By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 9/24/2013
The upcoming Austin SCBWI Graphic Novel Workshop on Saturday, October 5 promises to be a day for writers and illustrators, writer-illustrators and anyone interested in exciting alternative literary forms for children, teens and young adults. OK, plenty of adults read them, too. Webcomics creator, animator, digital content creator and our SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book […]
By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 9/24/2013
The upcoming Austin SCBWI Graphic Novel Workshop on Saturday, October 5 promises to be a day for writers and illustrators, writer-illustrators and anyone interested in exciting alternative literary forms for children, teens and young adults. OK, plenty of adults read them, too. Webcomics creator, animator, digital content creator and our SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book […]
By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 1/21/2010
It’s been a landmark week for Austin children’s writers. Three of our gang scored top honors -- a Caldecott Honor, a Sibert Honor and a Newbery Honor — from the American Library Association.
Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
Our Austin, Texas chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers (SCBWI) is a little dazed after last weekend’s 2010 award announcements. Austin’ s Jacqueline Kelly received a Newbery Honor for her YA novel The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate about a girl growing up at the turn of the 19th century. The picture book poem All the World penned by Liz Garton Scanlon of Austin and illustrated by Marla Frazee was named one of the two Caldecott Honor books. (Frazee’s second Caldecott Honor.)
"All the World" by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee
And The Day-Glo Brothers written by Chris Barton of Austin and illustrated with retro lines and Day-Glo colors by Tony Persiani won a Sibert Honor for children’s nonfiction. (From the ALA – “The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.”)
Our SCBWI chapter claims all three of these writers and we’ll claim Frazee, too. So that makes four.
All four, as it just so happens had been scheduled to present at the Austin SCBWI regional 2010 conference “Destination Publication” next weekend (January 30) with an already honors heavy line-up of authors, editors and agents. Marla is giving the keynote address along with Newbery Honor author Kirby Larson (Hatti Big Sky)
Another Texan, Libba Bray won the Michael L. Printz Award
By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 5/1/2009
More from the amazing Dick Termes. His one-man show, Thinking In the Round will be on display through the end of this in Rapid City, South Dakota.
What can children’s book illustrators learn from his work? I think, that we grasp artistic perspective most easily when we think in a round way.
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Austin illustrator and designer Marsha Riti gave a great interview to children’s author and kid lit blogger Tara Lazar, recently (and I’m not just saying that because she mentions me there.) You can read about Marsha’s path into the world of children’s books and the art history that inspires her here.
Marsha has a B.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and is active with both the Austin Society of Children’s Book Illustrators and its elite swat team of picture book writer-illustrators, The Inklings.
She also maintains what I would describe as exemplary illustrator’s blog. I recommend that you check it out — for fun and also if you are looking for ways to do an art blog right. It’s on our blog roll and right here.
* * * * *
Tuesday night we conducted our first group conference call for the
Make Your Splashes; Make Your Marks! children’s book illustration course.
We looked at students’ work and just talked about it as if we were all sitting around in a studio classroom eating pizza — except we were at various points around the country — California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Texas, as it happens. We had all four directions covered!
And you can be a part of this! Technology has made distance-learning suddenly very, very easy. How easy? Find out for yourself by signing up for the course — and join the meetings.
You can test drive a huges section of the course content for free, while it’s still available, by going here.
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And now back to our spherically scheduled programming.
Mark Mitchell hosts the How to be a Children’s Book Illustrator blog.
By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 2/6/2009
The Texas Library Association (TLA) has been raffling a chance to own this beautiful original art piece by children’s book illustrator Don Tate.
The $5 you spend for your raffle ticket will go to the TLA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which will go to help libraries hit hard by Texas storms along the coast last year. The Rosenberg Library in Galveston lost its entire children’s book collection (it was on the first floor) in the flooding that followed Hurricane Ike. (Most of Galveston Island went under water.) It was one of many libraries along the Texas coast that suffered damage.
The TLA Disaster Relief Fund auction has been helping Texas libraries contend with natural disasters since it was started by Jeanette Larsen and Mark Smith in 1999 – always with original art donated by children’s book artists.
Read an interview with the co-founder Jeanette Larson by Cynthia Leitich Smith in Cynthia’s blog Cynsations here.
Tate, of our Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) joins the ranks of renowned
illustrators such as Rosemary Wells and Diane Stanley who have furnished paintings for the fund.
The winning raffle ticket will be drawn at the TLA annual conference, held this year, appropriately enough, in storm-pummeled Houston March 31 - April 3. You can buy as many as you want. Go here, print your raffle tickets and mail them (with your check, of course) to the TLA office at 3355 Bee Cave Road, Suite 401, Austin, Texas 78746-6763. Straightout donations to the Relief Fund are also accepted of course.
The Duke Ellington piece is for a book Don is illustrating by musicologist Anna Harwell Celenza, about how the young Ellington and composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn collaborated on their own version of Tsaichovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.
Publisher Charlesbridge is said to be looking at a 2010 publication for the nonfiction work tentatively titled Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite.
There’s also an interview with Tate on his illustrations for the Ellington story in Cynsations here. (Cynsations and Don’s blog, Devas T. Rants and Raves! are on this blogroll.)
* * * * *
Speaking of the storm ravaged Texas coast, I just got back from there last night. I was a guest children’s author at the Victoria Public Library’s 2009 Victoria Reads community reading program, and spoke at the library and a stunning historical museum, the Museum of the Coastal Bend on the Victoria College campus, where I saw Native American decorative pieces — scrimshaw-like carvings and patternings on oyster shells dating back 5,000 - 8,000 years B.C.
The region surrounding Matagorda Bay apparently teemed with First Americans. Victoria County was a crossroads of Indian trade routes (not more than well travelled Indian trails, really), which explains why various spearpoints and arrowheads on display at the museum can be traced to South America, Mexico, and Canada.
It’s like NAFTA existed back then.
I had a great time talking with museum director Sue Prudhomme, volunteer archeologist Jud Austin and many other supporters of the museum.
* * * * *
Returning home from that trip, I saw a blog post that I wish I’d alerted you to earlier — about your chance to win, among other goodies, a T-shirt with one of the coolest YA novel logo designs ever!
Logo for "Eternal"
You have a chance to win a shirt sporting the impossibly elegant Princess Dracul logo (designed by Gene Brenek), a book, a finger puppet, a signed bookmark, stickers and more – well, just look at all the loot.
It’s the Eternal Grand Prize Giveaway – a contest celebrating the release on Tuesday of the second novel (Eternal) in the Gothic YA fantasy trilogy by Austin author Cynthia Leitich Smith, who has been called “the Anne Rice for teen readers.”
Eternal is preceded by Tantalize, which is set in Austin and features vampires and assorted were-folk. (Austin is kind of a bat capital of the South, in truth. ) Eternal also has vampires and other new characters you can sink your teeth into — wait, I mean it the other way around — and one of these in particular, Princess Dracul inspired the great glyph by artist-author Brenek (also of our Austin SCBWI chapter!) It’s one of many supernatural/regal emblems he’s designed for the book. (They convey such a spooky verisimilitude. ) See for yourself and enter the Eternal Grand Prize Giveaway. But go quickly. The give-away cutoff is Tuesday, February 10, when Eternal goes on sale!
Cynthia interviews Gene here.
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Author-illustrator Sarah Ackerley, a member of our SCBWI chapter’s Inklings illustrators group who now lives in San Francisco sent a link to this funny video about a year in the life of children’s book author-illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka. It features guest appearances by Jane Yolen, Tomie dePaolo, Mo Willems, Jon Scieszka and some of the Blue Rose Girls .
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You can get some free lessons on color and a group of surefire palette strategies here. They’re from my online course about how to illustrate a children’s book, Make Your Splashes; Make Your Marks!
Northern California artist Susan Sorrell Hill wrote me Thursday about how these lessons helped her:
“In all of my research (on-line and in books) in the last several
years, I have never come across a clearer, more work-able approach to color that can be applied practically to a painting…and I have
looked far and wide for this information, recognizing that it was of
major importance…. The need for a sustainable, predictably
successful approach to color, for illustration as well as fine art,
became crystal clear to me when I switched from oil painting to
watercolors…the old ‘keep messing with it until it’s right’ approach
just was NOT working with watercolor…
“As you predicted, the results are immediately recognizable. I heave a huge sigh of relief!”
You’ll find the signup for the free lessons here.
[...] To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator: ALA honors for Austin authors You read that right: All three Austin authors with ALA-honored books, plus Caldecott Honoree Marla [...]