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Sarah Ferone is a freelance illustrator based in Philadelphia. Sarah Ferone’s background in painting and art history, and experience in designing for advertising has allowed her to develop a distinct, individual style. In addition to editorial, Sarah Ferone also works on packaging and books. Her work often has deep narrative and a beautiful handmade feel.

If you’d like to see more of Sarah Ferone’s work, please visit her portfolio.

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Post by Chloe

Stefano Colferai is an artist, illustrator and character designer born and based in Milan. His work depicts personality-packed and humorous characters brought to life through plasticine. The traditional media gives his work a quirky, unique edge and adjustments are made using digital software.

If you would like to see more of Stefano Colferai’s work, please view his portfolio.

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The Very Short Film competition was launched in partnership with The Guardian in October 2012. The longlisted entries are now available for the public vote which will produce four finalists. After a live final in March, the winner will receive £9000 towards their university education.

By Chloe Foster

After more than three months of students carefully planning and creating their entries, the Very Short Film competition has closed and the longlisted submissions have been announced.

The competition asked entrants to create a short film which would inform and inspire us. Students were free to base their entry on any subject they were passionate about. There was just one rule: films could be no longer than 60 seconds in length.

We certainly had many who managed to do this. The standard of films was impressive. How were we to whittle down the entries and choose just 12 for the longlist?

We received a real range of films from a variety of ages, characters and subjects — everything from scuba diving to the economic state of the housing market. It was great to see a mixture of academic subjects and topics of personal interest.

It must be said that the quality of the filmmaking itself was very high in some entries. However not all of these could be put through to the longlist; although artistic and clever, they didn’t inform us in the way our criteria specified.

When choosing the longlisted entries, judges looked for students who were clearly on top of their subject. We were most impressed by films that conveyed a topic’s key information in a concise way, were delivered with passion and verve, and left us wanting to find out more. By the end of our selection process, we felt that each of the films had taught us something new or made us think about a subject in a way we hadn’t before.

The sheer amount of information filmmakers managed to convey was astounding. As the Very Short Introductions editor Andrea Keegan says: “I thought condensing a large topic into 35,000 words, as we do in the Very Short Introductions books was difficult enough, but I think that this challenge was even harder. I was very impressed with the quality and variety of videos which were submitted.

“Ranging from artistic to zany, I learned a lot, and had lots of fun watching them. The longlist represents both a wide range of subjects — from the history of film to quantum locking — and a huge range in the approaches taken to get the subjects across in just one minute.”

We hope the entrants enjoyed thinking about and creating their films as much as we enjoyed watching them. We asked a few of the longlisted students what they made of the experience. Mahshad Torkan, studying at the London School of Film, tackled the political power of film: “I am very thankful for this amazing opportunity that has allowed me to reflect my values and beliefs and share my dreams with other people.  I believe that the future is not something we enter, the future is something we create.”

Maia Krall Fry is reading geology at St Andrews: “It seemed highly important to discuss a topic that has really captured my curiosity and sense of adventure. I strongly believe that knowledge of the history of the earth should be accessible to everyone.”

Matt Burnett, who is studying for an MSc in biological and bioprocess engineering at Sheffield, used his film to explore the challenges of creating cost-effective therapeutic drugs: “I felt that in a minute it would be very hard to explain my research in enough detail just using speech, and it would be difficult to demonstrate or act out. I simplify difficult concepts for myself by drawing diagrams, often spending a lot of time on them. For me it is the most enjoyable part of learning, and so I thought it would be fun to draw an animated video. If I get the chance to do it again I think I’d use lots of colours.”

So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at the 12 films and pick your favourite of these amazingly creative and intelligent entries.

Chloe Foster is from the Very Short Introductions team at Oxford University Press. This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk.

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Actual documentary footage of one of my therapy sessions with author Mac Barnett.



Chloe and the Lion is on sale starting April 3rd.

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With the publication of Chloe and the Lion approaching, I thought I'd share a video of author Mac Barnett I made for the trailer but which the publisher did not eventually use.  Waste not, want not.

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Let's see.... on Saturday I did an enjoyable panel on graphic novels with Nicki Greenberg and Queenie Chan, which ended too soon, and attended a banquet in a museum, sitting between Nicki G and Elizabeth Honey, during the course of which I bought a Shaun Tan painting in a silent auction for a good cause (it's on this page and is called The Sweet Hereafter).

Sunday morning was the Keynote Speech for the CBCA conference, a mixture of thoughts on children's literature and poems about children's literature. Then I signed books, with a slightly desperate edge because I only had about a hundred minutes before I was due on the next panel -- a fun one about influences, with Garth Nix and Isobelle Carmody. Finished the line with about three minutes to spare. Did the panel. Then signed more books.

Then Eddie and Anne Campbell and Garth Nix and I went to have a drink with the lovely Chloe, who was, as usual, not wearing anything.

Walked back to hotel. Walked past a Lush, thought hah! and nipped in and bought one of the blackberry comforter bars. Got back to hotel. Had bubble bath (with normal sized, non-lovecraftian bubbles). Rejoiced as I stretched out in the bath in how there was lots and lots of time before I had to get back on the road...

The bathroom phone rang. Anne and Eddie were in the lobby. I had somehow zoned and lost half an hour. Hasty shower-off and threw on clothes and ran downstairs...

Dinner with my old friends Peter Nicholls and Clare Coney and their son Jack, along with Anne and Eddie, which meant I got to introduce the Campbells to the Nichollses (and their marvellous, book-lined home). Not to mention their dogs, who took a shine to Eddie. For some reason, the only photographic record I have of the evening is of Eddie Campbell and two dogs.

This morning was interviews, then a reading and Q&A at the Melbourne library, then a signing which went on for a while... soon I will leave in a taxi for a literary dinner and signing. Tomorrow I fly to Sidney and read and Q&A and sign some more. And now I'm going to hit post then do absolutely nothing for twelve minutes.


Nothing at all.


It'll be wonderful.

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I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. This is the 18th day of the Robert's Snow Blogging for a Cure internet blizzard and I am so proud to be a part of it.


Tonight, us Aztec dancers and Latinos will be celebrating Dia de Los Muertos (see post below to find out where I'm dancing). Dia de los muertos is a very special day for us danzantes (the proper term for an Aztec dancer). On this night, we honor our ancestors, the people we loved who have died. We believe that they have moved on to another world and on this night, they come and visit the earth and the families they left behind. For danzantes, each dance is a prayer. The steps of the dance all tell stories and thank the Creator for what we have in this life.

Our costumes symbols show our family line of all who have come before us so we are literally dancing and praying with our ancestors. They are with us in the dance. The copal smoke that burns during the ceremony sends our prayers up to the sky. The night is filled with magic, we build altars of fruit and flowers, we make our departed ones favorites foods, sugar skulls are lovingly created and placed on altars along with the muertitos made of paper machier. I bake, like so many other women the traditional pan de muertos. Music and poetry and stories fills the air. I think that Victoria Jamieson's whimsical and beautiful snowflake Jerry Performs Carmen fits right in with el dia de los muertos as does this whole battle against the cancer that has taken so many of our loved ones to Mictlan - the land of the dead.



Victoria's snowflake shows an ice skating, ice dancing really pig performing Carmen. You all know we love pigs here at AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos. Carmen just happens to be one of my favorite operas. The fact that I'm featuring the night before Day of the Dead and Jerry is dancing on ice skates strikes me as uncannily coincidental. I think Jerry is dancing his own prayer for a cure.



I had the great pleasure of chatting with Victoria Jamieson via email and found out some really neat and interesting things about this very talented, gracious and lovely artist. I hope you find her snowflake as wonderful as I do.

Here's a little bit about Victoria.





I was born in Havertown, Pennsylvania, and my family moved to Tampa, Floria when I was twelve. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of
Design in 2000, I'm now settled in Brooklyn, New York, where I work as a
freelance illustrator, as well as a designer at Greenwillow Books. My first
published illustrations will be in bookstores in February, in "The Gollywhopper
Games", by Jody Feldman (Greenwillow Books).

It took me a little while after graduation to realize that I wanted to be a
children's book illustrator. I traveled around for a bit, working as a portrait
artist onboard a Carnival Cruise ship. If you want to practice drawing facial
expressions, drawing portraits for 8 hours a day is a good way to do it!

Later on, I went to Australia to study Museum Studies, but characters and story
ideas kept following me! Actually, a trip to a "Sheep Fashion Show" in Sydney
planted the seed for "Bea Rocks the Flock", to be published by Bloomsbury in 2009.

Now I am happily pursuing other stories that have been nesting in my brain over
the years. I absolutely love illustrating children's books. It's exciting for me
to develop characters and their environments in my head, and then to create a
tangible record of my imaginings in a painting.

Thank you so much for contacting me to be part of the Robert's Snow blog-a-thon!
It's such a beautiful project, and I'm honored to participate along with so many
of my heroes (ie, children's book illustrators!) Like many others, I'm sure, I
first heard about Robert's Snow through the Blue Rose Girls blog, and Grace Lin's
blog. I'm not a scientist or a doctor, so this was a good way to use the skills I
actually do have to help in the fight against cancer.

The inspiration for my snowflake mainly came from the fact that I L-O-V-E ice
skating, to a degree that sometimes seems at odds with my daily life. After years
of staring wistfully at the Olympic skaters on TV (not to mention such fine
cinematic events as "Ice Princess" and "The Cutting Edge), I took my first ice
skating lessons last winter. Like Jerry on my snowflake, I did not let my very
evident lack of skill interfere with my excitement for each class. I can relate
to someone like Jerry, who does not let something like "talent" stand in the way
of his passion! I am proud to report, after 12 weeks of lessons, I am now able to
spin & even do a little jump (although I think it is called, literally, the Bunny
Hop).

My first self-authored children's book will be published by Bloomsbury in 2009.
It features a sheep, Bea, who is also not content with the hand life has dealt
her. I enjoy creating characters who I can relate to-- like Bea, I have had my
share of sometimes scary adventures, bad haircuts, and questionable fashion
advice. I look forward to creating many more characters throughout my career!

**********************************************************************

I don't know about you but I can't wait to read Bea Rocks the Flock!

To find out more about Victoria Jamieson, check out her website here.

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