SCBWI Conference Tips for Newbies

Unfortunately I'm not able to attend the SCBWI Conference in LA this year.  Pouty face.  But I will be following along on the Conference blog and wishing everyone a great time!  With a sold out event and celebrating it's 40th anniversary, this conference will be an event to remember.  Did I mention the pouty face?

I thought I'd share a few tips with illustrators who are attending the conference for the first time.

1. The Portfolio Display is More than a Competition - Sure you want to get noticed and maybe even win, but once you are at the conference it's time to let it go.  Be confident in knowing you are showing your best work.  But look at the portfolio display as more of a learning opportunity than a competition.  As you go through the display, take note of what catches your eye - what images really stand out.  Take a few moments to pour over the portfolios that have a crowd around them - why are they so appealing?  What postcards make an impact on you as you go from portfolio to portfolio?  Pick up your favorites. 

Be inspired, be encouraged - do not go away from the display thinking "I'm not worthy." (yes, make sure you say that in a Wayne & Garth tone of voice.) Everyone is at a different place in their creative journey.  If you feel like a beginner, don't feel overwhelmed.  Get excited - you are just starting out and have a fun path ahead of you!  Learn from the best, they will be all around you during the conference!

2. Don't be shy - Go to the Illustrator's Social on Friday and talk to as many illustrators as you can.  Just jump in and join a conversation.  Introduce yourself - share your business card or postcard.  Bring your portfolio.  In fact, my best advice is to talk to as many different people as you can through the whole weekend - you never know what friendships may be forged or what you might learn! 

3. Go team!  Each chapter has a time they meet at the conference, look through your welcome packet and find out when your local group is meeting and go say hi.  It's nice to see a familiar face at the conference and you'll find out what's new in your region.

4. Listen to the Authors - Don't miss events with the keynote speakers even though they are writers - you will learn something.  I have heard the most inspiring and soul-stirring speeches from today's top authors.  They share lessons that you will never forget.

5. Party!  Okay, don't go crazy, but do put on your pajamas and head to the costume ball on Saturday night.  I know it may feel awkward at first, but just start talking to people.  Everyone is friendly - this is your tribe after all.  Dance, enjoy your free drink, have fun people watching.  You need to unwind during the event and let your brain rest - this is the place to do it.

6. Pick Your Sessions Wisely - There is always a great illustrator's track, but there are tracks that have illustrators or art directors that aren't designated for illustrators - so I'm assuming they will share a more rounded talk about picture books for author/illustrators.  After looking through the schedule I would have a hard time picking a session.  If you are with a group of illustrators, you might want to break up, attend different sessions and compare notes.  And take good notes throughout the conference, it's so easy to forget the pearls of wisdom.  Check out the conference app to help you plan your days.  Study the faculty to learn more about the speakers before the event.

7. Follow Through - After the conference, make your list of editors and art directors and send out a packet to them.  Thank them for speaking at the conference.  Or send all the editors & AD's a thank you postcard after the event with your best image on the front.  Touch base with illustrators and authors you met and keep in contact after the conference.

Have the best time ever - the conference in LA is always my favorite SCBWI event!  I will look forward to reading the reviews on everyone's blog.

Illustrator's Sketch Day

Yesterday our SCBWI illustrators packed up our sketchbooks and pencils and headed to the San Jose Mission here in San Antonio.  This is a reoccurring event for our group, gathering at different locations in the city to sketch for a few hours, chat and enjoy being out of the studio.

The mission is a beautiful place, while the Alamo is the most famous mission in San Antonio, the San Jose is the most impressive.  It's a massive fort, still mostly intact.  And it also the site of the oldest church west of the Mississippi river.

Our Sketch Days are loosely based on the International Sketch Crawl idea.  Check them out - you may decide to start a sketch day of your own.

Our first Illustrator's Day was at the zoo, our next one will be at the Botanical Gardens.  We try to pick visually interesting places where we can also sketch families & kids with the attractions.

I took way better photos than sketches, but that's okay.  It was good to get out of the studio and meet up with other artists.  Not every day has to have a finished product - it's okay to enjoy the process with no end results.

Before we started our sketch session local painter Terry Puckett gave us a refresher on perspective.  She brought along a book on Maurice Utrillo to share with us.  I had never seen his work before.  I love his colors, playfulness of line and strong perspectives - he was a bit obsessed with one point perspective in his work. 

Click here to read a short biography on Utrillo and here for a list of his paintings online.

No Shortcuts

I know this is such a late conference review - like a month late.  I have been traveling, working on our upcoming local conference and working away on my jewelry book.  Deadlines - aren't they awesome fun?

I've been thinking about what I'd like to share about the 2010 Summer SCBWI conference.  I could give you a round-up of quotes, photos of folks I met, epiphanies that dawned on me.  But you've already read all of that on the SCBWI Blog and from your favorite bloggers.  What I will share is what is still rattling around in my brain a month later.  What has caused a little paradigm shift for me after the conference?

It's one line from agent Steven Malk, "There are no short cuts."  Now he was talking about trends and quick fixes.  But the more those words have settled in my brain, the more I realize what great advice that one-liner is.

There are no short cuts to creating great illustrations. 

Am I sketching everyday? 

Am I working on more than one solution to a problem in my thumbnail sketches?  (Thanks to E.B. Lewis' breakout session that is a question I'm asking myself more and more.)

Am I taking the principles of design and color seriously as I work up my images?

Am I studying the masters in this field, the classics of the genre and what is hitting and flying off the shelves?

Am I finishing projects/dummies that have been on my to-do list forever? 

There are no short cuts to getting published.

What have I submitted this month? 

Is my mailing list current?

Do I have a plan for my next postcard?

Note to self: you must join a critique group again, asap!

There are no short cuts to self-promotion.

Frequent website updates.

Blog and share new work more often.

Use social networking for networking and not just lurking.

Be honest about my efforts - is it promoting or procrastinating?

Am I keeping up with my marketing plan or just making fancy lists?

An agent is not a short-cut to publication.

Getting an agent is not a quick fix but a partnership to grow your career.  Ever grow anything?  It takes hard work, (skill) lots of weeding (editing, critiques), sunshine and water (inspiration) and time.  Well that's just it, it all takes time.

There are no short-cuts. Sometimes it may seem like someone has caught a lucky break, but honestly those are rare and yeah for them.  For most illustrators it takes a few years to learn the ropes, hone their skills and find their way before they make it.  This has helped with some of my own frustration over the 'why not me' feelings and 'oh if I only didn't have a day job rants.' Just me?  Okay, maybe that's just me.

SCBWI Summer Conference

Hey, want a crash course in writing and illustrating for the children's market?  Then make your plans now to attend the SCBWI summer conference.  I'll be there!

Illustrators - you can hear from E.B. Lewis, Ashley Bryan and Loren Long.  Take workshops with Priscilla Burris and David Dias and get tips for portfolios and promotion with Pat Cummings and art director Cecilia Yung.  Or you can take one of the advanced tracks.  There are two for illustrators this year, one on graphic novels and one on digital illustration.  Not to mention all the authors, editors, agents and art directors who will be there.

Registration opens today, check it out at the SCBWI website.

SCBWI Peeps

The best part of conferences and book events is seeing your old SCBWI peeps and meeting new ones!

In this photo: Austin illustrator Mark Mitchell, check out his awesome online color class.  Author Peni Griffin, a homegrown SA talent whose titles include the The Switching Well and 11,000 Years Lost.  Illustrator Layne Johnson, went all founding fathers on us for TLA to celebrate his latest book The Declaration of Independence from A to Z.  And hardworking RA from Brazos Valley, Liz Mertz.

In this photo: Janet Fox, her upcoming book is Faithful.  Another Austin member, Virian Johnson has a new YA book, Saving Maddie and dear Kelly Bennet, who has 15 books published.  (Kelly helped organize the first Texas SCBWI Writer & Illustrators cruise!  We should do another one!!!)

And look, how lucky!  We were right across from the Bloomsbury booth and enjoyed visiting with illustrator and author, Ruth McNally Barshaw.  She was busy signing her latest Ellie McDoodle book and sketching away at the conference.  Ruth is an SCBWI member from Michigan and has done some wonderful sketch-blogging of the national SCBWI conferences over the years.

The SCBWI is all about it's volunteers.  Without them we wouldn't be the thriving, resourceful and encouraging organization that we are!  My deepest heartfelt thanks goes to Catherine Stier, our coordinator for the TLA booth.  What a hard worker and an amazing talent. Next year TLA will be in Austin.  Deborah Gonzales, the new Austin RA,  and Carmen Oliver, her Assistant RA helped us set up our booth earlier this week, pictured here with Catherine.

Back to Basics

Or maybe the title of this post should be, "Mind your basic design principles, young padawan." Okay, that's probably something a Jedi Knight wouldn't utter, but it is something that should be on your mind if you want to pull viewers into your work on a all sorts of levels like visually, emotionally as well as through the narrative.


I had the privilege of sitting in on a talk by two-time Caldecott Honor winner Marla Frazee at the Austin SCBWI conference this weekend. She showed us examples of using those design elements to portray emotions in your illustrations. She is brilliant and this gentle reminder of getting back to the basics to tell the story visually was inspiring.

Her talk was on Storytelling Tools and Techniques. She reviewed:

Artist's Voice/Style

Charactization

Setting

Interpretation of Text

Sequential Action

The Page Turn

Format - Size and Layout Options

She encouraged us to be aware of each choice we make in an illustration and how that can impact telling the story. She tries to get at the heart of the text to find what emotions need to be portrayed in each scene.

Want a refresher on those basic design principles? Here is a good link with all sorts of resources.

A SCBWI Secret

I'm a conference junkie, I'll admit it. I love attending SCBWI conferences both national and local. I can't even tell you how many wonderful people I've had the chance to meet and learn from.

Being a Regional Advisor for the Southwest Texas chapter of the SCBWI, I know I may be a little bias. But what you may not know is that your local or state SCBWI conference is a gold-mine of exposure for illustrators.

At local conferences illustrators make up 10-20% of the attendees. Almost every conference I have been to has a portfolio display and contest. Okay, let's do the math, if your local conference has 100 participants, 20 will have portfolios in the display. Who judges said contest? The speakers, i.e. art directors, editors and agents. And then there are the "get-of-the-slush-pile" passes that you get for attending conferences. For a limited time you can submit to attending speakers, even if they are at a closed house.

Want to get even more out of your local conference? Volunteer!

I'm looking forward to a round of conferences here in Texas in January (Austin) and February (Houston). I'm planning on attending the International Summer Conference in LA in August and in September we are hosting an Editor's Day here in San Antonio. Opportunities abound in 2010!

Find an SCBWI chapter near you: http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Regional-Chapters

Okay, so this information isn't secret, but if you aren't part of your local chapter you are missing out on a great resource!

21 Day Marketing Plan

Nothing like the excitement of a new project to get my creativity rolling.  I love the beginning of projects, when all possibilities are open and the road is yet traveled.  So here we start Humblearts Journal on blogger. I've had my blog for a few years but over the last two years it's been beyond neglected. My old computer is not a fan of typepad and I'm over here blogging almost everyday anyway for my beady empire.

So what shall we start with?  A list and a plan for November.  I'm giving a presentation at our next SCBWI meeting on Marketing for Authors and Illustrators.  So I need to practice what I'll be teaching and preaching.  I'm great at the knowing, not so good at the doing!

Daily:

twitter/facebook/blog - keep up with what's going on in the industry, get my name & work out there.

Update my mailing list for 15 minutes day.

Week One:

Create new blog

Update website with new work

New promo image

Week Two:

Work on 2 new dummy samples

Send out postcards

Outline for craft book proposal

Week Three:

Send out dummy

Write query letter

Marketing research for craft book proposal

Bite size, specific and with a deadline.  Now that's how you set a goal.  (Illustrator quakes in boots, must stay consistent...)