Illustration Showcase and Conference Roundup

This year's SCBWI conference in Winchester was tremendously inspiring for book creators of all kinds, and notably so for artists. As this year's Illustration Showcase gallery goes online, here's a roundup of what happened for illustrators.

"Creepy Scrawley" Halloween Sketching

This year's Winchester Conference took place on 1st-2nd November. On one of the warmest Novembers on record, illustrators got off to a good start with an open air Halloween sketching activity before the Conference run by Paul Morton. Participants were given random spooky phrases to illustrate, and although I could only stay for a short time I had the chance to see a lot of suitably spooky sketches. 

A hat full of topics and one of Paul's sketches (photo's © Paul Morton)

2014-2015 Illustration Showcase

Once the doors of the Conference opened we were treated to the first delight - big congratulations to the 24 artists selected to participate in the 2014-2015 Showcase Exhibition! This year we were overwhelmed by the amount of quality entries and it was a tough decision for the judges to select the final shortlist. The selected pieces generated a lot of interest from the conference-goers and faculty alike, many prints ordered by attendees, raising an impressive total of £580 for the charity War Child. 

All the images are now visible online in the web-gallery.

Part of the Showcase

The showcase will be touring across the country over the next year. Check the SCBWI British Isles website and social media for updates on the locations and dates as they develop.

Keynote Speaker - Nick Butterworth

Our illustrator's keynote this year was acclaimed author/illustrator Nick Butterworth, creator of Percy the Park Keeper, Q Pootle 5 and a host of other bestselling characters. I think everyone who attended will agree that he was a simply marvellous presenter, entertaining, in depth and revealing. On the central stage Nick gave a fascinating and very funny relation of his career, the inspirations for his bestselling books and how they were developed. In a second Q & A session he went into more fascinating detail of the issues faced in developing stories for animation and his art techniques, including the joyful news that his favourite drawing paper is back on the market after years of unavailability. These are the kind of details that illustrators love to hear!

Nick Butterworth in action (photo © Candy Gourlay)

If you missed Mike Brownlow's fascinating interview with Nick read it here.

Illustration Panels & Workshops

The weekend workshops got off to a fine start with an Industry Panel discussion on the state of publishing for picture books, featuring Louise Jackson (Walker), Sam Arthur (Flying Eye), Eric Huang (Made by Me) Jude Evans (Little Tiger) and agent Penny Holroyde. Hosted by Mike Brownlow, the discussion was a fascinating coverage of the current state of publishing and market for illustrators, with each panelist explaining their processes of selection, preferences and thoughts regarding the future. 

The Picture Book Industry Panel

There were two workshops which focused on picture books at the Conference.  The first was run by the wonderful Paul Stickland teaching the art of the pop-up book. Participants were guided through the stages of engineering and technical challenges presented by pop-ups, and over the course of a day created their own sample characters. 

Creating pop-up books with Paul Stickland (photo © Bridget Strevens-Marzo)

At the same time, illustrator Mike Brownlow joined with publisher Jude Evans of Little Tiger Press to host a workshop on developing picture book plots. Participants were split into teams of three and given a series of suggested prompts to form the basis of story ideas. Each group was encouraged to use teamwork to develop stories, and at the end everyone presented their ideas and work, some of which were really excellent. 

Member of the Year

One of the most fantastic bits of news at the Conference was that Anne-Marie Perks has won the Member of the Year Award. The announcement took place at the height of the Saturday evening party. As Anne-Marie is currently out of the country, conference-goers were entertained by a recorded video interview. Anne-Marie has dedicated years as Illustrator Coordinator for the British Isles chapter, initially working alone, organising and promoting activities for artists within our chapter. Now, with a support committee of dedicated volunteer illustrators, things are developing even further for illustrators in SCBWI. This is all thanks to the dedication and hard work of our Illustrator Coordinator. Well done Anne-Marie! 

A video of Anne-Marie accepting the Award from Loretta Schauer was broadcast at the Conference.

The prize plate! (© Anne-Marie Perks)

Illustrator One-to-One Reviews 

There were 20 minute individual illustrator reviews available with one of five industry professionals:  Jude Evans of Little Tiger, Penny Holroyde of the Caroline Sheldon Agency, Louise Jackson Art Director at Walker Books, Sam Arthur publisher of Flying Eye and Nobrow and experienced author-illustrator Mike Brownlow.

If illustrators and author-illustrators need some objective and positive advice about where to go next with their work, a personal review is well worth the extra cost.

Competitions

All submitted works and portfolios were examined and selected by the faculty of agents, editors and publishers at the Conference. This year's conference competition winners were:

Melany Pietersen for Best Portfolio, selected at the open portfolio display. 

Melany's submission for the Showcase

Jion Sheibani in the "My Creative life" comics competition, for her comic series "ProCATsination", currently being serialised on Words & Pictures.

Congratulations to everyone involved in Winchester. It was a marvellous conference with excellent presenters and some fantastic artwork on display. The Conference was full of inspiration for illustrators, both those starting out and seasoned professionals. 

Check the British Isles page on the SCBWI website to keep up to date with more exciting Illustration Masterclass workshops over the coming year. If you'd like to get involved with illustration activities in SCBWI, volunteer for the illustration committee, or write illustration features for Words & Pictures, get in touch!

Making a Picture Book Dummy

Tools for making a dummy

As publishers lean more and more towards picture books both written and illustrated by artists, creating a presentable dummy to show illustrations and text together is an important skill for illustrators today. This week Margaret Sturton explains one method.




 

I have had a fair amount of experience in bookbinding sketchbooks but making a dummy book is a challenge. I think the problem lies in having images and text already on the page that have to be kept in order. I used to try sticking images into a sketchbook but the results were disappointingly messy and changes were time consuming. 

I learnt the method described below last year. Watching a tutor make one made the learning process easier and the finished book was good enough to show editors and agents.

The main challenges of making a dummy book like this are the range of possible mistakes. I have stuck a dummy book together so all the pages were back to front. I have sliced off text and once when cutting down the book I strayed irretrievably from the ruler. I now check the order and orientation of the pages over and over again.

The whole process takes around 30 minutes to an hour. Good luck!

  Materials

 

Metal ruler

Embossing tool or equivalent blunt point

Box wood modelling tool or other blunt knife for folding. A butter knife would do just as well

Sharp Stanley knife or scalpel

Cutting board

32 pieces of double sided sticky tape – length about half the height of the page (10-11cm for A4)

 
Your book printed out or photocopied as double page spreads. I usually scale down the pages to 70 or 80%. You should have a total of 16 pages if you are printing a double spread to A4 or A3 and have included end pages and title pages.

Method

This is a fairly easy way of mocking up a dummy book without the hassle of trying to split up the spreads as a publisher would. 

1) Put the cover to one side. If you have the front and back cover on separate sheets, don’t worry, you can sort that out later. The other pages should be stacked in order, first to last page.

2) Take each page in turn, image side up, and score down the centre line using the embossing tool and a ruler.

Keep the ruler in place, fold and flatten the centre line using the modelling tool so the page lies flat. 

Stack the folded pages in order. Do not worry if the pages look wonky. That will be sorted out later.

3) Take a page from the top of the stack. Stick a strip of tape to the folded page close to the spine. 

Work through the rest of the stack, from the back to the front of the book. Keep checking the orientation of the pages.

4) Stick each page to the one in front using the guides on the cutting board to keep the spine lined up. Work from front to back. 

5) Fitting the cover is the next step. Using the cutting board as a guide, score two lines, 2mm from either side of the centre line. 

Use the knife to flatten the folds. You need a snug fit so make the fold for the spine smaller than the book.

6) Making sure the cover and book are the same way round; stick the cover to one end-page along the spine. 

 Flip the book over and stick the cover to the other end-page along the spine. To make this as neat as possible, stick the tape close to the spine.

If your front cover and back page are separate, do the steps above with a blank sheet of paper. Cut and stick the images on afterwards.

7) Mark pencil guides on the edges of the book to show where the images end. Use the cutting board to square the book. Trim down the top and bottom with a metal ruler and scalpel. Cut away a couple of pages at a time. Work from the spine to the outer edge and remove the scraps as they come loose.

 
8) Mark guides for the final rough edge and trim down.

9) Stick tape inside each set of blank pages.  

Remove the tape backing and stick the pages together, working from the back to the front so the final book lies flat.

The finished dummy

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Margaret Sturton is a writer/illustrator based in Winchester. Her website is at www.margaretsturton.co.uk

What I did last summer - The Highlights Foundation Advanced Illustrators Workshop

The annual series of Highlights Foundation workshops for children's writers and illustrators takes place amongst rural scenery in Honesdale in the USA. Here, our Illustrator coordinator Anne-Marie Perks reports on last year's Illustrator Workshop.

As part of my continuing professional development, I commit to at least one class a year, to further my skills and to be inspired. It’s not all about learning a new mark making technique, story development strategy or digital technique. It’s also about the camaraderie. Fellow illustrators and writers working together on honing our craft, sharing stories and industry news at various levels of our careers, and taking time out to experiment, explore and have lots of fun. Two years ago the Highlights Foundation, after many years of the successful writing workshops, started their very first Advanced Illustrators Workshop. I feel privileged to have attended both the very first workshop in 2011 and their second in 2012, taking place over the American Labor Day weekend (first weekend in September).

The foundation is part of Highlights for Children, Inc. They publish Highlights Magazine, 6 - 12, High Five, 2 - 6, and Hello, 0 - 2 years of age, and the book imprint, Boyds Mills Press. Kent Brown, executive director of the Foundation and editor in chief emeritus for Highlights Press, is very active in several organisations that promote education reading. During the workshops, Kent often stopped by to talk to students and faculty during meal times dressed in his characteristic denim jeans and braces. All workshops are now run in the Barn on what used to be the Myers’ family farm just outside of Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

View of the Barn, Highlights Foundation Conference Centre.

There are a few things that stand out in a typical Highlight Foundations workshop. They do everything they can to make you feel welcomed and comfortable. The meals are prepared with mostly organic and locally sourced food. Every meal is a piece of art. Everyone from the kitchen to the faculty are committed to you being able to focus entirely on your craft. Each attendee is assigned a mentor to work with over the five days you are there and every mentor has received recognition through a Caldecott prize, a Coretta King honour or some other prestigious award that highlights their work. The faculty for the very first workshop in 2011 was Eric Rohmann, Floyd Cooper, Melanie Hall, Suzanne Bloom, and Lindsay Barrett George along with several special guests. The 2012 faculty was Eric Rohmann, Floyd Cooper, Kelly Murphy and Ruth Sanderson with special visits from Donna Jo Napoli and David Weisner, and Neal Porter from Neal Porter Books, imprint of Roaring Brook Press. The workshops cover not only art techniques but also address dummy preparation; storyboarding; continuity; portfolio expectations; character development; self-promotion; and finding a market. Attendees range from on the edge of being published to published a lot, leading to informal critique sessions and discussions throughout the five days.

So how does this journey begin? With a submitted application to the Highlights Foundation. From there, the faculty vets all submissions and chooses who to invite to the Advanced Illustrators Workshop. Once you are approved and invited, then you pay your workshop fees. You’ll get several mailings informing you who your mentor is, the time set aside for you to meet; about 45 minutes, and a reminder to bring your portfolio and any work you want feedback on. Though you are assigned a mentor, other faculty members will look at your work if asked. There are scholarships available for those who need it. Be aware that if you intend to apply for a scholarship, apply early.

Highlights Press back door used by staff going between Highlights Press and across the green, Boyds Mills Press.

Everyone from the kitchen to the faculty are committed to you being able to focus entirely on your craft.

Before the illustrators workshop officially begins, all attendees are invited to a tour of the beautiful old houses on Church Street in Honesdale where the editorial and design staff offices are. Across a shady green from Highlights Press is Boyds Mills Press. Art directors and editors talk about their magazines or books with a chance to preview the books and magazines that they publish. The most amazing piece of trivia from the tour is that every, yes, every piece of mail is answered and all the craft activities published in their magazine is tried out by staff physically making them. Every craft piece made and published is stored in Highlights’ archives. They are always looking for new craft activities to publish.

My cabin on the grounds of what used to be the founders farm across from the Barn.

Looking at the cabins from the woods. None of the cabins are too close allowing for quiet.

It is with excitement that faculty and students meet for the first time in the Barn over an amazing dinner. Every attendee is assigned a rustic cabin to themselves that includes lovely Pennsylvania decor, shelves full of books Highlights publishes and a work area for writing or artwork. This is just me, but I did keep my eyes open for bears reputed to populate the woods around there.

Workshop area inside the Barn.

All the facilitators were very giving of their time and expertise.

Every day begins with an art technique session facilitated by one of the faculty, about three hours. These sessions are hands on and all art materials are provided. You will end up producing a sample piece from each session. It is up to you whether you pursue taking your piece to final finished form or you keep it as a sample.
Reductive processes seemed to be the keyword last September. We began with prolific illustrator Kelly Murphy. The process included Wintergreen oil, a printer’s technique for transferring images, Crystal spray fix, watercolour and gel medium for sealing the paper.

Illustrator Kelly Murphy showing us her original art.

Kelly demonstrates reductive process, lifting highlights from a raw sienna midtone wash.

The next three mornings were led by Ruth Sanderson showing another reductive process that included sealing the paper with gesso medium after drawing out your image in prismacolor pencil. Then coloured using oil washes applied with cotton ear buds. Eric Rohman gave an in-depth talk on his lino printing process on the book, Kitten Tale and led us all into designing a small lino print. Floyd Copper showed yet another reductive technique in which oil washes, or sepia chalk in this case, are applied to sealed paper and areas of light are lifted with a gum eraser.

Clockwise: Facilitators Floyd Cooper, Eric Rohmann, Ruth Sanderson and Kelly Murphy.

The afternoons were filled with mentor appointments, individual work time and optional offerings in character design, storyboarding techniques, narrative development, talks by Neal Porter and a session with author illustrator David Weisner and author Donna Jo Napoli. Donna and David shared their evolving process between writer and illustrator responding to each other’s work, which will result in a graphic novel. An interesting exercise done in a small group portfolio critiques had the group decide on three of your best pieces to exhibit in the evening exhibition set out in the loft. Highlights provided table easels and cloth covered tables for the work. Note: the favourite pieces you’ve fallen in love with that you think are your best are rarely the ones that are chosen! Dinner was always preceded by drinks and snacks on the patio in front of a huge fireplace and old stone walls reminiscent of English rock walls.

Showcase exhibiting three pieces from each illustrator chosen by their small portfolio critique group.

Large outdoor fireplace at the barn. A fire was set every night.

On the walls in the barn are a few original paintings by the publisher’s illustrators. I sat in front of Floyd Cooper’s painting from The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars by Jean Merrill, in awe working out how he did it. Over the two Advanced Illustrator workshops I attended, my mentors were Floyd Cooper and Eric Rohmann. All the facilitators were very giving of their time and expertise.

Illustrator and Coretta Scott King award winner, Floyd Cooper.

On publication of this article, the 2013 Advanced Illustrators Workshop is taking submissions. Over the American Labor Day holiday you will work with children’s book illustrator E.B. Lewis, author illustrator Matt Tavares and art educator and children’s book designer, Joy Chu; all award winners. If you are interested in finding out more about this year’s Advanced Illustrators Workshop, follow the links for information and application forms for both the workshop and scholarships.

Anne-Marie Perks