Queer Representation in Picture Books - An Online Exhibition from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Have you seen this wonderful online exhibition? ALL: A Look into LGBTQ+ Representation in Picture Books was curated by Chandra Boudreau, the museum’s former Trinkett Clark Intern and a current librarian, and it's a celebration and exploration!

Chandra's opening statement:

Western society has long judged the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) community for the way they live and whom they love. While people who identify as LGBTQ+ have always existed throughout the world, their visibility has been intentionally hidden by those who see them as “different.” Historic events—from the Stonewall riots of 1969 to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality in 2015—have advanced social understanding, paving the way for the publication of LGBTQ+ picture books.

This exhibition explores representations beyond the seminal books Heather Has Two Mommies (1989) by Lesléa Newman and Daddy’s Roommate (1991) by Michael Willhoite. The publishing field has widened in the last 20 years to include more diverse identities and stories. The books in this exhibition support

LGBTQ+ readers, validating their experiences while allowing others to read, learn and build empathy. Above all, the books confirm there is no one right way to live or to love.

Organized into the sections "All Loving," "All People," "All Overcoming," "All Valid," "All Families," and "All Together" the exhibit showcases more than two dozen amazing illustrations from picture books that show LGBTQ+ lives and loves.

It's well-worth checking out!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee 

Is Your Picture Book Exhibit-Worthy?

Those of us who create picture books are probably just as excited as the lucky kids who get to visit The Rabbit Hole, a new museum in North Kansas City, Missouri that “brings countless works of children’s literature to life.” —That's from their website, which goes on to explain:

Visitors become explorers in an immersive, multi-sensory, narrative landscape... you can catch a ride with Nana and CJ on the bus to the Last Stop on Market Street; whisper “Goodnight Moon” in the quiet dark of the great green room; outshine Mr. Sun with Sam and the Tigers; feed jum-jills to The Funny Thing, or find yourself scaling the cliffs of My Father’s Dragon.

My favorite of the museum profiles I've seen so far is this video tour by the amazing librarian, blogger, and children's book author herself, Betsy Bird (a.k.a. A Fuse #8 Production) which you can watch here on Betsy's Instagram.

France's house welcomes visitors to view the wonders inside...  Frances series written by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Lillian Hoban. Photo from this The Rabbit Hole Instagram post.

As someone who writes picture books myself, I found myself daydreaming... what would it be like to see one of the worlds of MY picture books brought to 3-dimensional, tactile life in this way? 

The 1990s Montana town celebrating both Christmas and Chanukah so shimmeringly created by Paul O. Zelinsky for Red and Green and Blue and White. Or the pre-unification China of 500 B.C.E. where Yuan, Duke Ling of Wei fell in love with Mi Zi Xia, so lovingly fashioned by Jieting Chen for Love of the Half-Eaten Peach.

And I thought about how that's a pretty great exercise for all of us. Is the idea we're working on worthy of our time? The page? Does it have enough whimsy, or gravitas, or special sauce to make it a world of characters readers love so much they'd want to walk around inside that world and explore?

Maybe it's a litmus test for our passion. 

Is your current work in progress something you'd want to see built into a museum exhibit?

Hopefully this is both motivating and inspiring. If nothing else, it's a beautiful daydream...

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Picture Book Creation Inspiration from Illustrator R. W. (Bob) Alley

In this Shelf Awareness interview with illustrator R.W. (Bob) Alley, the acclaimed illustrator is asked, Why make picture books?

Bob's answer:

“I think all children need places to go that they can control in their own time and in their own way. This is the special thing about a book. Especially an illustrated book. If you've ever watched a child holding a book on their lap, their face close to the page, concentrating hard, then you know exactly why making picture books is so important and so rewarding.”

Read the full interview here.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

So You Want to be an Author/Illustrator

    Frustration is growing among querying picture book creators: currently many agents seem to only want author/illustrator submissions. As a writer-only creator or an illustrating-only creator you may be wondering if you need to be able to both write and illustrate to succeed in this industry. The short answer is no! Take a look at the picture books currently being published and you’ll see that many are still created by a separate author and illustrator. However, you may decide you want to learn to write or illustrate anyway. Do you know where to start? Learning a new aspect of picture book creation can be completely overwhelming, so let’s start with five things you can do.

5 Things To Do As A Writer Who Wants to Illustrate
  

First, assess why you want to illustrate. Learning to illustrate simply in order to get an agent is not going to be a sustainable motivation. In addition, it is not a quick fix for your querying woes! A lot goes into creating an illustration and this takes time to learn. However, if you enjoy making art, it’s worth exploring illustrating.

    The second thing to do is draw every day for a year. You may have loved art in high school, and may even dabble in it now. Making art is fun! However, illustrating a picture book is a big time commitment, and you will quickly burn out if the process isn’t something you can stick with. Drawing every day for a year is a good way to determine if you actually enjoy the commitment of making art. It’s also a great way to improve your skills.

    Now that you know why you want to illustrate and you know you enjoy making art, the next step is to take art classes and learn the language of art. Just like writing has particular skills to make your work stronger such as sentence structure, word choice, repetition, and more, illustrating has particular skills you will need. These include composition, color choice, character design, and many other things. You do not need an art degree to be an illustrator, and there are many great online options for learning art.

    While taking art classes, start step four: study picture book illustrations. Take what you are learning about art and see how illustrators apply these concepts to picture books. In addition, study how illustrators build on the text, how they pace the images to aid the reading experience, and what choices they make with composition and color to create a visual arc throughout the book.

    Finally, make a lot of art. A LOT OF ART. The more art you create the more consistently you will make good art. Many people jump right into creating a picture book dummy when they move from writing to writing and illustrating. Before you do that, you will need a website of your 10-20 strongest images. When an agent or editor sees your dummy, they are going to want to visit your portfolio to see that you can create consistently strong art.

5 Things To Do As An Illustrator Who Wants to Write

  

    First, assess why you want to write. Writing is less time consuming than illustrating, but you still need to stand out with a unique voice in this competitive market. Usually author/illustrated books have more time between their publication dates, so if you are looking to create more books, this may not be the way to do it. However, if you have a story to tell, learning to write is worth exploring.

    Next, study picture book texts, particularly those written and illustrated by the same person. A common mistake illustrators learning to write make is describing exactly what they are illustrating with their text. Study how picture book art and text works together while not being the same.

    Then, take some writing classes or go to some writing workshops. While many of us know the basics of writing, you will want to learn how this applies specifically to picture books. Published authors have great insight into the particulars of picture book creation.

    While you are attending writing workshops, try creating some stories. Starting from scratch can be intimidating, so try taking one of the illustrations from your portfolio and creating a story for it. Before you know it, you will have a loose structure for a picture book.

    Finally, write a lot of drafts. A LOT OF DRAFTS. The more you write, the more you will figure out pacing, word choice, and how to compliment your art rather than repeat it. The more you practice, the stronger your storytelling voice will get.


3 Tips For Both Writers And Illustrators

    While you are learning how to write or illustrate, I recommend reading WRITING PICTURE BOOKS by Ann Whitford Paul and PICTURE THIS: HOW PICTURES WORK by Molly Bang. These books are both essential reading for picture book creators.

    In addition, get feedback on your work. This can be from a critique group or a paid critique from a professional. I recommend making connections with other writers and illustrators to form a critique group or critique swap before paying anyone for feedback.

    Finally, however long you think it’s going to take to learn to write or illustrate, double that. These are skills that take some time to master, particularly illustration. (If you don’t believe me, ask any published writer or illustrator how long it took them before they signed with an agent and then got published.) Publishing is a slow industry, and it’s worth taking your time to create work that will stand out in a competitive field.


    While I’ve given feedback to many beginning writers and illustrators, I am just one author/illustrator in the industry. Everyone’s path is different. I do hope that this makes the process of learning a little less intimidating for you and gives you a place to start. Have fun discovering your own unique writing or illustrating style!

Anne Appert (they/them ) is a nonbinary author/illustrator who spent their childhood with their nose stuck in a book, while their wild imagination transformed their New Jersey backyard into faraway places. Anne still enjoys spending time in their backyard dreaming, and now their imagination turns their dreams into words and pictures for children. Anne wrote and illustrated their debut book Blob, which was published by HarperCollins in Fall of 2021. Their second book What If You Wish? will publish with HarperCollins in 2024. They are a member of SCBWI, from which they received an honor in the 2021 Conference Portfolio Showcase. When not writing and illustrating, Anne enjoys teaching college students, dying their hair every color of the rainbow, and attempting to roller skate.  You can see their work at anneappert.com.

The Troubling Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and How It Impacts Children's Book Creators (part 1: Illustrators)

The theoretical issue of Artificial Intelligence (AI) illustrations and text has been more and more in the news lately, and this recent article in TIME made it concrete for illustrators: He Used AI to Publish a Children’s Book in a Weekend. Artists Are Not Happy About It.

Basically, the way AI systems learn how to do the things they do is from studying the work of humans before it. As the TIME article explains, 

“Artificial intelligence systems like Midjourney are trained using datasets of millions of images that exist across the Internet, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns in those images and generate new ones. That means any artist who uploads their work online could be feeding the algorithm without their consent.”

Picture book illustrator Adriane Tsai, who is interviewed in the article, put it this way in a post on social media that TIME screen-captured:

“I had to say this one too many times: Art created from stolen art, even if it looks “new” now, was still created from *gasp* stolen art! if AI was never trained on stolen work, you would not be able to make your “new” art. That’s the end of the story.”

So how do the original artists get compensated/credited when their work is used to "train" AI systems? Especially when AI systems are ingesting millions of examples?

More questions than answers right now, but it's good to know what's happening.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Frané Lessac Retrospective Exhibition and Book Launch: 50 Books in 40 Years - A Guest Post by Frané Lessac

Frané with framed illustrations from the Retrospective exhibition 50 Books in 40 Years

I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the children's book industry's most renowned authors. When some of these greats passed on, I decided to organise a retrospective to pay tribute to their contribution to my career by gifting me their extraordinary words. 

The Retrospective showcases one piece of original artwork from 50 of my books released over the past four decades - from the waterfalls and ravines of the Caribbean to the starry skies of the Milky Way in North America to explore the ancient wonders of my adopted homeland, Australia. The exhibition takes visitors on a journey around the world via the people, communities and places featured throughout my books that celebrate, empower, and inspire young children to discover their own unique heritage and explore cultures that exist outside of their own. 

My career started by chance, on a trip to a little island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. The people, the way of life and the brightly coloured houses inspired me to pick up a brush and paint. To my surprise, tourists and rock stars recording on the Emerald Isle wanted to purchase my distinctive naïve art, and those first paintings are still treasured in private collections in many countries. My desire to share the island's beauty with people all over the world resulted in the first book in the Retrospective - My Little Island. That book led to several more books that celebrate the people and the islands of the Caribbean. 

Since then, my books have brought to life stories from Papua New Guinea, Polynesian folktales, West African creation stories and traditional tales from southern India and Nigeria. The stories have taken readers into poor neighbourhoods in Los Angeles, into the White House in Washington and down the Mississippi River. More recently, my Native American books, We Are Grateful: Ostaliheliga and We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know with Traci Sorrel, a Cherokee Nation citizen and author, have received the highest accolades in the US. 

Putting together this exhibition made me contemplate how far I've come. Every book is always a challenge. With each new book, I always ask myself, how can I do my best to give the author’s text justice? But as I looked around the walls of the Retrospective, I was immensely proud of all the books and the sense of accomplishment hits home. To see all of one's life’s work in sequential order is uplifting. It showed the progression for the first time in a single space and was an opportunity for visitors to look back at a body of work produced over many years. The Retrospective was also timely as it coincided with the release of my 50th book, which presented an opportunity for the double reason for celebration - to open the exhibition and host the book launch. Our Country, Ancient Wonders, written by Mark Greenwood and published by Walker Books Australia, celebrates my adopted country of Australia’s remarkable natural treasures and wild wonders. 

Gathering a piece of art from 50 books was not an easy task. Almost all of the illustrations from my Caribbean books have been sold in past exhibitions. Luckily, a painting from my first book, My Little Island, is as vivid as the day it was painted. My stepmother's house was decorated in Italian rococo, and my art was delegated to the basement - hence the gouache colours were kept out of sunlight and are as pristine today as the day I painted them. Other books or selected art have been donated to places like the De Grummond Collection in Mississippi and the State Library of West Australia. It's a great honour to know that the book's art and drafts will be looked after for perpetuity. 

In an adjacent room in the gallery, I exhibited large-scale oil paintings that complement my books and document my love of travel. These paintings allowed me to stretch my wings, literally. Painting in oils makes me slow down, as they take so long to dry. The paintings in these rooms give viewers and myself permission to slow down and explore.

The costs of framing, creating a 50-book catalogue, hiring a gallery, and catering was way more than I expected. But by offering art, prints and books for sale, it was a worthwhile endeavour. Fortunately, one of the best children's bookshops globally, Paper Bird Books and Arts, is located next door to the Gallery. They were the official bookseller for the duration of the exhibition. I also conducted a series of Artist's talks, a Masterclass for adults and workshops for children. This has allowed me to interact with the community and a network of students, parents, teachers, librarians, and art lovers. 

And now that the Retrospective is framed with a complimentary and comprehensive catalogue, I've received invitations for the exhibition to travel. The work will be displayed in a regional arts centre and the State Library in West Australia in the coming months. 

A view of the exhibition

The Retrospective exhibition and catalogue are available to view on Frané's website: www.franelessac.com

**

Thanks, Frané! And congratulations on this amazing milestone and retrospective exhibition.

An Exclusive Interview with Author/Illustrator Eugene Yelchin

The cover of Eugene Yelchin's "The Genius Under the Table"

Eugene Yelchin is remarkable. His recent memoir, The Genius Under The Table, is as well. (It received seven starred reviews!) We connected to talk about memoir, craft, and much more...

Lee: There’s this really cool metaphor Barbara Kingsolver brought up in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - speaking of fiction being like planting a garden in a desert, where you have to bring everything - rope off an area and then bring in soil, seeds, water, and tend it to grow into the garden you want. Nonfiction, Barbara offered, is more like going into an overgrown jungle, roping off an area and then taking everything that doesn’t belong in your garden out. When you’re looking at your whole life, how do you approach telling just a piece of it (like you did in”The Genius Under the Table”) in a way that crafts a story with a beginning/middle/end?

Eugene: It's a great metaphor, Lee. However, one still must decide what to take out of the roped off garden and what to keep. I have never written a memoir before. I have never written a nonfiction book before. The process was completely mysterious to me. But as I began working, I realized that a memoir requires a solid story structure not unlike a fictional story. The questions I had to ask myself were the same questions I ask myself when I write fiction. What are the wants and the needs of my characters? What is at stake? What are the obstacles, the complications? What is the crisis, climax, resolution? The Genius Under the Table is a very simple book. It is about tough things (poverty, fear, oppression), but somehow, it turned out to be funny. If I were to describe its plot, the book is about me becoming an artist. I thought a lot about what might have led me to the career in the arts and I talked to my brother a lot. We have realized that the most significant events that had influenced my artistic future occurred between the ages of six and sixteen. By the time I reached sixteen, it was fairly obvious to everyone in my family that I was not good at anything but making art. As a result, the memoir’s duration falls within that period, roughly a decade from mid-1960s to mid-1970s, which naturally, gave my story the beginning, the middle, and the end. 

Lee: Did you think of yourself (the child you) as a character?

Eugene: Absolutely. Every person in the book is a real person, and every event in the book is a real event, but I turned real people into characters, and I organized real events into a cause-and-effect structure. Unlike autobiographies, memoirs rely exclusively on one’s memory, but our memories are unreliable. To get closer to the truth, traditional memoirs include two voices: a voice of a young person experiencing the past, and a voice of a mature author commenting on those experiences from the present. If I were a ten-, twelve-, fifteen-year-old, I would have found some “mature author” explaining stuff to me unbearable. As a result, I removed my present-day self from the book all together. The story is told from the point of view of myself as a boy trying to make sense of the complicated world he’s inhabiting. Lost, confused, mistaken in his assumptions, mine is an unreliable narrator, who is probably more real me than I’m willing to admit.

An interior spread from "The Genius Under the Table".

Lee: How did the art come in terms of sequence - did you draw first, then write, or the reverse, or was it some combination as you went?

Eugene: The illustrations in the book are the re-enactments of my childhood drawings. As a kid, I used to draw to make sense of things. My family lived in one of those grim Soviet communal apartments, all five of us together in one room. I slept on a cot under the table, and it was the underside of that table that served as my drawing surface. I vaguely remembered my drawings on that table, which, naturally, had to be adjusted to the needs of the narrative. When I was making the finished illustrations for the book, I already knew what I needed, but while I was still working on the manuscript, I would doodle on the reverse of a printed page, figuring out my next move. On occasion, those scribbled images suggested solutions to the problems in the text that I was trying to solve.

Another interior spread from "The Genius Under the Table."

Lee: There’s so much as children we don’t understand and that can seem really scary, to the point where we adults writing for children can want to explain everything… Letting the child you not understand things felt very real, and also brave of you as the adult creator of the work. Can you speak about that?

Eugene: I had never assumed that I could impart some significant knowledge to my readers. I can barely figure out stuff for myself. I worry that explaining the complexity of our thinking and our actions may take away from that complexity. Our job as writers is not giving answers, in my opinion, but asking questions. The more difficult the questions are, the better. Our job is putting our readers in situations which engage their moral barometer. Our readers must ask themselves: what would I do if I were in the protagonist’s shoes? How would I react to such and such statement or action? What is the right thing to do in such and such situation? Naturally, I take sides in the moral dilemmas of the stories I write, but I prefer for the readers to infer where I stand from the dramatic situations instead of my observations.

Lee: What advice might you offer other illustrators and writers as they approach crafting their own memoirs?

Eugene: I’m not sure I’m very useful as an adviser. But there are some obvious things I could mention: 1) Know what you are writing. Is it a memoir or an autobiography? 2) Remember that most people have some kind of childhood traumas. If you’re writing from the place of trauma, show us your effort to overcome it. Please, please, please, do not write from a position of a victim. 3) Stay away from nostalgia like from a plague. 4) Try to distinguish between real events in your life and the events you wish to be real.  5) Most importantly, try to tell the truth to yourself. The rest will follow.

Thank you, Eugene! 

If you haven't checked out Eugene's The Genius Under the Table and other works, do so now!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Illustration Inspiration - The 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books

Screen shot of the New York Times article, "The 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Books" showing an interior spread from one of the ten winners, "I Am the Subway," written and illustrated by Kim Hyo-eun.

Since 1952, the New York Times has pulled together a rotating panel of three experts to look at EVERY illustrated book for kids published in the USA for that year. This year's judges, children's literature critic Catherine Hong; New York Public Library youth collections librarian Jessica Agudelo; and Caldecott medalist Paul O. Zelinsky (a member of SCBWI's Board of Advisors and a past winner of this honor), chose ten winners ”purely on the basis of artistic merit.”

Announced in the New York Times Book Review on November 12, 2021, The 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books includes interior images – and there's a bonus article with interviews with the artists and views of them working in their studios!

The ten winning books are:

I Am the Subway
Written and illustrated by Kim Hyo-eun
Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith

The Night Walk
Written and illustrated by Marie Dorléans

Time Is a Flower
Written and illustrated by Julie Morstad

It Fell From the Sky
Written and illustrated by Terry Fan and Eric Fan

The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess
Written and illustrated by Tom Gauld

¡Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge
Written and illustrated by Raúl the Third
Colors by Elaine Bay

While You’re Sleeping
Written by Mick Jackson
Illustrated by John Broadley

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre
Written by Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Keeping the City Going
Written and illustrated by Brian Floca

On the Other Side of the Forest
Written by Nadine Robert
Illustrated by Gérard DuBois

Congratulations to the winners, and what inspiration for the rest of us!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Wisdom from Uri Shulevitz

Uri Shulevitz is a Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator and author, and his "Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children's Books" is highly recommended - cited by more than ten authors and illustrators as an "Essential Reference Book on Writing and Illustrating for Children & Teens," an article I pulled together a few years ago for "SCBWI The Book."

Early in the "Writing with Pictures," Uri offers a number of illustrations in sequence to help us understand readability, pacing, progression, and so much more about how we read picture sequences. As he writes on page 29,

When the actor-stage relationship is clear, when the picture code is consistent, when the progression is appropriate to the action, the picture sequence will "speak" to the reader. The more clearly the picture sequence speaks, the more enjoyment the reader will be able to get from it. And giving a feeling of satisfaction is essential in children's books.

There's so much more... "Writing with Pictures" is certainly worth checking out from the library or grabbing a used copy for yourself.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Getting it Right: Don Tate Shares His Visual Research Process for Illustrating "Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions"

In this blog post, “Whoosh!” Research and texting with Lonnie Johnson, illustrator Don Tate considers the challenges of illustrating this nonfiction picture book (written by Chris Barton), and shares how Don ultimately connected directly with the book's subject to get things right.

Just one example: 

The beginning of the story begins with young Lonnie Johnson being creative in his make-shift kitchen workshop, with various things from the junk yard spread across the table. An early version of the manuscript mentioned a Chinaberry shooter in the scene. What in the heck was that? A quick Google returned several results. I created a sketch, but I was unsure. Below was my guess as to what his shooter might have looked like:

The text between images reads:

After our phone conversation, I realized my guess was wrong. I created another quick sketch and texted it off to Mr. Johnson. He answered my question with his own sketch of what his shooter would have looked like and how it would have worked. I wasn’t too far off, but now I had what I needed to be 100-percent correct!

While Don's ultimate solution of texting back and forth with his book's subject is unique, it does make the point that illustrators have to do their research as well - and sometimes, it's even more specific than the research writers need to do!

Read the full blog post here - it's well-worth it.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Learn How To Draw a Face -- and Eyes! -- From Caldecott Award-winning Paul O. Zelinsky (courtesy of the Society of Illustrators)

Check out Paul's art tips in this remarkable video (it says it's part of their "Draw Along Videos" for kids but really it's for anyone interested in drawing people -- at whatever age you are.)

A Screen Shot from "Draw This! Paul O. Zelinsky"

The bit about where the pupil goes and how the eyelid is affected made me realize three things:

1) Paul is a seriously amazing illustrator.

2) To draw well, you really need to observe carefully - and illustrate what you see, not what you think you see.

3) I could observe faces more carefully.

I hope you'll enjoy this, too! (Click to learn more about Paul and watch the video.) 

Illustrate and Write On,

Lee

"You Don't Suck At Color" - Chris Beatrice Explains Value

This post at Muddy Colors, You Don't Suck At Color, is fascinating. Chris takes the same image, of a fictitious “Horace Cunningham, avid opera goer and hardboiled police detective" and illustrates (pun intended) how value functions, and how it functions separately from color.

Super fascinating, and hopefully helpful to those of you who illustrate for children and teens.

There's also an explanation of highlights (specular highlights) and shadow (occlusion shadows) and how they add to the values of an image as well.

Illustrators - go check out the full post here.

My thanks to Elizabeth Dulemba who shouted out to this post in her excellent links list.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Listen to the Latest SCBWI Podcast: A Conversation with Raúl the Third

Raúl the Third is a Pura Belpré medal award-winning illustrator of graphic novels and author/illustrator of picture books and soon, early readers. In this conversation with Theo Baker, Raúl discusses his connection to art, shares some of the strategies he uses in illustrating, and recounts his path to building his own universe of characters and stories.

Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Illustrator Ellen Beier Shares a Discovery Tip and the Story of Her Picture Book Coming Back from Out of Print to Be Reissued By a Different Publisher

This interview by Gayleen Rabakukk over at Cynsations with SCBWI illustrator member Ellen Beier has three stand-out moments. The first is the way that Ellen connected with one of her publishers:

Gayleen: I noticed those projects were for Asian publishers. How did you make those connections? Were there any logistical or other challenges in bringing the images to life?

Ellen: Les Misérables was published in an abridged version for Little Fox, South Korea which produces online classics for children in Asia.

They found my portfolio on the SCBWI gallery and released the illustrations serially by chapters over many months, a total of 270 paintings. I enjoyed this format that resembles graphic novel or comic frames.

Which of course, begs the question: Can publishers find YOUR portfolio in the SCBWI illustrator gallery?

The second stand-out moment was the reissue journey of a picture book Ellen illustrated, written by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, The Christmas Coat: Memories of My Sioux Childhood (Holiday House, 2011, reissued South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2018)!

It's a story about being resiliant, flexible, and believing in YOUR story, and the impact it can have on readers. And not giving up.

Congratulations to both Ellen and Virginia on the success of the re-release!

The third aspect I found fascinating was how differently Ellen preps to do her illustrations:

With every book I read the original text—in the case of Les Misérables I also listened to the entire 51-CD set of recordings of Victor Hugo’s narrative translated into English. I purposely did not watch the newer films of Les Misérables because I wanted my take to derive entirely from the words. 

For Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (L.C. Page & Co., 1908) I did watch all the films beginning with the 1934 black and white film up to the latest version on Netflix. The publisher in this case wanted the images of Anne and other characters to be consistent with those in the public imagination.

Read the full interview with Ellen at Cynthia Leitich Smith's indispensable Cynsations blog here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

"Do You Want To Create A Picture Book?" - A Panel Discussion with Nate Williams, James Yang, Giuseppe Catellano, Jim Hoover, and Kirsten Hall

"Picture books are kind of like the guitar solo for illustrators."

With those words of inspiration (or maybe challenge), author and illustrator Nate Williams kicked off this panel discussion at the Society of Illustrators. In this video recorded on February 10, 2015, Nate outlines his creative process—from ideation to publishing. He is joined by James Yang (Author/Illustrator http://www.jamesyang.com), Giuseppe Catsellano (at the time an Art Director, Penguin Young Readers Group http://twitter.com/pinocastellano), Jim Hoover (Associate Art director, Viking Books), and Kirsten Hall (Agent/Producer http://catbirdagency.com/).


As shared on the Society of Illustrators video archive.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

David Mackintosh's top 10 illustration and design tips for picture books - via The Guardian

David Mackintosh's top 10 illustration and design tips was published a few years ago, but the tips are solid, 'evergreen', and well worth considering.

 Here's just two that really resonated:

Tip 1 – How to keep ideas: If I think of something for a book, I'll write it in a notebook. It could be a title I like, or something I overheard on the tube or just an idea that I can build a story around. Often I just carry a story about in my head for ages, working on it in there until I sit down at the laptop or with a pencil to get it going. I find it quicker to play with the ideas using a pencil on paper, than typing on my laptop (see Tip 3).

and

Tip 5 – Turn up the contrast: A busy page with a lot of words on it followed by a page with a tiny ant on it and no words can be very dramatic. Contrast makes things interesting and avoids it being repetitive. Also, a page without text can really create atmosphere. It places all the emphasis upon the picture and the reader is on their own with the information they're getting from that picture. It's very effective and can be used to alter rhythm and pace in the story in different ways. A bit like music in a film.

Read the full piece here. 

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Take Some Creative Advice from Meg Medina - Your Artistic Mission Statement

There's maybe no better way to prepare for the new year ahead than to consider, as writers and/or illustrators,

"what do we want our lives to look like?" 

What's our mission?

And to write that out as our "Artistic Mission Statement."

For inspiration, listen to this under-9 minute podcast, Podcast #30: Meg Medina Talks About Nurturing Your Artistic Voice, from our friends at the Highlights Foundation, where George Brown speaks with Meg Medina about Meg's finding the mission statement she wrote 19 years earlier, before her books and awards, when she was a new mother and trying to figure out how to have time to write. Trying to see the artistic path ahead.

And now she looks back, seeing how far she's come, and thinking about where she wants her artistic career to go next!

So write down (or draw) your artistic mission statement, and have that with you as you head into 2020!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Wonderland Article Gives Us a Glimpse Into the Maira Kalman Exhibition at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

So maybe you can't get to Amherst, Massachusetts before April 5, 2020. Or maybe, this will convince you to!

 The Pursuit of Everything: Maira Kalman’s Books for Children

The Wonderland article has lots of great photos and quotes from Maira's talk at the exhibit's opening, including these gems:

“The most wonderful projects come from wandering and finding your way and one thing leads to another.”

About writing about Thomas Jefferson, slavery and his sexual relationship with the woman he enslaved, Sally Hemings, in her 2014 book “Thomas Jefferson, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Everything”: “You can’t tell that story and have that thing be left out of it. … But you can talk to kids about that very plainly. … We said the monumental man had monumental flaws.”

“The way I deal with people is not from a cynical or sarcastic point of view,” Kalman says. “What I really want to say is we’re all in this together and I find you fantastically beautiful and interesting.”

and

“If you don’t digress and go off the point, I think you miss the point.”

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Publishing a Book, By The Numbers (and Illustrated Charts!)

This comic-style article, Publishing a Book, By the Numbers, in The New Yorker by Michelle Rial is brilliant and hysterical.

 Go check out the full piece online here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Marla Frazee - Listen to the Latest SCBWI Podcast Now!

Welcome to Season Four of the SCBWI Podcast!

In this first episode of our new season, Caldecott Honor-winning and New York Times Bestselling Author/Illustrator Marla Frazee speaks with Theo Baker about her career, sharing insights, advice, and the fascinating stories behind creating some of her most popular and emotionally resonant books, including Boss Baby and The Farmer and the Clown.

Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee