Thumbs up for 
cool guy Chas

By Steven McInnes GRAPHIC designer Joyce Smith had to think just like a kid for her latest project.  But then that wasn’t too difficult for the 30-year-old Ayr College student — she has two of her own, Glen (8) and Kerr (5), firing ideas at her all day long! In fact Joyce, from Ayr, was so good at it she won the competition to design the Sunday Post’s Children’s Hospice Schools Challenge poster. “I did some sketches and tried to think of things that would attract secondary school pupils,” she explains. “I had to do something that wasn’t too cute and childlike but rather something they could relate to.  “The Children’s Hospice Association for Scotland’s initials are CHAS and I immediately thought of making Chas an actual character,” says Joyce. “I must have drawn him 30 or 40 times before I was 100 per cent happy with the face and clothes.  “I wanted Chas holding a pound coin forward to make it look like he was challenging kids. Hopefully that would catch their eye and make them connect. “It’s drawn in a ‘Manga’ style — like the favourite children’s character Pokemon.  “The technique I used was called ‘scraffito’, which involves using oil pastels. I put a layer of crayon down first then another colour on top of it then scratched through it — giving it a sort of streaky effect.” It had the desired effect — the judges took the final three designs out on to the street to ask children what they thought of the posters. And the kids gave Joyce — and CHAS — a massive thumbs-up.

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