Children's Literature Conference

This last week I attended a great SCBWI Conference at UVSC (UVU) for authors & illustrators of children's publications. It was a fabulous experience I'll repeated for years to come I assure you. The conference had been geared to provide industry specific lectures, forums, and guests for illustrators this year. David Small -if you don't know him you still have time to repent- was the key note speakers for illustrators. He and his author wife gave fantastic lectures and gave generously of themselves to attendees-I must say I was given far more time than I deserved.

The Editor/illustrator's Best Illustrator Award was given to me-a genuine suprise. There were quite a few strong illustrators there. Of additonal signifigance I was invited to be a co-author in a The Children's Book Blog for Illustrators, a source of info for illustrators. If your looking for substantive comments and resources it's a wonderful place to bookmark.

I'll be adding a lot more images here and on my website soon. Look for more pics from my sketchbook too. See you soon.

Genie

Here is the other character sketch for the children's book I'm working on. Much thanks to Shawn Boyles for helping me get back to basic shapes. In this painting I had been making the forms look too life-like and had to simplify the form for the right audience.

I'm having a lot of fun on these illustrations in that they're largely digital with very graphic flat areas. Form and color tend to make or break the effectiveness of each picture.