Melissa Sweet

Melissa Sweet actually is. Sweet, that is. Her talk was inspiring, sharing her process and her personal rules of creating.

"I will make a mistake on stage. And you know what? I welcome that first mistake. Because then I can shrug it off and keep smiling. Then I can get on with the performance and turn off that part of the mind that judges everything. I'm not thinking or worrying anymore." — Yo-Yo Ma

Melissa emphasized what Yo-Yo Ma said, encouraging us to not fear making mistakes. In fact, we should make mistakes.  It frees you, releases the tension and opens you up to new opportunities for creativity.

Melissa wants you to throw away your black and start mixing colors, make your own "black." Play with hand lettering, color, perspective, and drawing from life. Keep a journal. Make books (even if it's only for one person). Draw and write every day. Play every day.

"Everything is sweetened by risk." —Melissa Sweet

SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference

So, last weekend I donated my brain to SCBWI. From Friday, August 3, to Monday, August 6, my brain was filled up, squeezed, kicked around and cuddled. I feel happy, fulfilled, drained, and beaten down all at once.

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators 41st Annual Summer Conference was one for the books (HA!). A dream-cast of illustrators, editors, agents, writers, writer/illustrators and more inspired everyone, stomped them down, ripped them apart, patched them up and got their motors running to leap back in and move forward. If you want to grow and succeed in the children's lit biz (from picture books to YA), then I highly recommend SCBWI. It's world-wide, supportive and honest.

So, I met Tony DiTerlizzi, Melissa Sweet, Jon Klassen, Antoinette Portis, and a host of amazing illustrator and writer attendees. More on all of them later.

I also met amazing editors and agents. If you don't know what these people do then it is worth your time to research it. These people are amazing. Neal Porter was particularly inspiring... as luck would have it, I got to sit next to him at the Sunday luncheon... small talk, I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to show him my portfolio because 1, the poor man just needed to eat, right? And 2, my portfolio wasn't ready. All I learned in the previous days told me I was approaching this all wrong. More on that in another post.

Suffice it to say, I have a lot to say about what I learned at this conference. And I'm going to tell you most of it. So stay tuned.

 And if you ever get to see any of these people, do yourself a favor and go.

I Have A New Blog!

First post! Yay! I'll have a lot of work to do on this blog. This will chronicle my journey from naive novice to published children's illustrator. It's pretty much a journal for me, but I hope it will help you. So, the basics are... - Read children's books! - Pay attention to how the words flow. - Pay attention to how the illustrations flow. - Pay attention to how the words and illustrations interact. - Pay attention to how the characters are developed. - Draw a lot. - Write a lot (even if all you want to do is illustrate). - Post to Illustration Friday. - Join SCBWI. I'll also be exploring other ways to illustrate for kids than just books. There's magazines, mass market like education and package design, and more. I'll be trying to get into all of it. So... let's begin.