This new book by a York illustrator explores the creative potential of everyday items

The pandemic has been devastating in so many ways but it has also given rise to many great ideas and among them is a brilliant new book by York-based illustrator and publisher Lucy Monkman, who also runs a popular after-school art club,

Made by Hand at Home arose from Lucy missing the fun of teaching primary age children when lockdown forced her classes to close. It is a beautifully illustrated guide to taking everyday, often throwaway, items and turning them into works of art/creative objects. There is also a peppering of interesting art history.

While the book is wonderfully inventive and informative, it is not prescriptive. Instead, it encourages children to explore their own ideas. Upcycled packaging features in many of the projects, again inspired by the pandemic and our increased reliance on home delivery.

Lucy says: “I have always found packaging design very exciting. One of my earliest creative memories is of carefully recreating a Coca-Cola can using a giant cardboard tube that my father brought home from work.”

While tubes like that are hard to find, the cardboard inners from loo rolls are plentiful so a whole chapter is dedicated to them, along with pictures of how Lucy transformed hers into a fox, birds, a lion and a bug hotel.

“Loo rolls are so versatile and they can easily be painted,cut unwrapped and drawn on. They can easily be squashed, flattened and painted too,” she says.

Other highlights include her pizza box dolls house, ingenious use of tins and bottles and ways with printed ephemera, including words and pictures from magazines etc.

While the book is packed with ideas for children and those who care for them, it is also aimed at educators. “A lot of primary teachers have to teach art but have never studied it, so hopefully this book will help them. It isn’t a step-by-step guide, it’s a book to read and to inspire children, parents and educators,” says Lucy.

One of her own best ideas was to make her book with horizontal A4 pages. “It means the pages have to be held down with while you study because they stay by themselves,” she says. Her hope is that Made by Hand at Home will be useful while throwing a spotlight on the importance of recyclable materials and upcycling.

She adds: “In lockdown more people became interested in arts and crafts and more environmentally aware about packaging. So some things have definitely changed for the better.”

Made by Hand at Home by Lucy Monkman is published on July30 and is £12.99 inc. uk delivery from www.lucymonkman.com

*Lucy Monkman is freelance illustrator and runs an after school art club in York. She began her career with fashion illustration and she has since worked in design, in editorial and in publishing working with a wide range of clients, including Harpers & Queen and Penguin Books. Lucy’s playful and colourful illustrations are also on her own range of greeting cards, paper goods and small gifts. While she has designed books for others, Made by Hand at Home is her own first book.