THE FULL (really long) SCOOP about the conference

After the conference I have been trying to organize my thoughts to be able to put them on paper (or my blog) in a way that it is helpful to you but also gives you a taste of my personal experience. I’m still not sure if I can do this successfully since I am rather confused at the moment, and I’m not sure that I’ll sort everything out in a snap.

I thought I would start by telling you about Mark Teague’s Workshop, which was titled “Drawing interesting characters”. Many of the things he spoke about relate to my portfolio critique.

1. There are no rules. This is an important one for me, and part of the reason why I feel confused. I will expand on this later.
   
2. Start with a Character. This means that if you are also an author or if you are working with a manuscript, you need to start with a character before you can start with anything else. Some of the techniques for developing a character are the same techniques writers use to develop a character. They key is to find the voice of the character and you can only achieve this by drawing the character more than 100 times from all different angles, capturing expressions and moods. Mark Teague has many drawings of many characters that were never used on the final art but were part of the discovery process.
   
3. Read a lot. The more you read the better you become at story telling. He said that he became a better illustrator once he had kids because he read so many books to them and used them as a learning tool.
   
4. Once you have the character then you can think about the story-telling part of the story. You can look at how other illustrators carry a character through a 32 page book.
   
5. Choose and artist that is close to your sensitivity/style and study them. 
   
6. About your own style – He said: “Don’t worry about developing a style, do your work and the style will come out organically out of you. It is an extension of who you are.
   
7. Illustrate an older story to show an editor that you can take a character all the way through the story (32 pages). Pick a story that when you read it you can visualize what is happening like a movie playing in your head. Then, begin to develop the characters. Doodle, doodle, and doodle! Keep it private. Don’t worry about messing up, but doodle and doodle a lot! Until something (magic) happens.
   
8. Get the character right. If you are drawing a dinosaur or a car, etc. Do your research and get all the details right. Gauges, lights, etc. Kids love details and they will notice if they are not believable. Getting it right helps keep a kid’s fantasy real!
   
9. Honor the text that you have. Don’t violate something that is important to the author.
   
10. Play it BIG! Big emotion! Big Energy! Pump it up! Find energy with the character. (This reminds me of something I was taught in school when I was studying graphic design…if something doesn’t work; make it big, if it still doesn’t work, make it red! Funny, that’s a tip that almost always works!)
    
11. Kids don’t get nuances or subtleties. You need to be straight up and emotionally honest with the illustrations. You don’t illustrate a mad kid. You illustrate a REEEALLY MADDDDDD kid! Exaggerate energy and emotion. For example straight lines on a speeding car don’t have the same energy as curved lines on that same car.
    
12. Play with perspective and point of view. It’s always a child’s world. Get in touch with your inner child. The emotional center of the illustration is always with the child (audience).
    
13. Story-boarding helps composition. Identify the main focus on each page and add no distractions, but add things that help tell the story.
    

Then his talk turned into a QA session and someone asked, how would someone starting out know when they are ready? He said that was a very personal thing. When he was starting out he was told by his professor not to do it, that he would never be as good as the best illustrator at that time. However, he decided to move forward and he published books that today he doesn’t feel very proud of, but helped him get to where he is today. He felt he was ready, although in retrospect, he is not sure why he thought he was.
The subject of ‘there are no rules’ came up again. He mentioned how he loves the work of Barbara Coonie. However, he could never do her work, nor do many of his recommendations apply to her work or many other successfully published artists, yet their work is brilliant.
This was his workshop in a nutshell! This post is soooo long. I hope I’m not boring you if you are still reading…wow!
Now I am going to share some of the comments that he said directly about my work, and I’ll try to be specific, only because you may get something out of it:
Let me say first, that he was incredibly nice and I could see that he tried to be as thoughtful as possible to make comments that would be really constructive and not demeaning or over critical and I really appreciated that!

• He saw my character study of the little witch girl and said that it was nice, but needed to push it further (no more specifics!)
  
• By page 4 he said my work was weak in character development (not in those words exactly). I soon realized that I had not mixed up all emotions the right way, and had too many smiling children in the beginning of the portfolio. He reiterated many of the things I mentioned earlier from his workshop.
  
• On the next page looking at the boys playing with the paper boat, he said that they were so calm. I then added (thinking this was a positive trait from my work and part of my unique style), that most people always commented on how soothing and pleasant my work was. He said that this is not helpful when you are trying to carry a character through a story where there are many emotions.
  
• Then there was the piece about ‘going back to school’ He asked me what was happening there. I explained why the mother was upset, hoping to highlight the ‘emotion’ in my portfolio. Then he said, well this is a mother’s point of view and a child is not interested in a mother’s point of view. This is his world (referring to the boy in the bus) or the sister’s not the mother’s. Then he expanded by saying that my work was all a mother’s point of view and pointed out at some other illos. He said the work has to be interesting for children to look at. I guess it is part of what he spoke about the emotional center of the piece has to be with the child.
  
• His last suggestion was for me to draw lots and lots and know my character inside and out…then we were out of time. He only got to see half of my portfolio.
  

So after a long weekend I came away with the following:
In the end, it is about finding your voice, believing in yourself and your work and continuing to strive to improve on your work based on YOU and not someone else’s formula. There’s no such thing as a guide or a rule-book to go by. It just works or it doesn’t. I also think that the success of an illustrator is somewhat tied to trends too. Graphic styles, illustration styles change and some go in and out of fashion. I think there’s some truth in the idea of having a marketable style.

I am in a strange place, because I felt very strongly about my work prior to the conference (I guess that’s part of it, you need to believe in yourself or no one else will), and after Mark Teagues’ input, I realize that his comments come from what he does with his work and what he believes in, and has worked for him. However, it doesn’t mean that I need to start drawing with crazy perspectives and curved lines, and blow everything out of the page because then I won’t be true to myself. On the other hand, he did offer some great advice, but I’m not sure how to make it my own yet. All of this makes me question who I am as an illustrator/artist? Where do I fit in? and where I should go from here?

Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful to you if you are in a similar journey or even if you are already published. As always, I welcome your comments!

Back from Miami

I just came back from the SCBWI Florida Regional Conference and had a wonderful time! The weather was cold for us Floridians, but most presenters coming from NYC loved the weather! It was really beautiful! There were about 150 people and about 5% maybe 10% were illustrators. I was surprised to find that we were so few in numbers!

This was my first conference, so I was taking it all in! I heard some wonderful speakers on Saturday talk about the ins-and-outs of the business as it relates to authors. They were very well prepared, very funny at times and just great people in general. Here’s a little summary of who was there, and what they said:

Publisher Arthur Levine spoke about who you are as a person (likes, dislikes, culture, ideas, outlook) influences the work that you like as a publisher, which in turn influences the work that gets published.

Author Lisa Yee Spoke about why who you are dictates what you write. It seemed similar to Levine’s except that this was from the writer’s point of view. Quite interesting! She also brought Peepy and took a picture of him for her blog I may be somewhere in the background!

Agent Ginger Knowlton Spoke about the Do’s and Don’ts of the Agent Search, and referred to the book the 4 agreements. Especially the part about not taking it personal! (I think we could all use this advice!)

Editor Alexandra Cooper spoke about how and why a manuscript is acquired, and the best way I can summarize her in-depth talk is by saying ‘it’s a game of chance, luck, and being in the right place at the right time!’

Illustrator Mark Teague (love his work!) spoke about how to make lively picture books. I was very interested in his presentation and he did not disappoint. He has a new book coming out from an already established series with character Ike LaRue. He talked about the process of writing and illustrating his new book. Fascinating!

Agent Tina Wexler spoke about exploring the agent/author relationship and to consider aspects like chemistry and personality when selecting an agent.

Authors Elaine Landau & Ruth Vanderzee spoke about writing non-fiction. Apparently, there’s a big demand in this area and very rewarding for writers!

Editor Liz Waniewski spoke about how to WOW an editor with your writing. She shared a checklist of items she constantly thinks about when reviewing manuscripts. She also shared what were the most submitted topics in the last three months and interestingly enough the top three were: bedtime, monsters acting un-monster like, and cats / kittens. She also said that visiting grandparents and the first day of school were always at the top of the most submitted subjects.

Lastly, Writer Linda Sue Park talked about how to handle revisions from the editor. Basically you say ok. You go back and try it their way, then you try it your way, and more often than not, the work ends up stronger.

There you go! See, I paid attention even though it was not all about illustration!
Oh, and if you are still reading this, this week I will write about my one on one critique with Mark Teague and then his workshop on drawing interesting characters. He gave some great tips and advice that I will share here!

..and OFF I GO!

The day is finally here, when I leave for the so awaited SCBWI Regional Conference to be held in Miami. I will post about the conference next week after the holiday. Thanks for all your kind comments and good luck wishes. They really mean a lot to me. 

I don't have time to participate in illustration friday this week, but I decided to post an oldie. This is a very old illustration, or I should say color study. I could not find the final piece. I did this back in college when I took editorial illustration classes. Sometimes I look through my old stuff to see how I've evolved, yet still remain the same.

Originally, I thought the image did not apply to IF's theme, but then I looked up the definition of 'pale' and it read: "a space or field having bounds". Does a checkerboard have bounds? I would think so, but you be the judge! 

Have a great weekend!

SELF PROMOTION and IF:RESOLVE

The SCBWI Florida Chapter is having a conference the middle of this month. I am so excited about this conference. This is a great opportunity to meet fellow illustrators and get a first look at the industry. In addition to attending a few workshops, I signed up for a portfolio critique and I am also exhibiting my portfolio. I was apprehensive about signing up for the exhibit without having the critique, but without exposure, there’s no way to know how good I am. So I will take my chances and have my work out for everyone to see!

The next two weeks are all about getting ready for the conference. It is my resolve to spend this first half of the month on fine tuning my portfolio and working on some self-promotion pieces. I have made some progress and the first piece of self-promotion I worked on is my business card. 

A few months ago I printed my first set of cards with Psprint.com, and I was very pleased with their quality, price and turn around time. I received great feedback on the cards and now I am running low and decided it was a good time to revamp what I already had.

New Front

I changed the spot illustration on the front for an image that was more dynamic and full of energy and representative of the style I wanted to be working with.I left my name on the front and what I do so that anyone looking at the front understands it.

I also think the boy shows determination and resolve to have fun on his scooter which fits IF's theme perfectly!

I left the back of the card untouched. I listed all of my contact information and repeated my name and what I do to make it simpler for people reading the card. Otherwise, they’d have to flip the card to be able to read my name (yes, I’m funny about things like that).

TIP: If you are designing your own business card, my recommendation is to keep it simple but include key information such as who you are (name/company/title), what you do and how to contact you. If you are an illustrator, definitely include an image of your work! This image needs to be simple since it will be rather small and it needs to have great impact. A character or a spot illustration would be a great start. A two-sided card would make it easier to fit all information and have your spot illustration stand out more. On the back list all contact information. Don’t forget your website and your e-commerce site if you have one!

I’ll be writing about post cards next week...