Golden Kite Exhibit Review

What a weekend!  I am so thankful to the SCBWI and for the opportunity to be a regional advisor.  I have met the most amazing people in my life thanks to this organization.  The exhibit was stunning and Texas illustrators you have until October to make the trek to Abilene, I can't recommend enough that you do!  The artwork is incredible. 80 pieces from the books, covers and more from the Golden Kite Winners of the last 40 years.  I could have spent all day looking at the art.  The NCCIL (that's the "nickel" for those in the know) is an astonishing gallery and a group of very dedicated children's book enthusiasts.

Before the exhibit we were treated to 4 illustrators reading and drawing with the children of Abilene at the public library.  Pictured above David Diaz taught everyone about classical proportions as he drew one of his signature faces.  David is also the driving force behind this successful exhibit and event.  Members of SCBWI Illustrator's Board were there to support the event, including David, Priscilla Burris, Cecila Yung and Pat Cummings. Illustrators who did the visits included Larry Day, Kristen Balouch and Alan Stacy.

Lin Oliver, Executive Director of the SCBWI, was so inspired she went right out and began drawing!  This was a canvas on the wall with sketches from all the visiting artists - priceless.

The wall of awesomeness - really folks - you HAVE to go!  The exhibit will also be traveling around the country so keep an eye out to see if it will be heading near you.  And it's a huge exhibit, 80 pieces!

Lin Oliver and Steve Moser sharing about the humble beginnings of the SCBWI and the heart behind the organization, which is supporting the talented and dedicated authors and illustrators of children's literature. 

One of the highlights of the day was watching Richard Jesse Watson demo painting with egg tempera.  It was fascinating and I can't imagine the time that goes into his artwork.  He is very much a 'let's try and see what happens' kind of artist, that was fun to watch!

This is a sculpture around the corner from the museum.

The exhibit was good for the soul, the company was inspirational and hospitality was all Texan.  I loved every minute of this weekend and I'm eagerly counting down the days until LA for the next Tribe gathering.  Isn't that what the SCBWI is after all?

See more photos at the Golden Kite facebook page.

SCBWI Golden Kite Exhibit

I'm really looking forward to attending the exhibit and talks this weekend.  If you are in Texas and within driving distance of Abilene, you should make plans to attend.  It's free, filled with illustrators and inspiration -why the heck wouldn't you drive out for it?  Here are the details for Saturday's event:

Exhibit events and talks welcoming SCBWI members. The events are open to the public, no charge or registration required.

10:00 am
Richard Jesse Watson will speak/demonstrate @ 45 mins

11:00 am
Kristen Balouch will speak/demonstrate @ 45 mins

Lunch 12:00-2:00
We invite the visiting SCBWI membership to join us for a casual lunch at the Cypress Street Station

2:00 pm
Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser will discuss some of the history, stories, and anecdotes of the Golden Kite Award.

Afterwards they will be joined by Richard Jesse Watson, Kristen Balouch, Diane Stanley, and Larry Day for Q&A

Dinner 7:00 pm
We invite the visiting SCBWI membership to join us for dinner at Perini Ranch (about 30 minutes out of town)

The NCCIL website

The Golden Kite, Golden Dreams on Facebook

SCBWI Editors Day

Editors Day Conference

September 18th

San Antonio, TX

Faculty includes:

Sarah Shumway - HarperCollins

Julie Ham - Charlesbridge

Carmen Tafolla - Award-winning author

Art Aliva - Art Director, Raining Popcorn Media

Illustrator Heather Powers (yes, me)

During our breakout sessions for the illustrator's track I will share tips for creating a winning portfolio - both online and off! 

If you are in Texas make plans to join us and help spread the word! 

Conference Details

Busy, Busy!

Three little beachcombers doing exactly what I'd like to be doing at this moment!

I had to take a little blogging break while I prepared for a national bead show.  It was fun, but now it's time to switch gears and get a new round of postcards out the door and work on finding an agent.

I also have a slew of SCBWI events coming up in the next few months.

I will be attending the Golden Kite Exhibit and SCBWI events next month.  Mid-July I will be leading a roundtable discussion on marketing at our July SCBWI meeting. At the end of July I'll be heading to LA for the national conference with my peep Kelly! In September I will be hosting an Editor's Day here in San Antonio for our chapter.  I will also be presenting a breakout session on Creating a Winning Portfolio at that event. 

And in between all that I have two dummy books to finish with samples.  So you should be hearing quite a bit from me over the summer as I work my way through these events!

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.

TLA

I have been enjoying the last two days at TLA, the Texas Library Association's exhibit. Our Texas SCBWI chapters have once again banded together to promote our organization as 'the' go to source for finding children's book authors and illustrators.  The response has been great.  We've had librarians searching us out to get a hold of their copy of our speakers' source book.  We've also been hearing stories from librarians of how they used the book last year to book speakers, so good to know it's working!

A gaggle full of RA's at our booth!  Liz Mertz, RA for Brazos Valley, Janet Fox, former Brazos Valley RA, Ellen Hopkins (YA rock star) and current co-RA for Nevada and me, RA for Southwest Texas.  (What's an RA? A regional advisor for the local SCBWI chapters.  We organize the local events and cheer on our members!)

Some of our books on display - Texas is filled with talent!  We are raffling off signed copies of books from our members, giving out our speakers book to librarians and I do believe there is chocolate involved.  I heard chocolate and good books are two things to have on hand when dealing with librarians.

Books on display. 

We have been rotating the books on our main table so everyone has a chance to shine!  The green booklet are the speakers source book.  Our designer, Jennifer Murrillo, did an awesome job using old school library icons like the card catalog and check-out cards for the theme.  So taking our cue from her booklet we designed the booth to have an old world library feel.  I'll post more tomorrow on some friendly faces I've run into in the exhibit hall.