SCBWI Winter Conference Recap

It's that time again.

It was conference season in NY. Illustrators and writers invaded the city, taking over cafes, prowling the libraries and museums for inspiration, and swarming the Hyatt at Grand Central for three days.

And what a three days it was.

The SCBWI NY conference this year featured a jaw-dropping faculty (as usual). And when it all started, Team Double Trouble (coined by the ever-fabulous Maple Lam, pictured left) was ready to go.

Friday's Illustrator Intensive began with an incredible conversation between Tomie dePaola and Art Director Cecilia Yung that likened picture books to theater and stage setting.

They were followed by presentations on character design and setting by Brett Helquist (pictured left) and Paul Zelinsky (right).

Later, we reconvened in smaller groups for critiques. Check out the amazing faculty at the front of the room.

Highlights of the main portion of the conference on Saturday and Sunday were two mind-blowing keynotes by Jack Gantos (pictured left) and Kate Messner (right). Jack had the 1,000+ attendees in stitches, and Kate's thoughtful and heartfelt talk on failure was hands-down one of the best keynote speeches I have ever heard. Ever.

I went to two stellar breakout sessions. The first with Art Director, Lily Malcolm and the second with Jane Yolen.

Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser kept us laughing and moving.

And a panel on the art of the picture book gathered some of the most talented illustrators in the industry on one stage. (The panel, pictured below from left to right: Arthur Levine, Shadra Strickland (fellow SVA grad!), Oliver Jeffers, Marla Frazee, Raúl Colón, and Peter Brown.)

The conference itself was an amazing few weekend of inspiration and a great creative kickstart. But for me, the best thing about these conferences is my community. It's one of two times a year that I get to see my peers and friends in the field.

So in addition to all of the learning and listening and absorbing that happened, there was a whole lot of goofing off, sight seeing, talking shop over meals, and having fun. 

Old friends and new: Maple, Katie Kath, yours truly, and Brooke Boynton-Hughes. Both Katie and Booke took runners up in the conference's portfolio show. If you're not familiar with their work, head over to their websites. All three of these lovely ladies have books forthcoming.
 

Celebratory drinks and fun times with the Mentees.

Maple, Brooke, and I took a trip to the Natural History Museum. Yes, we are ridiculous.

And at dinner in Chinatown, there were table-wide pano-selfies, courtesy of the Bagleys. (Check out their work! Jessixa and Aaron Bagley are both crazy talented, and Jessixa's first book comes out next year.)

And reactions to the pano-selfies:

And finally, Maple and I did a school visit at Pat Cummings' picture book class at Pratt.

As you might imagine, it has taken the better part of a week to catch up on both sleep and work. But I do have loads of new drawings to share with you and a sketchbook chockfull of new ideas to explore. 

So, cheers to SCBWI for another fabulous weekend, and kudos to all of the talented folks who showed their work. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm already looking forward to Summer '14 in LA.

The Difficulty of Defining Goals

This month over on the KidLit blog, we're talking about goals. I've been attempting to write my post for the past week and have deleted more first paragraphs than I would have thought possible. Allow me to explain.

Most folks in the field of children's illustration will tell you that their ultimate end goal is publishing a book. I do want to acknowledge that, yes, of course, I'd love to publish any of my books, but I have a lot of trouble thinking about publication as an actual goal. When you define your goal as publishing, you essentially place your hopes and hard work in the hands of sales departments, "the market", and an industry, which, though it strives daily to create excellent content for children, is still an industry, and by definition, concerned with the production of commercial goods.

I can only speak for myself, but, as an illustrator and writer, my goals are about my craft. I want to learn as much as I can about illustration and storytelling and spend each day experimenting with words, composition, character, color, and line. While I do hope to publish someday, I cannot control what someone else will think about my work. I can, however, strive to tell the best stories I possibly can. It's a subtle distinction, but to me, it seems a very important one. 

Fellow kidlit blogger, Jen Betton, and I were talking about this post, and she summed up what I was trying to say rather succinctly. "Publishing isn't your end goal, but rather storytelling is. Publishing is the secondary—important, but secondary—reward to telling an awesome story."

Long term objectives are great; I cannot wait until I can walk into a bookstore and find books by all of my talented illustrator colleagues and friends. However, it is really important to take pleasure in the work itself and in the process of getting there.

Good News

Hey there blog readers,

Like most folks, I have doubts now and then. It's all too easy succumb to the worry and anxiety, but every once in a while, someone or something reminds me that it's all going to work out fine.

And today, dear blog readers, today I have some brand-spanking-new, career-affirming news.

 I just signed on to my VERY FIRST official FOR-REAL-DEAL picture book project!! (Weeeee!!! Jumping up and down in the studio!) I'm illustrating a manuscript for Sleeping Bear Press. While I can't say much more about the project yet, I wanted to share the news with a handful of sketches. Because you may be seeing many more like these...

SVA, Pinocchio, and new work!

Hey there everyone,

Exciting things afoot. The School of Visual Arts' Illustration as Visual Essay program is turning 30 this year, and the department is celebrating with a massive exhibition this fall. Alums of the program were recently asked to send in all of the things we've been working on since graduation - tear sheets from newspaper and magazine illustrations, published or self-published books and comics, products, fine art, etc., so I popped into the department yesterday to say hi and drop off a few small things.

In addition to asking for published work, the department put out a call for anyone who wanted to play. One of our fab faculty members (and local italophile), Carl Titolo, brought 100 small wooden Pinocchios back from Italy. Using the Pinocchio as reference, we were challenged to create a drawing, painting, or story in an 8"x8" piece.

If you'd like to see for scale, here's Pinocchio hanging out in my studio.

Usually I play around for a while with compositions and scenes, but for this project, I had an idea immediately. As soon as I saw the little Pinocchio, I knew what I wanted to do. 

I started out with a few warm-up sketches of Pinocchio. 

And then moved on to a marionette character that I actually came up with years ago. I refreshed my memory of her proportions and updated her a bit.

I did a few rough thumbnails and sketches.

And came up with this sketch...

...which after a bit of tweaking and cropping to make it more dynamic, finished up like so:

In the fall, the department will post all of the submitted pieces on their blog and Facbeook page. I can't wait to see what fellow alums came up with!

The exhibit opens in November, and I'll update with dates and more info later in the year. Stay tuned!

New Year, New Materials

Hey blog readers,

In the spirit of the new year, I thought I'd share some new materials I've been playing around with. At Lost Weekend this year, illustrator friend Brooke demoed some excellent water soluble graphite. I haven't been able to find it locally, but I did find something called "Liquid Pencil" on the shelf.

Lately I've been experimenting with black and white illustrations and spots for chapter books/middle grade novels. I decided to give the Liquid Pencil a test run. It was a little goopy, but when thinned out, it made some great textured washes.

After playing with different types of strokes and washes, I did a couple of loose character sketches in my sketchbook.

Happy New Year!

Hey there, party people,

It was a big, fantastic, fun, filled-to-the-brim sort of year here. It's hard to believe that 2013 is nearing a close. But old years end, and new ones fly in, whizzing and spinning with the unknown. And I will be greeting this one with friends and fizzy drinks and fireworks. 

Wishing all of you a bright, sparkling end to the year, and may your 2014 be chockfull of stupendous, extraordinary things!

Happiness is...

Hey there blog readers,

I know it's been ages since I posted new work. It's been a busy fall... and winter. Right, it's December. Yeep! When did that happen?

I say busy, but I also mean excellent. Life has been completely and totally swell of late. After the wedding (currently working on a post about that...), there was a trip to New Orleans for illustrator fun times, the holiday mishmash that was Thanksgivukkah (I'm sad I won't get to use this word again for several decades), prepping for and moderating the SCBWI illustrator panel last week, jobs (right, work), family whatnot, holiday things, and a whoooole lot of drawing and painting (including two new dummies!). Yep, all in all, it has been pretty grand.

Since things have been so happy and excellent of late, I wanted to share a little piece that makes me grin like a fool from dummy #1. For those of you who are illustrators, if you're like me, you mimic the faces of your characters as you draw them. Frequently when working I take photobooth pictures and keep a mirror handy, not just to check out my ridiculous mug, but to really nail the emotion of the character. Making this piece was an incredibly fun and joyful experience. I couldn't help smiling.

Happiness is...

SCBWI, illustrators, and logos, oh my!

Hey there blog-folks,

Yesterday night, I had the immense pleasure moderating a panel of illustrators for SCBWI Metro NY. I've been volunteering with the local chapter and organized a talk by a fantastic group of local illustrators - David Gordon, Brett Helquist, Kelly Light, and Dan Yaccarino.

It was the first time I've ever moderated a panel, and I was just a touch nervous. But all of the illustrators on the panel were so warm and lovely, it turned into a very comfortable conversation about process, the ins-and-outs of an illustration career, and finding community. Each panelist gave a brief presentation about their work, process, and current projects. I don't know about you, but I LOVE seeing how other artists work. After the presentations, I asked a whole bunch of questions and then opened up for further Q&A from the audience. It was a warm and wonderful evening filled with wisdom, encouragement, and a whole lot of inspiration.

We also used the evening to unveil the chapter's brand-spanking-new logo. After a several-months-long logo contest that spanned the five boroughs, our two amazing judges—art director, Laurent Linn, and art rep, Christine Tugeau—chose a grand prize winner and two runners-up.

The winning entry, by Elizabeth Baddeley (a super talented illustrator and former classmate from SVA), really represents SCBWI, NYC, and the field of children's illustration in a unique and wonderful way. The two runners-up, Barbara DiLorenzo and Ruth Chan, both submitted fabulous pieces.

Our new logo! Ta da!

We loved it so much, we even put it on a cake!

With Ruth & Barbara.

The three winners. Work by Ruth Chan, Elizabeth Baddeley, and Barbara DiLorenzo, respectively.

Many many thanks to the four fabulous panelists for participating! Likewise, an enormous thank you to all of the participants in the logo contest. And last, but not least, many thanks to the SCBWI volunteer staff for helping put on such a great evening.

 (All photos courtesy of Bridget Casey)

Lost Weekend 2013 - New Orleans

Hey there folks,

At the beginning of November, I had the incredible luck to spend another amazing weekend in the company of a mentor and a singularly fabulous group of illustrators.

Unlike last year, Lost Weekend 2013 made camp in New Orleans. I had never been to New Orleans before and was excited when I discovered that our weekend would also include a bunch of sight-seeing.

Our first night in New Orleans, the inimitable David Diaz took us down to the French Quarter for a walk around. We were all vaguely exhausted (some of us jet-lagged, some of us post-wedding-lagged...), but we still managed a good bunch of goofing off bunch heading back to headquarters.

We were still waiting for a few additional Lost Weekend arrivals, so Saturday saw us heading into the city for further sight-seeing. We rode the trolley cars, strolled the streets, and checked out the Audubon Aquarium.

Brooke and Maple in a tunnel of fish.

 

Maple made a new friend.

So did David.

Something fishy going on? (::groooan::)

Aquariums are magical, and this one was particularly excellent. We saw all kinds of creatures and learned loads. Who knew that seahorses slept with their tails curled around plants to anchor them?

Once our additional Mentees arrived, the weekend began in ernest. There were art demos.

Brooke showed us how she works and demoed some amazing water soluble graphite.

Jen demoed powdered graphite.

Maple showed us her process.

 David showed off a nifty spray mount technique,

and imparted his sage-like Mentor wisdom.

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

And I kept it all super classy; I brought everyone into the bathroom to demo how I stretch paper.

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

There was a party where we met the SCBWI NOLA crew.

(photo courtesy of David Diaz)

There were walks and a day in the park,

a sculpture garden,

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

meeting local artists,

trolley rides,

(photo courtesy of Maple Lam)

loads of goofing off,

and of course hanging out at the house and drawing.

It was an excellent creative recharge. Illustration is a solitary sort of career, but these weekends and conferences with the Mentees keep me going. 

Many thanks to my fellow Mentees for your constant well of creativity and inspiration, and thank you David, for hosting us yet again, sharing all of your wisdom, and for creating this vibrant community and tribe.

For further photos and write-up by Maple Lam, check our her excellent Lost Weekend post.

You can find the other Lost Weekend '13 Mentees on the Internet: 

Brooke Boynton Hughes

Jen Betton

Maple Lam

Sylvia Liu