Children’s book illustrators and anyone absorbed in the curious business of children’s book illustration,
Do you find it interesting, as I do that the big commercial for Google’s Nexus 7 features a little girl and her mom reading a Curious George story on the device?
Google, in its elegant way used a simple illustrated page from a classic children’s picture book series to introduce its new tablet to the world.
From the Wikipedia entry: ”The series was written and drawn by the team of Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey. The couple fled Paris in June 1940 on self-made bicycles, carrying the Curious George manuscript with them.At first only H. A. Rey was credited for the work in order to distinguish the Reys’ books from the large number of children’s books written by female authors. Later, Hans Rey was credited for the illustrations and Margret Rey for the writing. “
Google+ tools for artists and illustrators — a free workshop
Briefly, the Second Annual Austin SCBWI Digital Symposiumis set for Saturday, October 6 at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Author/publisher marketing consultant Kirsten Cappy ofCurious City is one of several featured faculty guests. (Definitely a curiosity theme running through today’s post…) For a schedule and details on the workshop and presenters, gohere.
* * * * * Children’s book author-illustrator Mark Mitchell, penned this post and did a short video on the ”best drawing secret” that you can see here.
Children’s book illustrator Don Tatenever thought of himself as a writer, despite his many children’s author, publishing and librarian friends — a small army’s worth — and being surrounded by journalists all day in his work as a graphics reporter for the Austin American Statesman.
Don Tate at the book launch party for his “It Jes’ Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw” at BookPeople in Austin, Texas Saturday, June 9, 2012
He’s illustrated more than 40 educational books and 11 children’s trade books by other writers. His auntEleanora Tate is a successful children’s book writer.
But he wasn’t one. Not until Saturday.
That’s when Don threw a book launch party for himself — actually his first-ever bookstore signing event — to celebrate the release of It Jes’ Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw.
It’s a picture book bio about an impoverished folk artist whose pictures, drawn on scratch cardboard and paper in the 1930s and 1940s now hang in top museums and fetch tens of thousands of dollars from serious collectors.
The book has alreadyreceived rave and starred reviews in The Horn Book, Kirkus, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.
You can imagine the scene: Family, friends and fans (including author and or illustrator pals from the dynamic Austin SCBWI chapter) swarming the second floor of Austin’s renown indie-book store, BookPeople.A kids’ art-making station littered with markers and paper hosted by Don’s illustrator friends. Easels propped up by the podium for a creative sketching showdown by audience members. A refreshments table piled with baked treats. A funny banner unfurled by members of Don’s author group, the Texas Sweethearts and Scoundrels.
In the two videos — excerpts from a longer video interview Don gave for students of Mark Mitchell’s Make Your Splashes – Make Your Marks! children’s book illustration course, Don talks about his experience of coming up with the words for It Jes Happened.
The real story of Traylor who began making his drawings when he was 85 and living homeless on the streets in Montgomery is a jaw dropper.
If Traylor drew and painted earlier in his life, which is plausible, there’s no record of it. Though many of his pictures, certainly are mental snapshots from his memories of childhood as an Alabama slave before the Civil War.
“Traylor is recognized as one of the finest American artists of the 20th century,” says the website of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which holds one of the largest public collection of Traylor’s drawings.
“His works are notable for their flat, simply defined shapes and vibrant compositions in which memories and observations relating to African American life are merged.”
“Using a stick for a straightedge, he created geometric silhouettes of human and animal figures which he then filled in with pencil, colored pencil, or poster paint,” says an article on him in Wikipedia. ”Much speculation surrounds the identification of mysteriously shaped objects, usually referred to as “constructions,” and the complex scenes he called ‘Exciting Events,’ which depict groups of people.”
Nearly as fascinating as Traylor’s journey is this PB biography’s long path to publication. Don told Saturday’s standing room only audience how the subject was first suggested to him by an author friend Dianna Aston. She’d decidedthe idea fit Don better than her– and sent him the newspaper clipping that had first caught her eye.
Don kept the clipping beside his drawing table — where he would see it every day as he worked on more pressing illustration assignments.
He wanted to let the message of the life of this prolific, unschooled black artist sink into him slowly.
He wrote a draft and entered it into the NewVoicescontest sponsored by New York publisher Lee & Low Books.The annual award (that includes a cash prize of $1,000 and a standard publisher’s contract) goes to a picture book manuscript by a writer of color.
Don won the New Voices Honor(runner-up) award – witha $500 cash prize — and an offer to publish if he was willing to revise.
R. Gregory Christie, illustrator for “It Jes’ Happened”
The revision process went on for four years — most of this time waiting to hear from editors on Don’s several versions.
Talented illustrator R. Gregory Christiewhose electrifying artwork has appeared in The New Yorker magazine as well as several children’s books, was tapped — by Don himself as it turns out – to create the pictures.
Don talks about this in the videos. Christie interprets the scenes as Traylor himself might have, but with brighter (more expensive?) colors. It’s a tour de force of the best kind of children’s book art, integrating the subject with the pictures.
Don’s own illustrations, meanwhile have appeared recently in Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suiteby Anna Harwell Celenza (Charlesbridge Publishing) and She Loved Baseball — the Effa Manley Story by Audrey Vernick (HarperCollins).
The display ad that publisher Lee & Low ran in the School Library Journal for Tate’s and Christie’s book
* * * * *
Lee & Low is now accepting entries for the 13th annual New Voices Award. The deadline is September 30.
* * * * *
Author illustrator Don Tate enjoys the rousing introduction by his wife, graphic artist Tamera Diggs-Tate to his book launch presentation for “It Jes’ Happened” Saturday, June 9 at BookPeople in Austin, Texas
Author-illustrator Mark Mitchell is the writer of this post and the creator of the Make Your Splashes – Make Your Marks!online course. * * * * *
It’s easy to includeHow To Be a Children’s Book Illustrator on your radar screen. Just like our Facebook page.
The animated “finger paintings” of Aleksandr Petrov
Still from the animated short “The Mermaid” by Aleksandr Petrov, based on a story by Pushkin.
Read about this amazing Russian animatorand how he paints on glass to create illustrations that move and breathe. See his work, too, in the unusual new video series starting over at the Illustration Courseblog.
But you’ll find answers to the important questions, like, How did he learn to draw?
His response (see the site’s FAQs): ”I have been obsessed with drawing since I was knee high to a slug…
“I’ll bet I have drawn at least five or six billion pictures, mostly of things with one eye, in my life. Most of them stunk, but some came out OK.
“That’s the thing. If you draw lots of pictures, chances are a few will be really cool.”
Reviewers have used words like zany, quirky, twisted and rowdy to describe his pictures and stories that are also just plain funny and kid-friendly.
If you’ve never read any of his books, the video below with Keith reading his Loretta, Ace Pinky Scout (Scholastic) accompanied by the movie theme from The Great Escape offers a fine introduction to his oeuvre.
His latest work is the first in a series of chapter books that he illustrated with white colored pencil and acrylic paint on black illustration board.
In these video excerpts from a longer interview that he gave for students of theMake Your Splashes – Make Your Marks!course Keith talks about his happy experiment with long form writing and his new series character, Thaddeus J. Hibble.
Keith’s long professional art career has included editorial illustrations for some of the country’s top publications, music album covers, posters, ads, Hollywood animated film projects, his own children’s picture books and those of other authors’ (including Margie Palatini, Mary Alice Fontenot, Helen Ketteman and Sandy Asher.)
He earned his B.F.A. from the University of Southern Louisiana, studied at the Parsons New School for Design in N.Y.C. and finished an M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.
But not before he tackled essential boyhood tasks like building a W.W. II submarine out of cardboard boxes in his (New Orleans neighborhood) backyard, learning to play the guitar and immersing himself in the lore of movie monsters, the hot rod cartoon monster (plastic kit) models of Big Daddy Roth and a particular uncle’s hilarious tall tales about growing up on the bayou.
Further down in this post we mention the winners of the SCBWI Tomie de Paola Illustration Award. The contest required artists to render a certain scene from Chicken Licken(or Chicken Little or Henny Penny. )
So we can’t omit mention of Keith’s strangely endearing take on the same tale that resulted in his 2010 picture book Chicken Big (Chronicle Books.)
Watch the discussion below for his insights into developing a visual character who rings true.
It’s no exaggeration, either — with its insanely good lineup of name authors, agents, editors and a few other top children’s publishing industry professionals.
Conference logo design by Erik Kuntz
Come meet Patti Ann Harris, senior art director at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers who oversees the design of the picture book list and novelty book imprint,LB-Kids, Bonnie Bader, editor-in-c hief of Grosset and Dunlap andPrice Stern Sloan, two imprints of the Penguin Young Readers Group and Diane Muldrow, editorial director at Golden Books/Random House and editor of the famous Little Golden Books.
Hobnob with agents, Sarah Davies (Greenhouse Literary Agency), Erin Murphy (Erin Murphy Literary Agency) and Jill Corcoran (Jeff Hermann Agency) along with YA novelist Lisa Lee, picture book author and writing teacher Anastasia Suen and Kirsten Cappy, who owns the children’s author-illustrator marketing consultancy Curious City.
Conference logo design by Laci Morgan
Registration is still open for Something for Everyone, set for February 17-19 on the St. Edward’s University campus in Austin, Texas.
SCBWI Tomie dePaola Illustration Award winner announced
For first place, from more than 300 entries from around the world, dePaola chose the scene composed by Yvette Piette Herrera for the Chicken Licken fable.
See more great work (178 of the contest submissions so far and counting) in a special “Unofficial” Tomie dePaola Awards blog initiated by Houston SCBWI illustrator coordinator Diandra Mae, including four pieces by Marks and Splashes students Joanna Strybosch, Catherine Jacobs, Cynthia Iannocone and Virginia Rinkel.
Sign up here, start work on your pencil dummy drop by the #kidlitart Twitter chats at 9 pm (U.S. Eastern Time) every Thursday to visit with your creative colleagues.
You’ll find additional challenge-related discussions on Twitter using the challenge hashtag: #PBDummy.
Try to register for the challenge by January 15 to be eligible for the Agent Pitch contest at the end of the six months. The challenge extends to July 1.
(Live anywhere near the St. Louis, Mo. area? PB Dummy Challenge co-founder Wendy Martin will teach art and painting classes this Spring at Jefferson College, including Watercolor Pencil Techniques, Narrative Illustration, Cartoon Animals and Basic Logo Design. Check out page 11 of the Jefferson College Continuing Education 2012 spring catalog or contact Wendy directly through her website for more information. She’ll teach at the Festus, Mo. campus.)
If you feel instead like concentrating on picture book story structure and writing, consider the 12 x 12 in 2012 Picture Book Writing Challenge. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write one picture book per month for each of the twelve months of 2012,” states challenge instigator, author Julie Hedlund in her blog, Write Up My Life.
“This means a first draft: beginning, middle, end. NOT a submission-ready piece,” she says.
Author-illustrator Jeff Crosby inscribes a book for illustrator Lalena Fisher, while his wife and co author-illustrator Shelley Ann Jackson chats with Lalena.
Triumphs and tallies
Picture books by Austin SCBWI artists Jeff Crosby and Patrice Bartonmade the Texas Library Association’s 2×2 list for 2012. Wiener Wolf that Jeff wrote and illustrated and Mine! written by Shutta Crum and illustrated by Patrice made the top 20 books (winnowed down from 700 nominated titles) for children ages two through the second grade.
Patrice’s illustrations for Mine! were also included in the Society of Illustrators 2011 National Exhibition in NYC.
Elizabeth Bird, youth collections specialist for the New York City Public Library compiled her list of 100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2011 in herblog, A Fuse 8 Production for School Library Journal.
Illustrator Patrice Barton with author-illustrator Mary Sullivan
1.) From idea to iTunes: Author-illustrator David Tribble walks us through how he created his children’s picture book for the iPad, Lord of the Scribes. See the 90 minute-replay.
2.) Building interactive books for touch screen devices: A presentation featuring children’s author Dan Byrne who won last year’s InteractBooks competition with his picture book on nutrition and gardening for kids, It’s Time for Carrots (illustrated by Jenna Matsalla) and the developers of the InteractBuilder software. Hear it here.
Three more live Saturday sessions to go with InteractBuilder developers Ezra Weinstein and Richard Johnson teaching how to use their groundbreaking software. Replays of the previous trainings are available for only three more weeks. Find more information, temporary replay linksand upcoming class registration links.
