To describe Draw Me a Story as an 'exhibition' doesn't do it justice. Yes, it takes place in a white-washed room, and, yes, there are pictures on the walls - a collection of illustrations from both established and emerging artists, including Quentin Blake, Korky Paul, Yasmeen Ismail, Nick Sharratt, Mini Grey, and Emily Gravett. But Draw Me a Story is not just about framed pictures on a wall (though they are beautiful pictures, on a very attractive wall...).
For a start, when you enter the gallery, visitors are offered a choice of a number of interactive activities. For arty-types, there are reversible sketchbooks, filled with prompts relating to the artworks on show. Visitors are, for example, asked to draw 'an unspeakably hairy fright' (in the vein of Emily Gravett's Wolves), or to draw the contents of 'a curious pocket' (inspired by Quentin Blake's Angelica Sprocket's Pockets). For younger visitors, there's a clever twist on a scavenger hunt; visitors can pick up a pocket filled with physical objects that appear in the pictures around the room. It's not only a tactile incentive for younger children to engage with the artwork, but it's also beautifully crafted. In the pocket that was demonstrated, there was a tiny magic wand, brightly-coloured toadstool, a letter addressed to a Mister G. Rabbit, and an inch-long straw boater!
And that's not all.
At the edges of the room, visitors can find reading benches, well-stocked with all of the books that appear in the exhibition, plus, for the first two months, books from the IBBY collection. For older visitors, there are tablets loaded with videos showing each of the featured artists at work. There's a side room, where small people can colour in their completed sketchbooks and older visitors can try some of the techniques demonstrated in the artists' videos: there will be light boxes and layout sheets, for anyone who wants to try some more ambitious compositions.
And it doesn't end there.
Perhaps the most exciting feature of the exhibition is the 'Illustrator Zoo' - a spacious, well-lit room, dominated by a large desk, which will house real-life illustrators over the course of the exhibition. And as if that's not enough, they also have a projector and screen set up, which will provide Jackanory-style readings throughout the day.
It's clear that an enormous amount of effort has gone into making Draw Me A Story accessible to all ages (including, noticeably the fact that the pictures are hung at two different heights). But it's worth mentioning that it's a genuinely informative and well-curated collection. For many of the artists, each image appears twice - in polished and unpolished forms - to show how the images evolve during the process of production.
It's an arrangement that really works, and shows huge variation not just between the finished pieces - from Mini Grey's layered watercolours, to Quentin Blake's expressive line drawings - but it also reveals huge variations in how the different artists work. While Quentin Blake seems to think in page-spreads, and Korky Paul meticulously plots the perspective of each image, Yasmeen Ismail, who has a background in animation, works on each element of the picture in isolation before assembling the composition digitally.
With Draw Me a Story, The Story Museum have created a very special experience; a space that is accessible for all ages, and worth multiple visits. One leaves with a sense of the huge amounts of effort and affection that have gone into creating the collection - from the hand-sewn pockets and tiny hats, to the different heights at which the pictures are displayed. It opens on the 31st, and I'll definitely be returning!