If you haven't yet heard of the Less Than <3 event, I hope to shed some light on it and here.
encourage you to attend. It will be held this Fall on October 19th. It will run from 9am-2pm in St. Peters Missouri and it will be held at the Spencer Hill branch of the St. Charles City-County Library. For even better directions go


  This event is to have authors, librarians, bloggers, book lovers, book sellers, teens, tweens, parents, teachers, and whoever else that would love to attend and join together.

 
  This is a YA Lit event focused on bullying. There are several bestselling authors currently on the list and the list is still having authors added to it. The authors will host their own panels and each will specialize in different strategies and positive approaches. To see the list of authors, visit here.


   The Less Than Three event was created by Heather Brewer in hopes to rally against and help put a stop to bullying. This event does have limited availability and tickets are being sold for a mere $10  each. For more information and to purchase your tickets, check it out here. As of now, only 202 tickets are still available.  Hope to see you there!


   

At the Houston SCBWI conference, we were given a homework assignment. A choice of one of two prompts that we as attendees could choose from. One was a double page spread from a picture book and the other was a YA cover.  I started both prompts and then went with the one that appealed to me the most.  The sketches were sent to the Art Director for comments and direction, then we all brought back a full color illustration with the changes suggested. Above is  my sketch and  then my finished illustration.  Later, I was decided to finish the other prompt on my own. Below you see  a “Mock” cover for a young adult novel that is currently out. This is just a mock cover.

Mock cover

One of my favorite parts of any Midwinter Meeting is the announcement of the Youth Media Awards. There’s an Oscar-like buzz in the room. I love the pride and enthusiasm from juries and selection committees (many of whom dress up for the event). I get chills at the emotional outpouring for beloved authors and titles, and it’s a particular thrill when a dark horse title wins.

But if you can’t be in the room for the announcements, have no fear–YALSABlog and The Hub will be jointly covering the YMAs with a live blog, complete with streaming video! Join the session here or on The Hub to watch the video, answer reader polls and add your own commentary live. We’ll also be pulling selected hashtags (like #yma13, #printz, #alexaward and #morrisaward) to bring you thoughts and reactions from Twitter.

If you miss the live session, you can replay the whole thing (including the video) at any time after the live session ends. Don’t miss out on one of the best parts of Midwinter!

Not in Seattle but wishing you could hear what local teens have to say about this year’s Best Fiction for Young Adults nominations? In Seattle but stuck in another meeting or session on Sunday? Have no fear–you can join the BFYA Teen Feedback Session live blog here or on The Hub!

We’ll be streaming live video from the session, pulling tweets with the #bfya hashtag, polling readers about nominated titles and publishing your comments LIVE. The live blog will start shortly before the session opens at 1:30 PM Pacific, and you can join at any time. You can even log in with your Facebook or Twitter account to include your gravatar with your comments.

If you can’t make the live session, have no fear; the complete session, including video, will be available to replay at your leisure as soon as the live blog closes.

Bring together a group of energizing professionals from different backgrounds who have devoted their talents to serving teens and prepare to be inspired. The Summit on Teens & Libraries was a part of YALSA’s National Forum on Libraries & Teens funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and these two days of creative thinking about missions, opportunities, aspirations and connections was simply dazzling. After a series of speakers and small group discussions, I took away a powerful word: relationships. So often we go about our daily routine, and we take time to think of the best library programming or instructional ideas or focus on our technology and book offerings. Those things are key to our success of course, but none of that matters if teens don’t feel connected.

 A teen panel took questions from YALSA President Jack Martin, and in our discussions we kept referring to what they said brought them to the library and what they wanted from their experience. It was clear that connecting with interests, friends, and the library staff kept them coming back. As studies show and our speakers stated throughout, learning driven by teens and their interests is most meaningful. Two powerful statements from the panel that resonate with me are “The library gave me a community” and “I leave with new ideas.” What could possibly be better than that?

 Cultivating positive, non-judgmental relationships with teens and helping them form meaningful connections with others is something we may think we do already, but as closing speaker George Needham from OCLC reminded us, “Question everything. Including yourself. Especially yourself.” My group’s wild aspiration at the conclusion of the summit was to bring these  passionate conversations back to our local environments and have everyone immediately buy-in. Yes, we’ll encounter the regular eye-rollers, but the potential connections we can make in our communities, with each other and with our teens is too important to be derailed. But our first step is to look at ourselves. My immediate action when I return home to my school library world is to ensure that my favorite instructional practices and ideas for engagement outside of academics are truly student driven. That I creatively seek partners who share my mission of youth engagement. That I learn more about how to bring Connected Learning into school libraries, and that I spread the word of all I’ve learned in these two days to strengthen current relationships and forge new ones.

 Interested in exploring further? Check out the prolific #yalsaforum hashtag and make plans to be a part of the first virtual town hall on teens & libraries March 19th.

I feel so privileged to have been at the IMLS-supported YALSA Forum on Teens and Libraries the past two days in Seattle – right before Midwinter starts today.

It’s hard to know where to start, but one of the most powerful parts of the Forum was that it wasn’t just library folks talking about our work with each other — like we often do– partners and supporters were intentionally included and asked about how we can continue to engage them.

We have to reach out and partner with other organizations that value youth—we can’t do it all ourselves. We need to attend coalitions or collaboratives in our communities to make sure libraries are included in new projects or initiatives – that we are key players at important tables. While I’ve been here at Midwinter I just learned there is now a Twin Cities Career Readiness Collaborative that I was not aware of – I’m going to find out who’s in charge and see if it could be meaningful for my Library.

A number of current and future partners were at the table – the Search Institute (if you’re not familiar with their great Assets work, it’s a foundational element of youth development that you should know). They also have newer family assets that I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate into our library work, GLSEN, the Science Museum of Minnesota, DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, the Afterschool Alliance, and others.

Partnership doesn’t have to look like program offerings – it can be making partners aware of library services or tools that can help their work – did you know we have a database that can help your clients prepare for the GED? Did you know our library has an app?

Partners can help libraries improve or add to services, as well. At the forum, all partners expressed their support for libraries and interest in staying engaged in this work. In particular GLSEN and the Search Institute reminded us of the resources available on their websites.

If you’re the only youth services librarian in your library, it can sometimes feel lonely, but other people who care about youth are everywhere in your community — we just need to find them and work together.

The guests for this episode are Carol Tilley, this year’s Trends in YA presenter, and Denise Agosto, organizer for the event. The Trends in YA Presentation is an event that occurs each year at the Midwinter Conference. This year’s presentation will be on Saturday, January 26th at 4:30 in room 213 in the Seattle Convention Center. Tilley will read from her research paper, which explores the history of comic books and their relationship with libraries.

Trends in YA Presentation

For more information on Carol Tilley and her various projects, please visit her website at www.caroltilley.net/.

You’ll find the schedule of other YALSA-related events on the YALSA webpage.

I’m en route to Seattle even as I type this! What will the board and I be up to at the 2013 Midwinter conference? Keep reading to find out.

It’s going to be an awesome conference. We’ve got programs, meetings and activities everywhere. We’ll be talking about advocacy, collaborations, books and reading, the future of teen services in libraries and more.

First, I’ll be helping YALSA host the first National Forum on Teens & Libraries on January 23 and 24. This is the first summit of its kind, and we’ll be bringing leaders on youth development, libraries, technology, publishing, everything. The goal is figure out where teen services is going and where it needs to be in the 21st Century. ALA President Maureen Sullivan will be the lead moderator, and we’ve got some amazing special guest stars, including Lee Rainey, head of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Mizuko Ito, Professor in Residence and MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine, Renee Hobbs, Director of the Harrington School of Communications & Media at the University of Rhode Island and George Needham, Vice President for Global and Regional Councils at the Online Computer Library Center. We’ll be talking lots of teens, literacy, library, technology and more. I’ll even be leading the Youth Panel portion of the forum with special awesome teens from YALSA President-Elect Shannon Peterson. We’ll be tweeting, blogging and posting the entire time, so check out our social media channels to find out what’s going on.

The YALSA Executive Committee will also be meeting with the executive committees of our sister divisions, AASL and ALSC. The three divisions traditionally meet every Thursday before Midwinter and Annual conferences. This time we’ll be talking about our Joint School/Public Library committee, a new Common Core taskforce and a whole lot more.

The YALSA Board will also be pretty busy this conference. Not only will you see us at Leadership Development (coffee and carbs!!!) and the YALSA Happy Hour (free drinks and apps!!!) on Saturday, feel free to drop by our meetings from 1:30-5:30 on Saturday, 4:30-5:30 on Sunday and 1:30-3:30 on Monday, all in room 309 of the convention center. You’ll also see us at the Youth Media Awards and the Morris and Non-Fiction awards ceremony on Monday.

What will the Board be talking about? Lots of stuff. In thinking about how YALSA can help its members advocate for teen services in libraries, the Board will be having a major discussion on how to reach library administrators to help them understand the importance of teen services.

We also know that members want to learn more about teen programming in libraries. So we’ll be voting to establish a new taskforce of programming best practices and replicable program examples for members. Interested in serving on the taskforce? Hit me up after Midwinter!

We also know how much everyone loves our biennial YA Lit Symposium. In fact, we know ya’ll love it so much that we’re going to be considering whether or not we should do it every year as opposed to every other year. Got an opinion? Let us know what you think.

Also back by popular demand is the YALSA Road Trip. We know from the member survey and from my virtual town halls that members really want to find better ways to connect to one another on a regional or state-by-state basis. The board will be brainstorming new ways that YALSA can reboot this exciting project.

We’ll also be exploring lots of other new ways for members to connect with one another, both virtually and in-person. We’ll be talking about a new student chapter proposal as well as a cool new idea on how members who love teen books can better connect with one another.

Finally, we’ll be at the Coffee with the Candidates, which is a great opportunity for members to meet this year’s candidates for President-Elect as well as the Board. This is your chance to get up close and personal with the candidates and let them know your concerns and ideas. I know I’ll be there with plenty of questions of my own.

All in all, it’s gonna be a super busy conference, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there. I’ll be the guy with the crazy socks. Over and out. See you there.

How far would you go to promote a book you really loved?  Actor Matthew Lillard went to amazing lengths to share one of his favorite teen stories (which also happens to be a Printz Honor Book!):

“OK. So, I first stumbled across FAT KID RULES THE WORLD when I was hired to record the audio version of KL Going‘s award winning novel.  The book blew me away. It was funny and true, and it told the story of a lost kid – Troy Billings, alienated and alone – who finds his purpose in life through the magic of punk rock music.  The book rocked my world.  It was crazy!  It spoke to me, in a deep way because I had been my own version of Troy Billings in high school. I was lost and an outcast and didn’t really fit in anywhere… that is until I found acting, which pretty much changed my life forever.  After I read the book I knew I had to tell THIS story.  I made this movie for everyone who has ever felt like they just didn’t belong… the misfits, the outcasts. the kids that are lost… this movie is for you! “

He raised over $150,000 on Kickstarter to get this movie distributed.  Start to finish is is a true labor of love.  And thanks to the producers, we have a special screening of the just-released-this-week DVD just for YALSA members attending ALA in Seattle (where the movie was filmed!)

Join us at the wonderful Elliott Bay Book Company Sunday January 27th at 7pm to watch the movie I’ve been dying to see all year!   We also have door prizes: Listening Library is providing two CD sets of the audiobook; the movie producers are supplying bumperstickers; and Random House is sending some extra goodies for everyone who attends!  Please feel free to bring a snack or beverage to share.  But just like the public library, we need to clean up after ourselves, and be out before they close the store at 9pm!

Do you consider yourself a foodie?  Then you probably will want to skip the Cheesecake Factory and try out some of these unique Seattle spots for enjoyable conference eats:

• Blue C Sushi – 1510 7th Ave – quick, yummy, close to convention center
• Taylor Shellfish Farms- 1521 Melrose Ave – awesome oyster bar, get fresh local seafood and wine
• Le Pichet – 1933 1st Ave – delightful French food – if you aren’t hungry, just get the chocolat chaud, it is to die for.
• Ristorante Machiavelli - 1215 Pine St – great Italian place, a relatively short uphill walk from the convention center
• Alibi Room – 85 Pike St (in Post Alley) – a lovely hide-away, perfect break from tourist crowds at the Pike Place Market.

For many more suggestions of places to eat in Seattle, the Local Arrangements Committee invites you to check out YALSA’s Midwinter wiki.

~ Sarah Evans & Dawn Rutherford, YALSA Local Arrangements Committee, Midwinter Seattle 2013

Looking for a Seattle souvenir?  Check out these places to find fun and interesting gifts with Seattle flair for family, friends, and yourself.  All shops are located within walking distance or a short bus ride from the Convention Center.

FriendShop at the Central Library (Downtown)

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop(Waterfront)

Simply Seattle (locations near Pike Place Market and the Waterfront)

Made in Washington (locations Downtown and in the Pike Place Market)

This past weekend was one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. It was KidlitCon, in which bloggers gather to talk about books, blogging, and the intersection of the two. There's also many hijinx and some drinking of alcoholic beverages.

Every year, a different city is selected and different bloggers organize it, making each KidlitCon a unique experience. This year, it was New York City, and it was put together by Betsy Bird of A Fuse #8 Production and Monica Edinger of Educating Alice.

On Friday, we were treated to publisher previews, which were apparently Monica's brainchild, as well as her blood, sweat, and tears. No word on the proportion of tears to blood and sweat. I attended the Simon and Schuster preview in the morning, and the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt one in the afternoon. I heard about a lot of exciting books coming up, and got a few advanced reader copies to take home. More valuable than that, however, was meeting publisher peeps and talking with them.

At Simon and Schuster, we got the chance to see the research and art that goes into one of Megan McCarthy's appealing nonfiction picture books. She shared with us some of the things she had to do in order to get the pictures and info she needed for her next opus, coming out Summer of 2013. (Hint: illicit photography was involved.)

At the Houghton Mifflin, we discussed Common Core and how books can be used in the classroom. For those of you not in the know, Common Core is the newest thing in education circles. Basically, it's an upgraded set of standards for teachers to plan their lessons by. Of particular interest is that it emphasizes nonfiction reading in language arts, which means librarians get to haul out all the incredibly awesome nonfiction on our shelves. We also briefly chatted about e-galleys vs print ARCs. I was interested to hear that they limit their e-galley distribution just as they do their print galleys, and they were interested to hear that I actually prefer e-galleys.

By the bye, I've since heard from others that they prefer print, so now I'm interested in the topic. How many of you like e-galleys better, print ARCs better, or don't really care as long as you get to read a good book? I may actually do a blog post. Craziness, I know.

On Friday night, the bloggers en masse descended on a midtown restaurant, decimated their sushi bar (Actual quote from a blogger who would prefer to remain anonymous [me]: "Oh, I'll try this one, it's pink!"), and heard Grace Lin speak about her journey from art school to children's-book-illustration. I hear tell that she came into the city with a very small baby and a very large Sasquatch (also in attendance) just to talk to us, and I can't help but feel flattered. We also got the chance to purchase Starry River of the Sky a few days before it was officially on the shelves. If you think we were all over that, you would be right.

Next time: How All The Bloggers astonished Maureen Johnson, and this particular one creeped her out a little bit.

Children's book writer and illustrator conferences are excellent ways of getting to find some of your favourite creators and try on their specs. Can you guess whose specs these are? All shall be revealed...



So a bunch of us from the Society of Authors committee, the children's book part, put on a conference this weekend. Actually, I didn't do much more than go to meetings, show up, help move around some chairs, show people to reception to pick up their room keys, and do a couple talks. I'm not very good at conference planning, it involves way too many logistics and remembering things. But I did draw this little logo image for it:



(You might notice a parallel between the group name, CWIG, and the book I'm working on with Philip Reeve, Oliver and the Seawigs. Yes, the idea for the Seawigs came from a conversation I had with Philip after a CWIG meeting, and I was saying how much I hate acronyms and am always trying to turn them into words. These monkeys will make an appearance, too.)

I ended up doing a lot of drawing during the conference, in the name of taking notes. And when I gave a talk about blogging and social networking, I mentioned that one thing that gets a bit boring to see on the Internet is conference photos showing people standing in rows, or people sitting at tables in conference rooms. So I tried to come up with some alternatives. Here's a CWIG committee meeting we had before everyone else arrived (Enid Stephenson and Nicola Davies are also on the team but just weren't in the room then).



If I have to blog a summary of each session, I'll end up spending two days doing this, so I'll mainly just post images, and give links if anyone else has written up the talks. Here's a rather boring photo of people sitting at a table for the panel on Writers' Websites...



But here's what was ACTUALLY going on, as soon as the camera was put away. (Cameras always lie.)



Oh, and what do you know! Hot Key Books' Sarah Benton has blogged loads of things that were said at the panel and given speaker links, so you can hop over to her blog to read about it. And Katherine Woodfine from Booktrust has blogged it here!

The CWIG conference pulled in some of Britain's best writers, it was awesome. Here's the legendary Geraldine McCaughrean with her god-daughter Teresa Heapy, who was also at the conference as a writer.



And Geraldine spoke on a panel, 'Sequels and Prequels', with Patrick Ness, Charlie Higson and the Guardian's Julia Eccleshare. (My dad will read this and he may not know that song, so, Dad, here's a video of the song reference.)




Patrick Ness and Charlie Higson:


I chaired a panel called 'Glittering Prizes and Literary Festivals' with this fabulous gang: Bath Kid Lit Festival's John McLay, Book It! Cheltenham Festival's Jane Churchill, Observer Associate Editor Robert McCrum and the Southbank Centre's Tamsin Ace, who helps run the Imagine Children's Festival. (Thanks to the wonderful Fiona Dunbar for taking the photo!)



I didn't manage to chair the panel and draw at the same time, but I could see writer and illustrator Shoo Rayner (of Shoo Rayner's Drawing School video fame) doodling me from the front row. Hooray! He didn't let me look until the next day, but I think the sketches are super-fab.


Portrait sketches by Shoo Rayner

I don't know if he made any videos during the weekend, but he brought his recording equipment, just in case. Here he is with his camera and his microphone Fluffy Thing.



We had most of our events in the big main lecture hall at appropriately-named Reading University (sadly, pronounced 'Redding'), in the Henley Business School, but we had two sessions where we could break off and chose to go to a range of smaller events. I'm a fan of the sparky Vivian French, so I went to her talk with Meredith Hooper and Nicola Davies, about researching material on the Internet, and about why it's still valuable for kids to have actual, finite books for doing their research.




Some publishers sent sample copies of new books for us to give out as delegates arrived, and I was pleased as punch to see a teaser pack for my fab friend David O'Connell's upcoming book he's written and illustrated, Monster and Chips. Dave's published loads of indie comics and books, but this is his first book with a larger publisher, Harper Collins, and I don't normally say someone's going to be The Next Big Thing, but with Dave, he totally is The Next Big Thing. Monster and Chips launches on 28 Feb of next year. Oo, I outed Dave on Twitter with these photos and now he's gone and made an explanatory blog post. Hurrah! (Here's a story we did together called Airship, he's the editor of ink+PAPER, the comics magazine to which I recently contributed, and he was one of our comic artists who took part in events at this summer's Pop Up Festival.)



Oo, and look who I saw when I was doing the Meeting and Greeting thing! It's Patrice Aggs, with a copy of The Phoenix comic, with her new strip launching its first episode! Go subscribe to The Phoenix weekly comic magazine, it's FABULOUS. And don't miss Zara's Crown, created by Patrice and her son, John Aggs.



One of the highlights of the festival was a talk by beloved British writer Allan Ahlberg. Even if you don't know anything about children's books, you'll probably have seen or read at least one of his stories, including Each Peach Pear Plum, Peepo! and The Jolly Postman. In America, I grew up reading and loving Burglar Bill and Mr Tick the Teacher.



I didn't manage to write down the names of some of the books he read from, but I got a good look after the talk:



Allan also brought several teddy bears, including Mr Tum:



...whom I kidnapped when everyone else was getting their books signed:



Here's some of the CWIG committee with Mr Tum: Bali Rai, me, our fabulous CWIG chair Helena Pielechaty and Nicola Smee.



We also had a great talk by writer-illustrator friends Jane Ray and Ros Asquith:



I loved seeing some of their early work, including Ros's drawings for 'Magazine for Horses, written by horses... (including Horsoscopes and 'Stallion of the Month'), and this bear by Jane:



Here's Ros with a doodling Ted Dewan.



And Jane at lunch with Eleanor Updale and Kevin Crossley-Holland:



Here are my notes from Kevin's talk:



And we also had a talk by Joe Godwin, Director of BBC Children's TV. I'd drawn so many panel speakers by that time, and I was sitting pretty far back, so I drew a squid instead.



Most of the deletes were human, but we had one small furry canine companion named Lola, who's very clever and can sniff out changes in blood sugar levels.



One more panel, here's Terence Blacker, library campaigner Alan Gibbons, Random House Children's Books MD Philippa Dickinson and Foyles CEO Sam Husain.



And my doodle notes:



Terence is a talented musician and played for us with his music partner Derek Hewlitson at an evening event called Taboo Be Do, which flew very close to the wire and upset some people. It was a walk through the history of songs which just can't be sung anymore, and some people thought it would have been more acceptable if it had been a more academic setting with discussion afterward. And it would have been a bit more academic if we'd held it in the lecture theatre, like we'd originally planned to do. But everyone had been in the theatre all day and were very happy in the bar area with their drinks, so the change of venue gave the event more of a cabaret feel. (No one knew if that would be a good idea, but it was all done with the best of intentions.)



I wasn't quite sure what I thought about all that (and I was way at the back, mucking about drawing pictures with Shoo Rayner).



But Terence joined us later in the bar and played The City of New Orleans for me when I asked, and he and John Dougherty had a great session on their guitars, with a bunch of us singing along. Actually, John brought his guitar to the bar both nights. Here he is, the night before:



I am quite a bad singer, but that didn't stop me from wailing away with the most excellent Sally Nicholls.



It was great seeing some comics people there: Patrice Aggs, Ros Asquith, Ted Dewan, Steve Skidmore, and here's
http://taves.co.uk/Octavia Raitt, whom I met for the first time at Thought Bubble comics festival, at a table with Kristyna Baczynski. She'd heard about the conference through my blog (or Facebook?) and her mum had signed her up for it as a birthday present. How awesome is that? (Thanks, Octavia's mum!)



And a few more photos... Oh, look, it's Malorie Blackman! (And she's as surprised as I am!) John Aggs is just starting to create the artwork for a graphic novel version of her Noughts and Crosses and I CAN'T WAIT to see it.



Steve Skidmore (of The Two Steves) with the Society of Authors' Jo McCrum:



Jo with Nicholas Allan (of The Queen's Knickers):



Jo Cotterill with bookmarks for her group blog Girls Heart Books.



Here's Clare Whitstone! Clare's one of my two editors at Oxford University Press, working on Oliver and the Seawigs.



An Vrombaut and Karen Ball



A big thanks to all the people who made this weekend happen! Enid, Jo, Helena, the CWIG committee (including Michaela Morgan whom I hadn't yet linked), the speakers, Reading University staff, Marilyn Brocklehurst from Norfolk Children's Book Centre and her book shop team, and Jessica Atkinson and Anna Ganley from the Society of Authors, who tweeted the whole conference from @Soc_of_Authors. If you go onto the conference hash tag, #CWIGConf2012, you'll most likely seeing more blog links pop up. And a big thanks to tech guy Mark Taylor, who had some technical hitches to deal with but handled them swiftly and gracefully. It was a big relief having him around.



Hey, another blog post just up! Read an account of the weekend by CWIG Chair Helena Pielichaty here.

Oh, did you guess whose specs I was wearing at the beginning of the blog post? Well, they belong to the fabulous Ted Dewan, whose work you may remember from The DFC comic magazine and whose Bing Bunny is about to come to television screens near you. Keep an eye on this guy!



If you're a published writer or illustrator, do considering joining the Society of Authors. It's the closest thing we have to a union, looks out for and campaigns for issues that affect us, helps out with contracts, and puts on fab events! Membership costs £95 per year, or £68 if you are under 35. Find out more on the Society of Authors website.


Society of Authors door photo by Karen Ball, on her blog here

Who We Are!

Sarah Dillard studied art at Wheaton College and illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. She is an illustrator for children’s books and the stationery and giftware markets. Sarah’s first author/illustrated book, Perfectly Arugula, was published in 2009 and the audio book version won the Gold Award for the 2010 National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Storytelling competition. She lives on a mountain in Vermont with her husband and chocolate lab.

TIGHTROPE POPPY written by Sudipta Bardham and illustrated by Sarah Dillard

If you were an EVEN NUMBER written by Marcie Aboff and illustrated by Sarah Dillard

Here is Sarah and her process:

Most of my work starts with a very rough doodle, just to get an idea of the composition.

This is another rough sketch with a little more detail.

This is a more complete sketch with water soluble graphite pencils to work out tones and more detail.

The finished (?) painting. This was done in watercolor and gouache on 300 lb water color paper. I love the weight of this paper. It does not buckle when wet so there is no need to stretch it. I tend to start with watercolor and then build up the color with gouache. Then I add texture with gouache and a tiny brush. I liked the november-ish feeling of this and could have stopped here but everything looks better with a little snow, so..

I added a dusting of snow and some swirly wind in Photoshop.

And then it just kept snowing. Now that bunny is really cold!

Have you ever thought about writing and illustrating your own book?

I have! My book “Perfectly Arugula” was published by Sterling in 2009. I have two books under contract now that will be coming out in 2014.

3 Comments on Illustrator Saturday – Sarah Dillard, last added: 8/19/2012