Poetry Box review: Donovan Bixley’s Draw Some Awesome

Draw Some Awesome: Drawing Tips & Ideas for Budding Artists, Donovan Bixley,
Upstart Press, 2021

“Sometimes I feel like my brain will explode from so many ideas so I put them into sketchbooks.”

Ah 🧡 Donovan Bixley’s Draw Some Awesome 🧡 is a treasure of a book. If you love drawing, then this is the perfect book for you.

Donovan has loved drawing since he was a young boy – and that is where the book starts. He shares some drawings he did at the age of eight and the extremely cool books he made. You can carry things you love doing as a child all along the tracks towards adulthood. Glorious! He is like a character on every page, (such an excellent likeness!) giving top tips and making little jokes. He would copy artists he loved (Leonardi da Vinci, Edgar Degas, all the paintings at the Louvre in Paris, Dr Seuss for a start).

“There is no right or wrong way to draw.”

The book has loads of fabulous exercises. All you need is a pencil and some paper.You can use what is close at hand to inspire you and you can use your imagination. But Donovan gets you drawing. He will most definitely get you drawing. In fact he got me drawing. He might start with doodling. He might start with a kitchen pot or a pair of shoes. Using different kinds of lines and shading. Adding details. Making a catalogue of faces with truckloads of different expressions. He starts easy and then tries trickier. He might draw a fruit or vegetable shape and then transform it into something altogether different. Genius. He shows what a difference perspective makes by doing the same page twice, once with it, and once without. Genius. He will get you playing with shading and composition. There’s inspiration and there’s imagination.

Donovan has created a magnificent handbook for children who love drawing and for those who are just starting out. He writes and draws with his characteristic sense of humour. He makes things accessible. He includes ideas and wisdoms that I totally agree with and that work for those of us who love writing. Draw draw draw is like write write write. In the doing you will discover things. Copy copy copy (look look look) is like read read read (discover discover discover). Find ways that suit you. Like Donovan, as a writer I have never stopped reading and discovering how to write. What suits me. I write both inside and outside my comfort zones, and I reckon Donovan does that too.

He has a quote from Mozart: “Don’t wait for permission to be artistic. If you feel it in your heart, JUST DO IT!” Donovan definitely feels it in his heart as this is a book of FUN challenges and infectious HEART. I adore it.

A drawing challenge so I can give the book away:

You have until 5pm on Thursday to draw the shape of a fruit or vegetable and then transform it into something else. Try pencil or coloured pencils. I have had a go! I will post some on Friday and I will give one copy of the book away. This is not a competition – it is a challenge so you too can have fun drawing.

Email: paulajoygreen@gmail.com

Include: name, year, age, name of school

Put DRAWING in email subject line so I don’t miss your email.

Deadline: 5pm Thursday 2nd December

Post: Friday 3rd December

“But I don’t want you to draw like me. I want to teach you to draw like you!”

Donovan Bixley is an illustrator and writer based in Taupo. Donovan has numerous bestsellers to his name, including the recent Maui series, and Much Ado About Shakespeare. Donovan created Pussycat, Pussycat (2015), Little Bo Peep (2014), The Wheels on the Bus (2010)and Old Macdonald’s Farm (2011) and The Great Kiwi ABC (2016). 

Try the Donovan Bixley competition on the Upstart page. You have until December 17th.

Watch the video of Donovan giving tips.

I had a go drawing using things I saw on the kitchen table – mug, apple, banana. I was thinking of mashup poems. Now I want to do a whole lot more and get better but also want to get the post up PRONTO! Paula

Poetry Box review: Gavin Bishop’s Atua Māori Gods and Heroes

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

Atua: Māori Gods and Heroes, Gavin Bishop, Penguin, 2021

Gavin Bishop’s Atua: Māori Gods and Heroes is one of those special books I imagine the author has germinated and carried for a long time, working with a publisher who has invested time and love to produce a book worthy of the original idea. The book is a treasure house, a gift, a kete stocked with an abundance of knowledge and wisdom in both the narrative and the artwork.

I am so moved by this book. It is like I’m holding a set of lungs breathing as I read, a warm heart beating, because the book is invested with significant life. Gavin begins in Te Pō, the dark nothing, and moves through to Te Ao, the light, the world. He leads us to Ranginui e tū nei, the great sky father, and Papatūānuku, mother earth. He guides us to some of their offspring, the seven gods given the most important jobs. He draws us through skies, oceans and the land, while the stars, the sun and moon, plants, trees, animals, birds and humans come into being. There is conflict, jealousy, respect, growth, wisdom. There is maternal and paternal love.

Each page is a resting stop. Read the narrative. Sink into the artwork. Linger over the little pockets of information, harvest new knowledge. Check out kauri or kawakawa, te waha o Tanē the dawn chorus, fish that ‘swim in sea water lit by the sun’ and fish that favour the deep. I learnt there are 28 native bee species that live in tunnels, not hives, and that don’t produce honey. You will meet the sacred and you will encounter the everyday.

The ink in Gavin’s pen is fluid. He looks forward to the past and acknowledges the present. I am always curious about the way illustrations are made, both the process and the media. I asked Gavin to describe it for me, and was delighted he used the word ‘old-fashioned’. There is something very satisfying abut stretching watercolour paper, squeezing paint from a tube, and sharpening the point of the brush when needed. The artwork is incandescent. Lovingly produced. I am drawn to the textured skin of the figures, the moods on the faces, the ability of paint to animate. This is art and it is stellar. From Gavin:

My approach to illustration is totally old-fashioned. I draw everything on pieces of paper and colour them in. All my pictures go through a lot of stages. The first sketches are very rough and done quickly. It is a matter of getting a fleeting idea down on the paper before it flits away. Just as I am going to sleep is a particularly ripe time for inventing very rough and done quickly. It is a matter of getting a fleeting idea down on the paper before it flits away. Just as I am going to sleep is a particularly ripe time for inventing images. They present themselves and won’t give me rest until I have scribbled them into the notebook I keep by the bed.  Next day, in my studio I redraw them more slowly, firming them up and imaging how they might fit on the page. Tracing paper is one of my main tools at this stage of things as it is again later when I transfer my drawings from sketching paper to watercolour paper to take the final art.  I still stretch the watercolour paper by wetting it and allowing it to dry. That way it doesn’t matter what techniques you use later, the paper will always dry flat which is important when it comes scanning. Colour is provided mainly by the use of coloured inks, liquid watercolour, acrylic and poster paint.

I find myself returning to the book over and over; as the tūī cawkles at me from the mānuka, as the pīwakawaka flits and zags, as I tend the garden, and gaze at a midnight moon. I picture this book in the arms of a parent as they read to youngsters, as teachers hold it up to a class. It is a book of Māori gods but it is also a handbook for life. How to be kind to earth, how to be kind to ourselves, and to those near us. I am reminded how stories have resonant, necessary and enduring power, and can be sung, whispered or rendered in paint. How we pass stories along, and as Gavin suggests, adding this and that. I hold this book out to you, hoping you will hold it out to someone else, young or old. It has earned a place upon our shelves of book taonga.

Penguin page and author bio

Poetry Shelf celebrates Dick Frizzell’s A Sun Is a Star with Ava’s poem

The Sun Is a Star 

Everyone says everybody is a star
But you make us live, so you truly are. 
So bright you’re seen from a thousand miles
So bright you are the reason I smile

I thank that you help us to exist
You are a reason that we live like this
With light that shines through the glass windows
And helping us to truly know

The sun is a star
Yes, you truly are
You help us to live
And grow, and give. 

This life isn’t fair
But it is still clear
That without shining sun
Life would never be fun. 

Your intrepid shine
And glow so fine
Shows us you’re impeccable
Your glow a wondrous spectacle

We love your gift
You give us to live
Your dazzling glow
Helps us to know

That the sun is a star
Yes, you truly are
Your beautiful light
Gets us through day and night. 

Ava H, age: 8, Pakuranga Heights School

The Sun Is a Star, Dick Frizzell, Massey University Press, 2021

Daniel’s sun poem

My review

Massey University Press page (where you can look inside the book)

Poetry Box review: Julie Ellis’s Takahē Maths

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

Takahē Maths, Julie Ellis, illus. Isobel Te Aho-White, OneTree House, 2021

Takahē Maths is a very cool book. It tells the story of the takahē through numbers and equations. Before the Pākehā arrived there were over ten thousand takahē, but as birds were hunted, land was cleared, and pests such as rats and stoats arrived, the numbers dwindled. And then, between 1800 and 1900, only four takahē were spotted. The big beautiful blue bird, with its distinctive red beak, was no more. Extinct. Then one surprising day, Dr Orbell was walking in an isolated valley and he spotted unusual bird prints. Bird experts recognised the footprints and were dumbstruck.

Yet here is where the story gets sad. Dr Obell and others found 250 takehē. A cause for celebration but the birds were not protected well enough and the numbers dwindled again.

The answers to the takahē equations on each page go up and down, up and down, because people struggled to protect the takahē. I feel such sadness as I read this but I love how a sequence of maths equations nails the need to protect our endangered species.

In 2021 the takahē are still vulnerable – there are 450 and counting. Young birds are hatched in Aotearoa’s longest running endangered species programme, and readied for release into the mountains and to safe islands that are predator free.

To structure the narrative of an endangered bird around a series of maths equations is genius. You get to add and subtract as you read, and to grasp how important conservation is in Aotearoa.

Excellent illustrations that give the birds and scenes life. Takahē Maths is a brilliant book.

You can hear the takahē birdsong here courtesy of Department of Conversation

OneTree House page

About the Author: Julie Ellis is a very experienced writer in the field of education Julie has a number of works published by Learning Media, New Holland, Reed Education and others. 

About the Illustrator: Izzy Joy is a young but experienced illustrator. “My personal artwork is definitely about connecting people with each other and with nature … uplifting people, especially young women, and raising understanding and compassion toward people that are struggling in life” Izzy remarks. Izzy’s works include The Story of Rangi and Papa (Zine) and Io Wahine (Zine).

Department of Conversation info:

Poetry Box review: Des Hunt’s Inside Bubble Earth – Climate Change

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

Inside Bubble Earth: Climate Change, Des Hunt, OneTree House, 2021

I am a big fan of Des Hunt – he is an inspiration as an author but also on the school-visit circuits. Des’s new book, Inside Bubble Earth: Climate Change, underlines why he is so good. He has taken an issue that is tough, significant, and must be addressed. It is an issue that might keep children awake at night, like a monster in the dark, but Des wants children to understand something that is large and scary. He tells a story at the start about Alex and a monster in a forest, saying the monster is like global climate change. Read it here at The Sapling.

“The purpose of this book is to shine a light on climate change so we clearly see what it is and how it might be tamed.”

We have been living in and out of Covid-19 bubbles for months and months, and it has saved lives in Aotearoa. But we also live in bubble Earth together, and as Des says, ‘there is only one bubble and that is the whole planet’. In clear sentences, with an extensive glossary of terms we might not be familiar with at the back, this book is child friendly. Accessible, informative, essential.

Des starts with the tuatara to show what this long-lived creature and its ancestors have experienced across time. He uses the word HOPE because if we make the right choices we still have an opportunity to slow down the impact of climate change on planet Earth. On everything and everybody who inhabits it (including the tuatara and its future generations).

Chapters include ‘The Science of Climate Change’, ‘Causes and Cures’, Consequences’ and ‘In the End’. Step by careful step, Des takes us through what has damaged the earth by examining the science, and then suggests what we can do to help, as individuals, businesses and as nations. His four Rs at the end (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink) offer excellent tips on what we can personally do.

Reduce Energy use

Reduce Waste

Reduce Consumption

Reuse

Recycle

Rethink

Inside Bubble Earth is a book that deserves to be in every school library and on every home bookshelf. I have learnt so much in reading it, and while climate change is a still a tough issue, this book give me hope. I have added things to my list of things I can get better at for the sake of the planet. What a welcome arrival. What an inspirational author.

OneTree House page

Seven Des Hunt books have been finalists at the Children’s Book Awards. Cry of the Taniwha was awarded the 2016 Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-loved Book. Then, in 2017, Des was the recipient of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal and Lecture Award for lifetime achievement and a distinguished contribution to New Zealand children’s literature and literacy. He was a science and technology teacher for many years.

Poetry Box celebrates Dick Frizzell’s The Sun Is a Star with Daniel’s sun poem

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

The Sun Is a Star, Dick Frizzell, Massey University Press, 2021

Dick Frizzell’s magnificent book on the sun offers fascinating writing, surprising facts and fabulous artwork by Aotearoa artists. You can read my review here. I love the book so much I created a popUP poem challenge. I picked Daniel’s sun poem to post because it is witty and playful, plus I so love the ending and endnote! Brilliant! Most definitely heartwarming! Massey University Press is kindly sending Daniel a copy of The Sun Is a Star.

Son of a Sun

If the Sun
Had a son
Would it say
“Come son, let’s play in the sun!
Would the son have a sunny disposition
Or a fiery streak
Would the Sun tell the son
To rise and shine
To reach for the stars
Would the son
Look up to the Sun
Wondering if one day
He could rise up
And burn as bright

This is inspired by what fascinates me about the sun: the way we interpret it. It is a symbol of warmth and positivity, light and life, but it is also a scientific phenomenon. It is a source of clichés, but it’s also something we all talk about in an ordinary way, when we talk about the weather or the summer time. Something about that golden orb captivates people, and always will.

Daniel L, Age 13, Year 8, Hadlow School, Masterton

Poetry Box review: Eirlys Hunter’s The Uprising – The Mapmakers in Cruxcia

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

The Uprising – The Mapmakers in Cruxcia, Eirlys Hunter, illustrations by Kirsten Slade, Gecko Press, 2021

Eirlys Hunter’s The Mapmakers’ Race (2018) was a thrilling read. An original story, beautifully written, with terrific characters. I wanted more! And now my plea is answered because Gecko Press has just released a second volume featuring the magnificent mapmaking family: The Uprising – The Mapmakers in Cruxcia.

In the first book the Santander children (Sal, Joe, Francie and Humphrey) win an exciting map race but in the second book their quest feels a lot more personal. Their father has gone missing on his mapmaking expedition. A clue turns up. They find themselves in Cruxcia. But this is no idyllic valley in the ancient mountains. The locals are struggling to save their precious land from the greedy, most definitely mysterious (and you could go so far as to say evil) goals of the Grania Trading Company. Disastrously Humphrey and the Santanders’ mother fall ill after drinking toxic water, so it is up to the children to find and rescue their father, and to help the locals defeat a powerful enemy.

Some of the locals recognise the Santander children are friends not foe, in fact extremely useful friends to have. The children are smart, daring, cunning, imaginative, and extremely skilled mapmakers. You get to care about the family, you get caught up in their quest, and I was crossing fingers and toes that their cunning plans and scary risks would pay off.

Like all good heart-racing adventures, the novel is more than a fast moving plot. The place itself, this haven valley, comes alive as you read. I love how Eirlys makes my tastebuds pop with food. Food is such a tasty way to connect people and draw close to some place different. The children reach for the sunderstrum tin for a snack! They pack pasties, apple cake and nuts for their long trip, and Hessa makes a chewy farron porridge for breakfast. I also love how celebrations are important. The people of Cruxcia celebrate Hallowmas, but they don’t decorate a pine tree, they hang family trees on the wall, and tell stories of their ancestors. The Santander children mourn their ancestor gap. They don’t know the stories. Ah. I felt that gap.

Driving the adventure story are ideas that really resonate with me: what home means, and how we care for it, both individually and as communities. How we work together for the good of the planet (our collective home). How kindness can play a part in living our lives.

The cover image shows Kirsten Slade’s illustrations are full of mood and detail – they are like pocket mappings of buildings, mountain routes, town streets. A perfect fit.

To read a book that is gripping yet also sparks with fascinating life is the very best thing. Eirlys is one of our treasured children’s authors, and this novel underlines why. I highly recommend finding a cosy nook and losing yourself in the crannies of The Uprising. It’s simply glorious, and I do so hope there is another Eirlys Hunter novel in the pipeline!

Eirlys Hunter is a London-born fiction writer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She has published seven books for children as well as a novel and short stories for adults. Hunter teaches writing for children at the IIML at Victoria University. Eirlys Hunter’s website.

As an illustrator, writer and creator of comics, Kirsten Slade uses a variety of traditional and digital media techniques to tell her own and others’ stories. Born in Liverpool, England and an immigrant three times over, Kirsten now makes her home in Wellington, New Zealand. She has a BA in Printmaking from American University in Washington, DC.

Gecko Press page

Poetry Box review: Philip Parker’s The History of Everywhere

The History of Everywhere: All the stuff that you never knew happened at the same time, Philip Parker, illustrated by Liz Kay, Walker Books, 2021

The History of Everywhere is a large format book for a large format topic: history. History has no borders and is told in a universe of voices. It is like a prism you hold to the light to see all the different views. The History of Everywhere doesn’t claim to cover the history of everything. In word and image snapshots, set on world maps, the book shows what was happening at the same time in different places. It moves from 4000BC to now. I read it one slow sitting and was utterly fascinated!

The first page covers 4000BC to 1000BC. You find the pyramids, Stonehenge, the first farmers, cities built, decorated pottery, aboriginal paintings, the extinction of woolly mammoths. Most pages have a did you know? box. On this page you read that the picture symbols used in Egypt and Sumer (now Iraq) are the first known writing.

The book is like a long train journey where you see intriguing things out the window, and every now and then want the train to stop so you can get off and have a much closer look (do some of your own history digging). Across the centuries I saw a pattern of ruling, conquering, discovering, thinking, creating, fighting, trading, learning, worshiping, colonising, beginning, ending, inventing (and more!).

The upshot: people all over the world have been creating, building, communicating and searching for centuries. And sadly fighting.

I felt all kinds of things as I read this magnificent history treasury. I felt Britain has a lot to answer for (where my ancestors come from), but was inspired by individual people who have been shining stars throughout time, beacons of hope (Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandala, and numerous unnamed people who have worked for the good of the world).

So what about recent times? How do we write our ‘now’ as history? How will others look back on our ‘now’ time? The last two pages feature the internet, global warming, the global financial crisis, social media and smartphones, coronavirus. The decades before ‘now’ feature wars, terrorism, genocide, global warming, Nelson Mandala as President. It is hard not to feel glum and dark as I look at ‘now’. Here I am sitting in lockdown wanting to make a list of things that give me hope in the world. What are we creating that is good? Who in the world is doing something amazing? Full of beauty? Healing? What and who is helping the world become a better place? What gives you, the reader, hope and joy?

Any history of everywhere is also the history of individual somewheres and someones. Each day we are part of history as we make our choices, as we share and listen and act. If you think about it, each snapshot on each page of The History of Everywhere, might lead you to ordinary everyday people doing ordinary everyday things, as well as extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

I loved reading The History of Everywhere because it got me thinking and feeling just as I do on a magnificent road trip – but this one was through time. I most definitely want other readers to delight in the book too. It is beautifully produced, captivatingly illustrated – a glorious book of returns.

Walker Books page

Philip Parker is a historian, writer and former diplomat. His previous books include the DK Eyewitness Companion Guide to World History, The Northmen’s Fury: A History of the Viking World, and A History of Britain in Maps. He has travelled widely and now lives in London.

Liz Kay works from her home in Yorkshire. She loves her job and when she’s not busy doodling she enjoys outdoor adventures of her own. She is often found hiking and biking around the Yorkshire countryside and playing tennis for her local club. She has previously illustrated Wild Girl for Walker Books.

Poetry Box review: Elizabeth Pulford’s Honk

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

Honk, Elizabeth Pulford, illustrations Astrid Matijasevich, OneTree House, 2021

Elizabeth Pulford’s Honk is a delightful picture book which makes you feel warm inside as you read. On a wild and stormy night, Henry hears a sad little honking noise outside. The next morning he discovers an injured goose curled up in the sandpit. Slowly slowly, the injured goose and the caring Henry become friends. I am all for comfort books at the moment and this is a terrific comfort book, however old you are. I would have loved to have read this to my children when they were young. I love the honk! refrain that runs through the story until the very last page, and I especially love the ending. This is a book of friendship, kindness and of letting go.

Astrid Matijasevich’s illustrations are the perfect combination of bold and bright. With the skimpiest of lines, Astrid brings the characters to joyful life.

The book is a treasure – I hope it finds a solar system of readers.

Elizabeth Pulford has published stories, poems, and articles for both adults and children, along with over sixty books for children and young adults.  Four of her children’s books, The Memory Tree, Call of the Cruins), Tussock, and Finding Monkey Moon were finalists in the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. 

Astrid Matijasevich is a versatile graphic designer, trained at Auckland University of Technology, specializing in visual material for children.

OneTree House page

Poetry Box review: Dick Frizzell’s The Sun Is a Star plus a popUP challenge

Poetry Box November challenge – using poetry forms

The Sun Is a Star, Dick Frizzell, Massey University Press, 2021

Dick Frizzell’s The Sun Is a Star is a dazzling book, which is just what you want in a book that explores the sun. Think dazzle, think gleam, think word beams. Dick got the idea for the book when his granddaughter Coco ran inside to ask him if he knew the sun was a star. She is grownup now, so he has germinated the idea for a long time. Rather than do all the artwork and writing himself, he drew in a crowd of helpers from friends and family. Samantha Lord has several degrees, including one in Science Communication, has worked as an astronomy guide at lake Tekapo, and is now back home working at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in England. She helped Dick discover new star facts and possibilities, and to communicate tricky information.

Dick also uses images by a range of artists, not just himself, and that adds further dazzle and gleam to the book. Just as there is no one way to write a poem that connects with the sun, there is no one way to make an image that has sun connections. You will move from John Pule’s black ink drawing to Karl Maughan’s squidgy thick orange paint on canvas to Otis Frizzell’s digital illustration. Loads of different media, loads of different approaches, loads of different suns. It is very easy to dawdle through the book and sun-dream on each page as you sink into the images.

More than anything The Sun Is a Star is a book of fascinations. I pondered the questions. How hot is the sun? How big is the sun? Dick isn’t just delivering dry facts. He writes like he is sitting in a big hammock with you talking sun things, and a bit like a poet who loves playing with words. Oh and he is having such fun as he uses his imagination to explain things. When he tells you how big the sun is, he gets us to imagine flying round the sun in a plane (as long as we don’t get burnt to cinders). It would take eight months, but it takes two-and-half days to fly around Earth in a plane. He talks about why the sun never sets, how moonlight is sunlight, and how being on Earth on a tilt helps. He also provides comfort when he says the sun can burn away for billions more years without anyone having to add logs to the fire.

Dick sometimes uses words Margaret Mahy would be proud of (hornswoggled, wizard wheeze). He also uses technical words that might send your head spinning, but there is a very useful glossary at the back of the book. He talks about how some ideas make his head spin or hurt (such as infinity, or what happened before the Big Bang, or Space and Time) and I know the feeling. Thinking about space and time can be an extremely head-spinning thing to do. Nobody knows all the answers yet. There are things scientists still can’t explain. But this book is a brilliant guide (hard to get away from sun words!) to things researchers do know about the sun.

At the start of the book, Dick confesses he is not a fan of diagrams and that he won’t be using any. Instead, as I said earlier, he uses his imagination and finds analogies/little stories to show what he means. In order to understand how hard it is to understand the relationship between space and time, he has this to say: ‘What if I were to shrink you down like Ant Man until you were in the weave of the carpet? You would then be unaware of the flatness. You would also be aware that your presence has disturbed its density in all directions.’

Massey University Press has produced a beautiful, eye-catching, hard-cover book, that is both child and adult friendly. This is the kind of book you buy for yourself, and then buy a second copy to give to a friend, young or old. The art is magnificent, the writing is genius. To celebrate I am posting a popUP challenge, so I can give a copy of the book to one young reader (Y1 – Y8).

popUP SUN challenge: poems and artworks

Write a poem inspired by what fascinates you about sun.

What fascinating fact can you put in your poem? Your poem might spin around the fact.

Hunt for fascinating sun words.

Listen to your poem before you send it and wait at least one day before you do!

OR! Create an artwork of the sun. What fascinates you about the sun? Use paint or ink or mixed media. (Don’t put your surname on image please)

Send to: paulajoygreen@xtra.co.nz
Deadline: 19th November
Please include: your name, year, age, name of school
Put SUN poem or artwork in subject line so I don’t miss it.

I will read and look at everything after the deadline, email you, and post some favourite things on 23rd November. I will have at least one book to give away.

Dick Frizzell MNZM is one of New Zealand’s best known and most versatile painters. He studied at the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury from 1960 to 1963 and then had a long career in advertising. Alongside his career as a painter, Frizzell is also the highly sought-after designer of a range of products from toys to wine. He is the author of Dick Frizzell: The Painter (Random House NZ, 2009) and It’s All About the Image (Random House NZ, 2011). Dick exhibits regularly and often works in collaborations with writers and other artists. He lives in Auckland with this wife, Jude.

Massey University Press page (where you can look inside the book)