The creative research method "draw and write" has been used in health, social care and education research for several decades. A literature search of studies utilising this method was conducted during the planning stages of a study exploring primary school children's perceptions of infant feeding. A review of this literature noted a range of benefits of "draw and write" in enabling child participation. However, it also identified that the method has been used inconsistently and found that there are issues for researchers in relation to interpretation of creative work and analysis of data. As a result of this, an improvement on this method, entitled "draw, write and tell", was developed in an attempt to provide a more child-orientated and consistent approach to data collection, interpretation and analysis. This article identifies the issues relating to "draw and write" and describes the development and application of "draw, write and tell" as a case study, noting its limitations and benefits.