Create Your Own Storybook Character
02 pm – 05 pm, Sun 15 June 2025
Heritage Art Space Library
Floor 2, No.6, Alley 168 Hào Nam, Ô Chợ Dừa, Đống Đa, Hà Nội
Registration link (10 people)
From the organizer:
A Fun Workshop for Children with Illustrator Yehezkiel Cyndo, hosted by Heritage Art Space (Hanoi) & Collabox (Semarang)
Ticket: 150,000 VND per person
Ages: 6–13 years old (older kids who love to draw and imagine are also welcome!)
Language: English & Vietnamese
What’s the Workshop About?
In this fun and creative workshop, you’ll get to design your very own storybook character with Cyndo, a talented illustrator and picture book writer from Semarang, Indonesia!
We’ll start by choosing an animal you love — maybe one from Vietnam or just your favorite in the whole world. Then, we’ll dress that animal in clothes that match your dream job — like a firefighter, astronaut, chef, or artist!
This is how real authors and illustrators start making storybooks — with characters! And you’ll even get a chance to share your creation with the group, telling us what your character does and what their story might be. Don’t worry — it’s all for fun and everyone’s here to cheer you on!
What Will We Do?
Story Time with Cyndo – Learn about different types of children’s storybooks. Did you know even grown-ups love them?
Book Types Explained
– Picture Books: Mostly pictures, few words — use your imagination!
– Short Story Books: Called Cerpen in Indonesia — short stories with pictures to help tell the tale.
Character Creation Time!
– Draw an animal wearing clothes that show their job.
– Tell us all about them in a mini show-and-tell at the end! 🎤
What to Bring
– Your favorite drawing and coloring tools (crayons, markers, watercolors, colored pencils — anything you like!)
– A refillable water bottle – we’ll have water for you, but let’s help the planet by not using plastic cups 🌍
– A big smile and your wonderful ideas! 😊
(A4 drawing paper will be provided by the workshop.)
Special Notes
– We’ll take some fun photos and videos during the workshop as part of Cyndo’s special art project in Hanoi.
– And who knows? If your story is super special, it might even be turned into a real book later on as part of our collaboration!
Meet Cyndo – The Traveling Artist and Storybook Creator! ✨
Let us tell you the story of Yehezkiel Cyndo — but you can call him Cyndo! He was born in 1989 in a city in Indonesia called Yogyakarta, a place full of colorful art and exciting stories. As a child, Cyndo grew up surrounded by cartoons, comics, and music from the good old days before everything went digital! That world of imagination helped him become the artist he is today.
When Cyndo was a bit older, he studied Product Design in Yogyakarta, which helped him learn how to draw and create amazing things. But what really made him fall in love with sketching was joining a super cool drawing club called Indonesia’s Sketchers Jogja. There, he practiced drawing real people and places using just his hands, eyes, and heart — kind of like a drawing diary!
Now, Cyndo works as a visual artist. That means he does all kinds of fun creative work:
– Drawing cities and people (urban sketching)
– Making sketch journals
– Illustrating picture books for children
– Painting murals on walls
– Designing fun toys
He’s already written and drawn two picture books for kids in Indonesia:
– “Barton and the Cloud Button” (2017)
– “Fugo and the Dream Jar” (2019)
His first book even made it all the way to libraries in Japan — how cool is that?
In 2021, Cyndo moved to a city called Semarang. There, he started a big project where he drew 100 beautiful buildings in Semarang’s Chinatown, trying to save their special look before they disappear. He even painted a mural in the neighborhood to remind people how important their culture and stories are!
That project gave him a big idea — to travel across Southeast Asia, sketching stories of different cities and the people who live there. He calls it “Cyndo Jalan-jalan”, which means “Cyndo Goes Exploring” in Indonesian!
In 2024, he visited cities in Vietnam and Malaysia. And in 2025, he’ll continue his adventure to Thailand and come to Hanoi, Vietnam, for a special art residency with Collabox and Heritage Art Space.
Through drawing and storytelling, Cyndo hopes to share the amazing lives, dreams, and places of people all across the ASEAN region — one sketch at a time!
Let your imagination fly and join us for a joyful afternoon of drawing, dreaming, and storytelling!
The workshop is a part of the Asia ARTMAP: City-Storytelling between Hanoi and Semarang, a long-term project initiated by Heritage Art Space, co-organized with Collabox. The project includes a local knowledge sharing session and a residency exchange program between art and culture practitioners in Hanoi and Semarang. Sincere thanks to ba-bau AIR for supporting the artist residency space.
The programme is part of the Connections Through Culture and the Arts initiative, supported by Mekong Cultural Hub and the Art & Society Hubs Network Asia.
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