Southern Breeze Illustrators

1/31/12

2012 Liz Conrad SCBWI Southern Breeze Scholarship Winner

This year's winner of the Liz Conrad Scholarship Fund is Shanda McCloskey! Shanda will receive free tuition to attend the 2012 Springmingle conference along with a free portfolio review.
Competition was fierce since we have such talented illustrators in our Southern Breeze SCBWI region. However, we don't have a lot of illustrators. So if you didn't win this year, please try again next year!
Along with a wonderful cover letter, here's the piece that really blew away the judges...

1/19/12

Natural History Illustration Workshop

I thought this would be of interest to some of our illustrators...

The Highlands Biological Station, an inter-institutional research center of the University of North Carolina, is offering its 2011 series of summer courses and workshops that can be taken for undergraduate OR graduate credit toward your academic program... Scholarships, Grants-in-aid of research for graduate students, and summer internships also available. Highlands, North Carolina, is located in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, at an average elevation about 3,800 feet, and situated near the Nantahala National Forest, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee Indian Reservation, Appalachian Trail, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. For more information and to apply, visit www.wcu.edu/hbs or e-mail hbs at email dot wcu dot edu.

There are several interesting classes along with the NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATION WORKSHOP with Nancy Lowe called "Discover Life in America" (May 28 - June 1st). You can email me at elizabeth at dulemba dot com for more information or contact the school directly.

1/11/12

Scholarship Deadline Reminder

Hey Breezer Illustrators! The deadline is approaching. If you haven't already, check out the details here and get your submissions ready. Then head over here to check out the details for Springmingle. If you have any questions, please feel free to email Elizabeth Dulemba (Illustrator Coordinator) at elizabeth at dulemba dot com, or Kathleen Bradshaw (Assistant Illustrator Coordinator) at klbradshaw at yahoo dot com. Good Luck!

12/21/11

Liz Conrad Scholarship Fun Open for Submissions

With registration for our Southern Breeze Spring Conference (Springmingle),we are once again opening applications for the Liz Conrad Scholarship Fund. (The deadline is January 26th.)

The selected illustrator will be awarded free conference tuition and one free portfolio review during the upcoming conference in Atlanta. It would have delighted Liz to know she was helping further someone's budding illustration career, and winning is a nice honor to list on your resume.

Visit http://sbillustrators.blogspot.com/p/scholarship.html and download the application form today!

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Elizabeth Dulemba (Illustrator Coordinator) at elizabeth at dulemba dot com, or Kathleen Bradshaw (Assistant Illustrator Coordinator) at atklbradshaw at yahoo dot com.

Bologna Illustrator Opportunity

PAL illustrator members of SCBWI across the world, even if you can't make it to Bologna yourself, don't miss this chance for your work to be visible at the international Bologna Book Fair, We will be showing a select number of illustrator's promotional pieces in our special Illustration Portfolio Display at the SCBWI stand at the Bologna Book fair and also online in our SCBWI Bologna Illustrators' Gallery. Deadline for email submissions: February 14, 2012. Full details on how to apply are on http://www.scbwibologna.org/display-portfolio.php If your work is selected, we'll contact you with details about snail mailing a quality print-out of the piece.

If you are coming to the fair, then how about promoting your work at our SCBWI stand? Duelling illustrator sessions, on-the-spot illustrations to a read- aloud story, and other live art demonstrations have been particular popular events at our past SCBWI stand. To apply for a Showcase slot check out http://www.scbwibologna.org/showcase.php Why not book a slot, or share a space alone or with another PAL,then send out announcements ahead of time, and invite your publishers there to come and watch? There are no children at the fair, but publishers, agents and foreign rights people may well enjoy a break from their busy schedule to be reminded that it all starts with a good idea and a pencil, pen, brush and paint or even your laptop!

And if you aren't yet published but are going to be in Bologna for the Fair, how about booking ahead for 5 minutes of feedback on your portfolio from a publishing pro at the Stand?

10/26/11

2011 Illustration Contest Winners

Congratulations to Sharon Graham, winner of the 2011 SCBWI Southern Breeze Illustration Contest! Illustrators were challenged to create from the prompt "PJ tugged open…"

Sharon's interpretation was "PJ tugged open the giant oyster and out popped the magic pearl."
Created with gouache, tempera, crayon and ink

Second place went to Sandee Chamberlain

Sandee's piece is pencil drawing completed with digital color.

Third place was awarded to Kathleen Bradshaw

Kathleen's pencil drawing of "PJ tugged open the musty, old theater curtain" was completed digitally.

Honorable Mentions went to Shanda McCloskey

"PJ tugged open the buttons of his shirt, because third grade needed a hero."
Shanda used acrylic gouache and colored pencil.

and Michelle Hyde

Michelle created "PJ tugged open the dresser, desperately searching for her paci."

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest, and a big thanks to Kerry Martin, Senior Designer at Clarion Books for serving as our judge.

10/23/11

The Art Spot

Hi Guys,
The SCBWI will be launching a new section in the Bulletin in January called "The Art Spot." It will be FANTASTIC promotion for one lucky artist to be FEATURED every other month (runners up will have their art used elsewhere in the Bulletin). Go to http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Submit-Art-to-The-Bulletin to read the details - and submit your art!!
Cheers,
e
Elizabeth O. Dulemba
Children's Book Author/Illustrator
http://dulemba.com
SCBWI Southern Breeze Illustrator Coordinator
(Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi)
http://www.southern-breeze.org/
Illustrator Blog: http://sbillustrators.blogspot.com/

10/11/11

Tomie dePaola Award open to submissions...

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to let you know SCBWI has posted the 2012 guidelines for the Tomie dePaola Award since it seems people are chomping at the bit! It is a good one and we are excited to see the art it generates! http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Tomie-dePaola-Award

9/15/11

For Critique - Prescott Hill

Attached is a freshly finished independent illustration I have been working on in between the cracks of the past ten days. I'm presenting it to the blog for public ...(gulp) critique.

Illustrator Day has been a catalyst and a bit of a wake up call for me. Up to this point I have been happily producing my art in vector form, which has my medium of choice since 2002. However, the portfolio critique opened my eyes to the fact that if I truly want to full engage in literary illustration, I need to retool my skills away from my commercial illustration mode to something more organic. I also need to drop a lot of my portfolio pieces in favor of some fresh art focused on children's book illustration.

I've entitled the attached "The Maker Mouse," and it's the first of my fresh pieces. Wicked-pedia states: "Maker mice are the problem-solving geeks of the animal world. Unlike pious church mice, maker mice make their home in the attics or floor boards of schools and libraries. They believe it is possible to solve any problem with imagination, a piece of wire, and anything else at hand, (or paw). Lost a spare key, or an ear ring? Your broken iPod seemed to repair itself? You just might have been visited by a maker mouse."

It's been a very long while since I have done anything "painterly" so, this is an experiment to see if I still have the chops. It is also an exploration of using light to set the emotional tone and focus of a composition. The whole shebang was composed in Autodesk SketchBook Pro, (much better choice for this sort of thing than Photoshop), and built over a scanned pencil rough.

This is the first piece I've done using SketchBook Pro exclusively, and I like the results.
- Prescott Hill

9/11/11

Illustrators' Day Wrap-Up

by Kristen Applebee

     Illustrator’s Day is a real treat for the non-writing members of Southern Breeze, because it focuses entirely on the craft and career of illustrating, hence the name: Illustrator’s Day.
     The learning actually started weeks before the September 2nd meeting, with a mentor assignment by illustrator, Michael Allen Austin. Michael took on the role of art director, emailing ideas on how to add emotion, action, or connectivity to rough sketches. I found this process immensely helpful.
     Mike Lowery, SCAD professor and illustrator gave the following advise to those who wish to become professional illustrators. 1. Keep a sketchbook. 2. Promote self. 3. Don’t compare yourself with other illustrators. 4. Don’t talk about your projects. Just do them! He recently illustrated the book, THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL, written by Laura Murray. She was there to discuss the process of illustration from the author’s point of view.
     Kristen Nobles, Art Director for Candlewick Press, taught that all children’s book illustrators should be professional, technically proficient, and do work appropriate for children. Besides having a unique style and an understanding of visual pacing, there must be an element of magic about the work, for publishing houses to really take notice.
     Robert Agis, Editor of Sterling Children’s Books, went through the basics of how work is acquired by a publishing house and the types of deals offered. He contrasted types of books from board books to interactive ebooks.
     Our speakers critiqued each attendee’s portfolio, which was very insightful. But the most gratifying part of the day for me was being with people who share my dream and love of children’s books.
The Portfolio Review with Kristen, Robert, Mike and Michael Austin...