Live Drawing and Workshop with Children's Author Grace Easton

Grace Easton is at the Institut Français d'Écosse on Saturday 17 October for a live drawing session and workshop, part of the venue's Children's Book Festival 2026. It's a two-part afternoon: first, Easton draws live in front of the room, and then the children take over for the workshop.

The session is built around her latest picture book, The House with the Little Red Door. Once the demonstration is over, the kids are invited to imagine cosy animal homes hidden inside everyday objects — a teapot for a fox, a shoe for a mouse, or a book for a cat — and to design the perfect little house for their favourite animal. It's the kind of thing that works well with a room full of children: a simple, open-ended prompt that lets them run with it.

Easton comes to Edinburgh from London, where she's Senior Illustrator at the luxury goods company Smythson of Bond Street and previously designed for Anorak magazine and Penguin Books. She illustrated the bestselling children's edition of Prisoners of Geography, which was shortlisted for both Waterstones Book of the Year and the Children's Travel Book of the Year, and she's a contributing illustrator to Everything Under the Sun. The House with the Little Red Door is her latest picture book, and it's the one that opens up the world the workshop is based on.

The session starts at 12:00 at the Institut Français d'Écosse, West Parliament Square, Edinburgh Old Town EH1 1RF. Admission is free for members and £7 for non-members, with accompanying adults getting in for free.