Children's Illustration with Lisa Brown

I love looking for interesting videos on YouTube. Today I found this great one that I wanted to share with you.

We can see the talented Lisa Brown talking about all the books she has written and illustrated and I believe this is a class at The Academy Of Art University. She also shares her studio, her likes and dislikes in kids' books and explains how she works from thumbnails to finish art.

It's very interesting to see what she liked as a child and the books she creates now. What truly fascinates me is the fact that she really has a long line of varied work. Amazing, I love that. That's a talent not every artist has.

Oh and by the way, she is so right about the coffee mug and watercolor water. Has happened to me, for real! Hehe.. You'll know what I mean when you watch the video.

Enjoy! :o)

Postcard

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2012

(front)

This is a promotional postcard I recently sent out to publishing houses. Don't ask me why I thought of this scene because I have no idea... hee!

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2012

(back)

I really have a soft spot for that little penguin, he is a very determined little fellow. :o)

My Milk Toof

My Milk Toof is a magical book! Artist Inhae Lee created Ickle and Lardee, the two adorable main character teeth, and the amazing, cozy world of "My Milk Toof: The Adventures of Ickle and Lardee".

I was introduced to My Milk Toof by my friend and co-worker who had luck on his side at a random book sale. The minute I saw the book, I knew I was hooked!  I not only needed a copy for myself, but I knew I had found two new friends in these cute little teeth! I wanted to peek into their life! I wanted to read all of their cute stories! I wanted to sit on their sofa and draw on the walls with them! Maybe sip a little tea!

Turns out MMT has quite a ginormous following on Facebook and a well-populated blog (with lots and lots of picture story entries). For a studied peek behind the curtain, you can't miss this YouTube video  to see how Inhae makes the magic happen (2 minutes long and worth every second). The book, which was released about a year ago, is available on Amazon for about ten bucks, a steal.

As far as I am concerned, this is a contemporary classic. Evergreen, picture book entertainment right here, coming atcha with MMT. A fun book that EVERYONE (yes, everyone) can enjoy!


My Milk Toof:
Blog
Web site
Facebook page
YouTube teaser

Julie Andrews & Emma Walton Hamilton

A very interesting video interview with Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton. If you want to continue watching the other videos in this series, click here

A good day

© copyright Alicia Padrón

I'm so happy. A book that I thought would never come to be, will actually get to be. Kids will be able to hold it in their hands, blow out the candles and enjoy it!

I worked on this title at the beginning of last year. As soon as the book was done the publisher suddenly closed its doors. It happens. Not frequently thank God.. but it happens. I was left with this awful mixture of feelings, mostly sadness.

When you work on a book you put so much into it. Some people think they are just pretty pictures but they really are not.

You create characters that didn't exist before and you make them live in a world the author created. You think of the kids reading the book first and make the art for them. You know how important it is for kids to enjoy seeing the details and to "read" your images.

The rest is blah, unimportant business stuff. Of course work and pay matters but honestly, the most wonderful reward is knowing a kid will be in bed at night, eyes fixed on the book, dying to turn the page and see what comes next.

It's a good day today. :o)

What I'm working on

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

I can't show you much of course but here is a little peek at part of an illustration from the book I'm working on at the moment.
I'm having fun with this one. All books are so different, I just love that.

This story is set outdoors. It has been a challenge because the main character of the story can't move I so had to find ways to make it visually interesting. Sketching in different angles and perspectives, varying the time of the day, adding fun details and characters to the scene even though they are not in the story are some of the things I found help me keep it visually interesting.

I like the fact that things gets tough at times with certain projects because it pushes you to be creative.

The less you have to work with, the more creative ways you find to express yourself. :o)

Uncovered Cover Art

Gina touched on this cool new blog in her post the other day: today my mission is to give you a little bit of a deeper look into the Uncovered Cover Art blog and also into this new sub-genre of the art community submission blog that is singularly focused on children's literature. I love this idea for a blog/project, and this one is centered in on reinterpreting the covers of your favorite children's books and offers a deep, dark (and, well... chocolatey LOL) well to explore. Check it out! If you'd like to contribute, submissions guidelines can be found here.

In the recent past, I  have been aware of a couple of other similar blogs worth checking out. Both are now completed/ened projects, but lucky for us, the blogs are still available, and the art posts are still on display.

Terrible Yellow Eyes was focused on art created as an homage to Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. This finite project had a gallery exhibition at it's culmination (TBE was live from May 2009 to January 2010). The art on the TBE blog site, is at the very least inventive and imaginative, but, usually it's somewhere in the vicinity of stunning or breathtaking. So if you have not seen the blog, it's definitely worth a peruse. 

The other children's book art with fresh interpretations blog is (or was) The Picture Book Report. This blog project was created by artist Meg Hunt and featured several contributing artists, all of which were invited to become contributors at the start of the project. This one also has some really amazing work.

Meg's blog was juried, Cory Godbey's (Terrible Yellow Eyes) was not, as far as I know. So there are a few different ways people have test-driven this model, and I'm sure there will be many more.  Lucky for us, I'm sure there will be many more blogs of this genre in the future. Looking forward to it!

Quentin Blake

Quentin Blake answers some interesting questions. There's no audio on the first few seconds of the video for some reason but the rest is fine.

Enjoy!

p.s the "by me" on the top of the video is not really me. That's just how the video is featured on YouTube. Wouldn't that be something though? A dream come true to be able to be sitting in a room talking to him. :o)

"What I'm working on" week

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

Hi there! Continuing with our theme this week I will share a bit of what I'm doing at the moment. I can't name the books or the publishers at this time but I can talk a little about what kind of books they are.

I'm working on 3 books right now. Two of them belong to a new series of baby board books I will be illustrating! I am very excited with those and I'm really having a blast working on them. They are so cute and so much fun to do. I love doing board books for the very little ones. What you see above is a section from an illustration I created but we ended not using this character because the publisher decided to go with a younger baby, so I figured is ok to post it.

The third book I'm working on is a big book, that requires many illustrations and has to do with animals. It's great to get to do animals I usually don't do, like chameleons, cranes and magpies to name a few.

When I find a little free time (which is almost never, hee..) I've been experimenting with a new style. I love the idea of working in more than one style. I think is nice to change from working one way to another and want to be able to offer another style for projects that might call for it. So I'm just experimenting right now. I want this style to feel playful, have a bright color palette and a big bold line defining it as opposed to my usual style that doesn't really have a line showing.

© copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

So, that's it for now. I guess this explains why I sometimes do such short posts, LOL!

Thanks to all for visiting! :o)

And keep visiting this week to hear what our Gina and Deb are up to!

My Little Big Book

This post is a continuation of the conversation I started a couple of weeks ago.

I recently happened upon this iPad App called My Little Big Book (above shows main title screen). This App basically houses many children's books now in the public domain. It's easy to use, intuitive, and it's basically a children's writers' & illustrators' history lesson in an app. Check out these screenshots...

Here is the first screen after the title screen (above). This supplies an index of the books available. You can also search by Category. (See the menu strip at the bottom).

When you click on a book, you will be greeted with this screen (above). You have options to read the book, add to your 'bookshelf',  or download the book. You will need to download the book to view it offline. (I am not sure what the "add to my bookshelf" option provides for you, and the user must create an account in order to do this.) On the lower portion of this screen, there is also an option to see other books from same author, which is really helpful.

When you view the actual book, what you will be seeing is what looks like actual scanned pages from the books (see above). It's fun to see the artwork and design from these books in their original form. In one of the books I looked at, I came across a library marking that dated back to 1905!

This is a really neat App which provides a lot of value, and the most amazing thing of all is that it is FREE.

This app is very useful for moms of youngsters, those who make their career in children's entertainment, publishing and educational.

There is an option to upload your own book into the system as well. This could be very useful promotional option for and small publishers, writers, and illustrators! With 30,000 downloads thus far, I have high hopes that this App will only improve and continue to grow stronger.

http://www.mylittlebigbook.com

http://blog.mylittlebigbook.com/