Throughout the year I do lots of school visits and festivals where I often draw and paint with children.

I never get tired of seeing children being absolutely absorbed with drawing, with art, being creative.

Give a child a pencil and they’re immediately in the world of fantasy and imagination. During my school visits I often create a huge painting with the children, when everyone is allowed to paint and draw anything they wish; from flying cats to bears on skateboards.

 After a day in school, I’m often rewarded by drawn presents from the children.

I keep some of them and occasionally I make copies of such drawings.

Here is a picture of a puffin inspired by my book Puffin Peter

and here is a painting of mine inspired by the drawing.

I also like this drawing of a bird riding a scooter.

 Here is my interpretation of the drawing.Another of my favourites is this tiger.

I copied it a couple times and perhaps as a result I later wrote a book called The Last Tiger.

Being creative is in our nature. Young children themselves never question their ability to be creative, the ability to draw and paint. It’s only later in life, when we start telling them “how things should be done properly” that they lose interest in art and creativity.

Being creative is not just about art. We live in a world when information can be easily accessed, but what is information and knowledge good for if we don’t know how to work with it, how to use it? This is the reason why we should always support children’s imagination, creativity and every form of art at schools and at home. Knowledge without creativity is useless.

Children’s imagination and children’s art should be a great source of inspiration to all of us.