia's most inspired writer/illustrator/artists. A BIG claim indeed! When the wonderful team at Magabala books (the oldest independent Indigenous publishing house in Australia and most remote in the world!) sent us the early release of his book Once There Was a Boy, it was love at first sight. Tha Thump. When senior editor Luca (now age 9!) took it into his class the next day it received rave reviews with his teacher saying it was the best book she had read 'forever'. When Lilly read it to Twyla (age 3) after meeting Dub at the launch in Sydney, her response was  'Hey mum they have different colours on them and they love each other".  It is a book of great beauty and sensitivity and an unforgettable story of love so much needed in the world. Dub was one of thirteen children and is descended from the Bigambul and Mandandanji people of south-west Queensland. After receiving accolades from near and far including the Bologna book fair Dub is busy working on a new book and most wonderfully he contributed an original and responsive version of his secret work in process for the Treasure pages. Shhhhh....

The Magician and the Magical Fish 

The only Photograph of Hans Fanta in existence! by Dub Leffler   

Once, while floating,

Looking down into the sea …

I saw,

Sitting on the sea bed,

A Magical man with a strange hat on his head …

Smiling up at me …

He held in his hands a gold, sparkling fish …

And painted on its scales …

A Treasure Map …

OH! Then SWISHHH!!

Went the fish and shed all its scales,

And the Magical man let go of its tail!

Darting away, did the fish followed by that

Mystical enchanter …

His name,

The Magician,

Hans …

Hans Fanta.

Creative Ideas for Contributing to Game On! EDITION 3

The BIG Treasure Maps edition is flying all over the world and now it is time to send in your ideas and artwork for the next (THIRD!) issue of BIG Kids Magazine - Game On! 

This is what's inside my brain when I play
Aimee, age 4, Brisbane

We want to make contributing to BIG Kids Magazine as easy as possible.  Here are the first of some BIG ideas for supporting your kids to understand the process of responding to the theme of Game On! and helping them enter into an open ended creative process in which they are also guided by simple parameters. Feel free to collaborate with them or create your own work Side by Side. 

- What is your favourite game of all time? Close your eyes and imagine playing the game. Imagine winning. Imagine losing. Draw the inside of your brain or heart when you are winning and/or when you are losing.

- Create a brand new game character that no one else has thought of. Does it have a name? What invented game is it from? 

 - Draw/paint/collage/dance/write your response to a character from a game you love - the Horse, Castle or Queen from Chess, a snake from Snakes and Ladders, the 'Chance' man from Monopoly...

- Close your eyes and draw shapes and lines all over a page. Open your eyes and make up the rules of the game you have just drawn. 

- Think of something you would like to learn. Make up a game that would help you learn it. 

- Write a story about the scariest, funniest or cleverest game ever invented. 

The GAME ON! Edition - Play every page

Submissions due by JUNE 1st
If you are an artist or child who wants to register for the Child Artist Response Project (CARP) send and email to submit@bigkidsmagazine.com with CARP in the subject line

BIG voice of an emerging artist: Emma Fishwick

We are so pleased to have Emma join us via JUMP, the National Mentoring Program for Young and Emerging Artists. I will be working with Emma on the development of her own work as choreographer and visual artist and she will also enjoy an inside role with BIG this year. We have invited her to contribute a couple of key blog posts to mark her journey with us and we hope you enjoy her adventures as an emerging artist in the world!   

Puzzle necklace designed by Emma for her if.ab project

Hello Big and Little Kids,

My name is Emma Fishwick, I'm an emerging Perth artist with a creative practice incorporating dance, visual arts, design and the written word. I'm very fortunate to be currently under the guidance of the wonderful Jo Pollitt as part of my JUMP mentorship. JUMP is a program run by Propel Youth Arts Organisation and the Australian Arts Council to enable emerging artists to form a relationship with a professional artist of their choice. Jo and Lilly have generously opened the doors of Big Kids to me and my work, now I hope to give back by joining in on some of the aspects of their BIG world. 

In April Propel is running KickstART Youth Festival as part of the National Youth Week. This Saturday the flagship event of the festival is the KickstART Youth Markets to feature, celebrate and inspire the young people of Western Australia. I will be showcasing my design label if.ab PROJECT and featuring BIG Kids Magazine at the Markets held from 11am-5pm in the Perth Cultural Centre Northbridge (directly opposite PICA). Come down to support some amazing young artists and designers and even try your hand at completing a cover of BIG Kids Magazine! 

xx

Emma 

Pencil rings designed by Emma for her  if.ab project

Pencil enclose designed by Emma for her if.ab project

Free Artist Print and a BIG response

 "Someone was painting a map and I fell in it" Luca, age 8 

A feature of the BIG magazine is the free artist print in every edition. For the First Flight edition we received a wonderful response to the work by Madeleine Stamer.  For Treasure Maps edition we experimented with a co-authored print. I sent a written score for an 'owl who swallowed a map with a cross for her heart' to Lilly and she responded with the artwork below. I titled it "Cross My Heart (and hope to fly)" and Twyla, age 3 finally responded by collaging the treasure to create a new map.

SUBSCRIBE here now to receive your free artist print AND be in the running to win one of the very beautiful mini maximus posters featuring the First Flight "Falling Icebergs" Owl  print by Lilly Blue.

 Artist print in the Treasure Maps edition of BIG kids Magazine
"Cross My Heart (and hope to fly)"

Star crossed pathways to treasure mapped sky

                                                I'm looking for children to teach me to fly. 

Twyla (age 3) collages draft Treasure pages into a new map.

A 4-way collaboration: Lilly, Jo, Twyla and Luca - The BIG Owl Family xx