Wise words from Amy June Bates, Illustrator.

Hi everyone -

I'm delayed at posting the wonderful tips that I was fortunate to have heard at the SCBWI Northern California's 3rd Annual Illustrator Day up in San Francisco. I wanted to be sure to ask Amy (Amy June Bates) if it would be fine to post about what I heard her say, and she said, "Of course you can blog about it!"...so here they are:

1) Draw, draw, draw.....and then...

2) Draw some more. It's the surefire way to work on your weaknesses and to hone your strengths.

3) Illustrate the story...not just an image. Give your character surroundings. This is a huge "must-do" if you would like to get into the picture-book industry. Many illustrators provide a beautiful illustration, exquisitely rendered, yet do not give the piece depth, emotion, surroundings, context...

4) illustrate more than one character in a piece..(so as to help context, provide a story to the reader)

5) this one's huge....do quick (5 seconds a piece) gestural drawings of figures, poses...etc. Check this illustration out swan. Pretty amazing...Amy said that she had to stand up and do this pose to "feel" how to illustrate it.

6) If you don't know what it feels like physically, it's difficult to try to draw it...so get up out of your chair and do the pose..feel the position your body goes into and then sketch. She mentions how she had to "roar" like a lion to help her illustrate illustrations in this book: Christian the Hugging Lion whom she worked with Laurent Linn on. Laurent was the art director for this book as well as this book, which was fascinating to hear Amy speak about: Hillary Rodham Clinton dreams taking flight . She tells about how she had to envision what Hillary looked like as a child, as a teenager, etc..because there were not many photos of her youth. This book was made swiftly during the elections, and it turns out that Hillary loved it so much that she used it to give out to people during the election. (I hope I got that story right!)

7) keep drawing....she says that the endpoint for each illustration is not the illustration itself, it's .....the BOOK. : )

Next up..I have to check in with Mr. Laurent Linn to see if I can also share his insight from his Art Director's position for Simon and Schuster....stay tuned.

Pattern....this one was like a walk down memory lane for me. : )

Which was wonderful!!!

I have very vivid memories of my mother and I heading to the local fabric store, spending quite a lot of time perusing those extremely large pattern books...then heading to the drawers to find the actual PATTERN to purchase before wandering through the aisles and aisles of fabric. I loved that. I loved hiding in between the bolts of fabric.

My mother sewed a LOT of clothes for my brothers and I. We wore many of her shirts and mom still has a picture of the three of us standing in our made-by-mom shirts. Stripes were big in those days! Thinking about mom, spending a lot of time watching her, cutting, preparing, sewing, threading the sewing machine, and hearing the sound of the machine whirring, reminds me of a simpler time. Thanks Mom, for showing me how to sew, knit, crochet, and a whole lot more. You're the best!

Infinite

Reading brings infinite opportunities to our future generations!

Have a great week everyone!

Infinite (words!...I know it's a stretch) and Welcome (Illustration Friday, belated)

(click to enlarge if you'd like)

Hi everyone...

Warning...this is a LONG post...scroll to the end if you'd like. : )

I'm back and I've missed posting and checking in on all of you..I am hoping to catch up this week, definitely. A few wonderful things have transpired since my last post weeks ago...

here are the highlights:

1) After signing up with the SCBWI recently (a few months ago), I suppose my email address was sent to the Northern California SCBWI group, and I received an invitation to their 3rd annual Illustrator's Day up at Fort Mason in San Francisco. By happenstance, I had stumbled across an AMAZING artist's work at kidshannon.com, and it turned out that Amy Bates would be speaking at the all-day event, along with Laurent Linn, the Art Director for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. I encourage all of you to check out their work. Also to speak and assess work, were Kristine Brogno - Art director, Chronicle; Sara Gillingham, Indep. Art Director, formerly at Chronicle, Illustration Instructor - CCA, John Clapp – Asst. Professor of Illustration at San Jose State, and Abigail Samoun – Editor - Tricycle. They were all amazing to listen to, and I learned so much about the children's picture book industry.

It was truly a wealth of information, but mostly just an honor to be there listening to Amy and Laurent as they discussed working on books together and then listening to the entire panel as they critiqued (a "first look" panel) our group's work in a slide presentation which we could submit one piece anonymously to be critiqued by each person for a few minutes. Needless to say, I learned a lot about what worked as a "piece" for submitting to publishers that would encourage them to ask for more samples, and what didn't say enough.

The highlight for me was to have my portfolio (I had been working hard on putting together a portfolio of work (18 pieces) reviewed by Amy, herself. My goodness, talk about a wonderful person!..she is just the most down to earth, outrageously gifted and talented person I have had the honor of reviewing my humble work! She was incredibly generous with her comments and offered me helpful advice and critcisms..I learned SO much in our 30 minute review.

Needless to say, I was overwhelmed with the amount of information I received that day, that it's carried me forward with an energy and an even greater passion and interest for the children's book industry! (I am going to post about what I've learned this week...stay tuned!)

2) So, before the big event, working on the portfolio was #1 on my plate. I also decided that I should get some postcards made so that I could leave a sample behind for anyone who'd want any...and so I checked out Vistaprint (check them out...I have been happily surprised with most of their products!)..and for a small amount, I had a few postcards, and my business card to leave behind at the event. Anyway, the postcard project was another self-inflicted project, which I found challenging because it's hard to figure out what to print...I decided to print two pieces (Goldielocks and Baby Bear, and Something New). Anyway, I highly recommend seeing if there are promotionals from Vistaprint just to see something of yours printed. It definitely made me feel a bit more prepared on that day. : )

3) So going back to #2, the next big item on my plate was to get my website up and running, since I had placed my web address (www.gabbyandco.com) instead of my blog address, on my promotionals. Now, talk about pressure! I decided that for once and for all, I'd get my buns in gear and work on it. Now, I am not a web-designer, by any means. I own some amazing applications, took one basic HTML course about 7 years ago, and then decided that I'd just keep my web PAGE up for my site. Since I would now be distributing my postcards to prospective publishers and such, I decided I should really try to design and publish my website. Nuts, you say?...YES. Nuts I am, and was, for weeks. That's where I've been...pulling my hair out, and basically calling in my troops (namely my wonderful brother, Doug) who saved me from screaming my head off at Dreamweaver. So......

taaa daaa.... introducing www.gabbyandco.com (welcome, one and all!)

4) About these illustrations...the little girl planting her carrot garden is hopefully the start of a "book idea" that I'd love to keep working on..the style looks a bit different cause I'm using one of Amy's tips (thank you, Amy!) about bringing down the backgrounds in tone..I think I've overworked it here..so I must keep practicing!), and then there's the illustration for "Welcome" which shows my little one welcoming her newest addition to her stuffed animal family....Pip!

Lastly before I end this very long post..I just want to thank all of you who have dropped by here, and have commented and encouraged me through these many months. I never thought that this blog would be as valuable as it is to me. Not value as in any monetary value, but in terms of what it means to me to be a part of a super kind and generous community of creative people. Thanks everyone! I always say, YOU ROCK!

: ) Now to visit all of you.....I've got a lot of work ahead... : )

Strong....and PROUD!

My little girl just became a proud member of the "Proficient Push-up" club at school. She can do perfect pushups at the age of 10, and I don't think I've ever done one full perfect pushup in my life. As you can imagine, I am SUPER proud of her...and as you can see here, in this homage, she is quite proud of herself, too. : )

Note: This illustration (from sketch to completion, 30 minutes) was a lot of fun and definitely looser than my recent post, "Magnify" (which took 4 days to be happy with a sketch to move forward with, and then 2 days to paint). I'd love to hear comments about that one, too, if you have time to spare! : )

I guess I move from detail to loose...what do you do? Do you stick with the same style all of the time?

Have a great week!

Shirley

Magnify - belated...oops! What a week...

Wow, what a busy week..this is the first time I've posted an Illustration Friday piece late..and I am bummed..but I figure, keep pressing on! I hope to do this week's entry this weekend, so that I'm ahead of the game. : )

Anyway, I've missed you guys! I hope to hear from everyone..what do you think of the doctor? I struggled with this one (there are so many errors here, but I just thought it was ready for showing now)...

Have a great weekend, everyone! - Shirley