Southern Breeze Illustrator Contest Winners...

We were pleased to announce the winners of our contests at the recent wik10 conference. For those of you who were not able to join us, here are the results --

Congratulations to the following illustrators recognized by Laurent Linn, Art Director for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and judge of our 2010 Southern-Breeze Illustration contest:

1st place: Sharon Graham for "PJ traveled to London to visit the queen."

2nd place: Amy Leigh Johnson for "PJ traveled to the beach every summer."

3rd place: Susan Nees for "PJ traveled to such exotic places while daydreaming, her chores simply few by."


Thanks to everyone who participated. Now, sharpen those pencils and get busy for 2011. The prompt is: "PJ tugged open the ________."

Corn Maiden Revisited

I created a storyboard based on the legend of the Blue Corn Maiden for the awesome Wik 10. At Wik 10, Kerry Martin presented an extremely insightful workshop that covered story boarding and the process a picturebook dummy goes through on its way to publication. At the end of our workshop Kerry suggested that everyone use the information we had gleaned to finish three of the Corn Maiden images as part of our illustration portfolio. I could see the wisdom in her words. So now I am doing just that.

I would love your input regarding composition and how to make figures not feel stiff. I have posted the original sketch with a simple parallel pueblo in the background. I have also posted the same drawing with a more detailed photo of a pueblo in the background which runs at an angle to the fore ground image. Which of these compositions do you feel is stronger? Working with Mark Brought pre portfolio day I realized that sometimes I neglect the composition orchestration and race straight to the fun painting part. I appreciate y'alls assistance with my continued investigation into figure and composition. I would also welcome any other input you have. We often don't know what we don't know. Thanks for being another set of eyes. Cheers! Lauren j. Patton www.LjPatton.com

Renee Rivas

"Old Fashioned Candy Shoppe"
by Renee Rivas