SCBWI Art Play Workshop - Kids Riding Giraffes?

At the SCBWI annual conference last weekend I attended a Sophie Blackall "breakout session" which was a bit more of a workshop than other breakout sessions they had. Rather than watching Powerpoint Presentations like we did in most sessions, Sophie actually had us doing drawing exercises.

In one of the exercises she had us draw a child riding an animal. Simple enough, right? But, of course, I didn't want to do the ordinary and have a child riding a pony. So I put the child on a giraffe! We had just 3 minutes to draw it. Here's the result:

But, of course, I didn't know what the next part of the exercise was, or I might have considered a different animal!

Next, she said, now take 3 minutes to draw that same animal riding the child! Oh my! How do I fit a large animal like a giraffe on top of a child!?

Well, it was actually rather funny:

Notice they both look a bit bewildered. I was!

Next Sophie said, draw that same image, but this time draw it in only 30 seconds.

Yikes!

OK. Here it is:

It's starting to look like the child has a giraffe for a parachute! This time I decided to give them a more cheerful expression. Having a parachute, particularly if you are at risk of falling, is a happy thought, after all. And, for a child, it's especially good if your parachute happens to look like a happy giraffe!

Well, you can see how silly things got here. But that was what made the exercise so fun! I don't think I would ever have thought of a giraffe-shaped parachute on the back of a child before! LOL