Hey, folks--just wanted to let you know that one of our own, @Neha-Rawat won the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Summer Spectacular Portfolio Showcase that just wrapped itself up a few minutes ago. Out of around 450 participants, she was one of two Grand Champion winners! Here at SVSLearn, she was a featured student for February 2020!

You may recall a couple weeks ago, Neha created a thread that actually asked if participating was worth the experience... I wasn't too optimistic, but I have to eat my own words as it obviously worked for her!!! She wins free admission to the next virtual conference in February, meetings with three art directors, and a $1000 gift certificate to Blick Art Supplies.

There was a group of us on Instagram DMing each other as we watched the sessions (thank-you so much @Coley for setting it up and corralling us all together), and we had a great time! It was nice touching bases with everyone as the event unfolded. Apparently, the usual attendance for the conference held annually in LA is around 1200, but because everything was online this year they had over 4000 participants from all over the world. Neha's work was seen by thousands of people.

You can see Neha's showcase here. Judging criteria included: 1) children's book publishing appropriateness, 2) consistency of a strong illustrative "voice" throughout, and 3) a fresh and unique style.

The entire collection of illustrators can be found here. It's a great resource, and useful to see what imagery other illustrators are including in their portfolios. It will be available through the month of August.

Congrats again, Neha!!!

This mermaid went down fighting, I think...

Over a year after work started on the album (thank-you Covid) my first paid work as an illustrator has finally been published/released! It's not a children's book or a magazine or anything--just an album cover. I did it all in Procreate, and I'm happy with how it turned out. The iterations this thing went through... whew! And learning what should be included in a contract and what shouldn't, and how very different the perceptions of process are when coming from different angles... Wow. ("No, illustration doesn't mean I know anything about selecting the correct fonts... No, illustration doesn't mean I know how to Art Direct and format the interior content you want... No, I think you need a graphic designer for that part...." Oy...) Learning curve all the way around.

Anyway, I thought I'd share.

https://hemisphere.hearnow.com/american-dreams

Alrighty. Here goes.

Personal first steps!

Someone saw one of my hands from my 100 Hands of Family and Friends ongoing personal project, and wanted something like it for an album cover for their band. Haha! I guess those square Instagram images are good for something, right? I'm also making different image assets distilled from layers of the same hand portrait so they can use them in their 12-page CD insert. Ironically, the part they didn't want was the hand itself... LOL!

Anyway, I finally got to practice making a contract, talking about logistics, so on and so forth. I'm sure I've screwed up something somehow that will come back and bite me in the butt, but hey--I'm just reveling in the idea that someone is actually paying me to draw for them.

And I thought I'd share this little victory of mine with folks who I know can appreciate it.

Happy Dance!!!

Alrighty. Trying a double page spread this time.

Congratulations!!!!! That's awesome news! Well deserved! Kudos!

Late-night doodling. Developing a body of work I can put into a calendar.

I finished this little songbird yesterday as I tried to allay my fears of doing my first live Artstream on Twitch coming up on Friday... hehe... I think I need the weekly commitment to force myself to step out of my stasis and take some steps forward into the art life. I've always enjoyed watching others work, and I rigged up a multi-cam setup and will be streaming my iPad screen using Procreate. But it's still going to be challenging... Splitting my attention between my work and the chat will not be something I've experienced before. I'm a teacher so I'm used to talking in front of people, but doing it virtually is going to be something else... Oy...

I'm not sure there are many artists we can clearly define as "surrealist fine art illustrators" as much as we can more easily point directly to authors and define their work as surrealistic. A quick google search renders these pages among others:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/children/academic-and-educational-journals/surrealism-childrens-literature

https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=picture-book-surrealism

https://www.pinterest.com.au/starryeyedtl/surrealism-in-picture-books/

Interestingly, this page breaks down artistic styles for children's books and offers some example definitions and works: http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CLit/picturebook_styles.htm

I, personally, have a LOT of trouble differentiating Fine Art from Illustration, and I think in some ways it was a lot easier to do so prior to WWI. After that, things get convoluted. So much of it has to do with the artist's/illustrator's intent. And today, I think so many artists straddle both worlds that differentiating the two is even harder.

But there are artists out there that lean into styles that are inspired by Fine Art methods. Marco Bucci, for example, is a straight-up Impressionist with a capital "I" if I've ever seen one.

Made this based on an art prompt from a group that's more Fine Art and Studio Art-oriented than illustration, but thought I'd share it here too. It's called "The Tree of Hopes and Dreams". The prompt was supposed to merge the requirements of a landscape, a tree, and the concept of "inside/out". The tree was supposed to indicate/represent a contrast of some nature to something else.

So, I ran with the idea of that state one experiences before one commits to a choice. To be presented with a moment laden with potential, and simultaneously not know whether it is good or bad. To know there are signs but not be able to interpret them. To shift from the vast emptiness of what is known to step into the bright light of the unknown.

Well, that's what was in my head, anyway. LOL!

Welcome, Emma!

@donnamakesart There are forums at The Illustration Department where I know a few of the posters here sometimes post and vice versa. That site feels much broader in scope, covering a wider range of illustration than these forums normally concentrate on. There is a big kidlit publishing thrust as the founder was a children's book Art Director, but it's much much newer and intentionally casting a wider net that hasn't developed as much depth or traffic yet as this forum has.

Personally, I know more sites to avoid than sites to explore... Some FB groups have succumbed to moderator fatigue, so they either run hot or very very cold. @NessIllustration just recently started one for Freelance Illustrators Café and it promises to be one of the good ones.

But I think you're right--Artists have turned to smaller, more intimate locations to discuss work like Discord. There are some sites out there that try to provide an "index" of Discord servers to help find specific topics. In general, your observation is correct, though--the user base of those small communities is much younger. Discord started as a gaming tool, if I'm not mistaken, so it has some of that flavor on a lot of servers. It seems to be the new trend for younger artists to start their own communities.

[Edit: Just found this page dated Nov 2020 regarding Art-oriented Discord servers... hehe...]

All that being said, it seems to me that generally illustrators and writers in the kidlit publishing industry are a bit older. To my eye, the average age of the 200+ members in my local SCBWI chapter has to be in the early 50s, and I would imagine they don't spend as much time online as many younger folks do. I'm not surprised Discord users are usually much younger than that.

Twitch seems to be just now starting to have older, non-gaming folks using it, but Behance has a lot of high quality streamers, too (including Anna Daviscourt, who teaches a character design course here at SVSLearn). YouTube now has a forum-like feature that you can join for certain channels as well, but I'm not sure how that's set up.

Today I did two pieces--the first illustrations I've done in a long while since the world went crazy with the one-two punch of pandemic and politics. I haven't been able to create anything I actually liked in several weeks, so this was a great step in the right direction. They both rely very very heavily on their reference images, but still it was incredibly soothing even just to try translating things from pic to "paint". I did them after listening to some video podcasts that inspired me and empowered me, and I feel much more myself now.

I think it has been really easy to lose motivation recently for a lot of people and just powering through doesn't always work for all artists. I gave myself permission to just put things on a shelf for a little bit, breath, and now I'm refocused and ready to dive back in.

The first is a reference image I used for one of last year's challenges back when Will was discovering tracks in the snow unlike anything he'd ever seen before (remember that one?), and the second is a mourning dove from a photo snapped and posted on Facebook by the Rangers at the Shenandoah National Forest in Virginia, USA.

@Asyas_illos Please note that if you upload an image that is resized and it's blurry, if you simply click on the image it will open the original image to see it in all its detailed glory in a new window... I'm not sure what Jake, Will, and Lee use to view the entries for each challenge contest, but I'd be surprised if they didn't use @Chip-Valecek 's slideshow presentation instead of the thread itself. I'm pretty sure Chip uses the actual images for the slide show he assembles instead of the resized versions used by the forum interface's threads.

Chip, that's awesome news!!! Whew! I'm sure you were quite relieved!! Thank-you so much for the slideshow!