Friday, July 31, 2009

Children's Book Illustration Project for Pacific Northwest Children's Book Conference 2009

Those of us in the illustrator's track at the PNWCBC were given a scribbled prompt that an anonymous person in the writer's track had written earlier that day. We had to create a story around the prompt, and then tell the story visually.

My writing prompt:
"The red lady's hair perfectly matched her orange dress and she bobbled along like a giant pumpkin. 'Sweets for Sweetie,' she sang as she rolled into the bakery."

Our first assignment was to create a front and rear view of our character. Here's what I did:


















Then we had to come up with a story using all of the narrative points in the prompt. For me, it all just happened organically. There was all this talk about "No Cutesy-Pie!" being Linda Zuckerman's hard and fast rule, and here I was drawing a big lady going to a bakery...well, I couldn't resist.



On the last day, the illustrators (there were 8 or 9 of us), had to go up in front of the whole conference group and explain our process. I had a pretty good 5-minute walk through of it, but I think it worked most of all because of presentation, not the bizarro interpretation of the prompt. The story, in short: Sweetie's the daughter of Cutesy, the big lady. Sweetie's sick and tired of Cutesy's pie. They've plumbed the depths of their individual psychoses. Sweetie fantasizes about the demise of her mother, ergo: "No More Cutesy-Pie!"

Everyone had a good laugh, and it felt pretty good!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Tank Ewe

(click the image for a closer look)

In advance of the SCBWI Summer Conference, and in response to the Pacific NW Children's Book Conference from which I just returned, I'm planning on making a Thank You card by printing this image on the front, and then you flip it open to read "Tank Ewe."

Silly, but that's the way I like it.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Illustration of the Week: sleeping cats


Ok, here's one before I leave for the conference...sorry it's not a funny one.

I had cats on the brain after doing a cat-related panel for a picture book I'm working on (can't post those), so this came out. It's probably not right for a kid's book, though with some writing in the blank spot, it could possibly be an example title page for my portfolio. Or maybe even a greeting card. Who knows...

So, I'll be gone until July 19th, visiting friends and attending this: http://www.ceed.pdx.edu/children/

This means there will be no illustration next week - be strong!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Bear Taxi


Here is this week's "Inspired by" illo, prompted by Justin uttering the phrase "Bear Taxi."

Click on the pic for a closer view...

I have no idea what Justin was referring to when he said it, except that it had something to do with this show about grizzly bears we watched on the National Geographic channel, which featured Brutus: http://biturl.cc/jl