Illustration Friday: Dusty

© Copyright Alicia Padrón 2010

Looks like someone forgot to take off his dirty shoes

and wipe clean his toy duck before

getting in the house.

Mother Goose? Other Goose!

I have been a fan of J. Otto Seibold since he came on the children's picture book scene with Monkey Business. His artwork was so fresh and inspired me in new and different ways. In my opinion, J. Otto's work broke new ground on both children's as well as digital illustration.

He is still coming out with fresh and exciting and different new work! J. Otto's newest book is "Other Goose: Re-nurseried and re-rhymed! Chidren's Classics", his re-imagining of Mother Goose. When I came home from a trip last week, my husband had some gifts waiting for me and this book was among them, lucky me!

Check out some of the book here in a slide show presentation (scroll down and you will see it) or pick up the book on Amazon.

I Love Geckos

A couple of months ago I was in Hawaii on vacation....well, I guess everyone goes there for vacation....(wish there were business trips to Hawaii!) Anyway, while I was there I browsed through the children's book section of the local bookstore to see if I could find some picture books that were different than what I see at home. Something with local flavor.

I came across a couple of books by local artist Don Robinson, who is a very talented fine artist and also a children's book illustrator. I just fell in love with this particular book "G is for Gecko" partly because I love little lizards and partly because of the very creative perspective that Don used in this book to convey the tiny Gecko's VERY BIG world.

The story about this gecko and his adventurous Hawaiian day is also an alphabet book. He gets shooed out of his house, almost gets stepped on by hula dancers, says hi to a sea turtle, etc., before returning to his house for a good night sleep on a pair of zoris. What I am reminded of as I browse through this book is Alicia's post on Wednesday in which she said how important it is for the artist to take a child into a wonderful world using characters, angles, perspective and composition to make images that grab you at first glance.

Don Robinson has done just that in this charming and colorful book. The colors and images of Hawaii shine through and the world through the gecko's eyes is big and bold and imaginative.

Don Robinson was born and raised on O'ahu and has been an artist and illustrator for over twenty-five years. He has illustrated numberous local children's books and his artwork can be seen throughout local galleries.

A Present for Milo: iPad App

A shiny new gadget entered our house at the holidays - an iPad. It was an unexpected gift, so I wasn't sure where to even start looking for ebooks or other apps that might suit our 2 yr. old (who LOVES any gadget, of course!).
I found 'A Present for Milo' through Joy Chu's amazing Got Story Countdown blog. She highlighted this wonderful interactive app - and I highly recommend reading every post about it.
Mike Austin wrote and illustrated this gorgeous interactive book. His style is so rich, the story is simple enough that all the interactive parts (and there are A LOT) make sense and don't crowd the storytelling aspect. The reading, by the author, is natural and lively. We've played this over and over - entertaining both of us.
I'll be holding all future apps up to this standard - and I'm not sure how many will hit the mark.

Telling a story

© Copryright Alicia Padrón 2010

I often get asked this question, "What should I include in my children's book portfolio?" and my answer is always the same. Animals, kids, anything else you love to draw... but don't forget to always try tell a story with your art.

But what does that really mean? And why is telling a story so important?

When you illustrate a book you are given a beautiful gift. You have the opportunity to visually tell the story you want to tell. Of course you have to illustrate the writer's words but a great illustrator always finds a way to say more. There has even been cases were the art says something completely different than the text, so there are two parallel stories being told.

The important thing to understand is that, as visual artists, we have the responsibility to take the child into a wonderful world. Remember that some of these kids don't even read yet so they are "reading" the book through your art. The art has to speak to them. Has to spark their imaginations and has to make them curious as to what comes next in the story.

Your portfolio should be no different. You want to tell a story with your art. Even though each page of your portfolio is not linked, you want to individually make a statement with each image. Images that tell stories speak to both young and older audiences. There is something about them that make you wonder and always raises questions:

Why are the characters there? How are they feeling? What will the do next?

Like with the sketch above. I knew I wanted to have a kid and a dog asking for three wishes. There are tons of ways to make that point across, but by experimenting with characters, angles, perspective and composition you can make a so-so image be a wonderful image that grabs you right then at first glance and makes you ask those questions. Why are the characters there? How are they feeling? What will the do next?

Always try to think of situations when creating art for your portfolio. Think beyond the obvious. What are the characters feeling at the moment? Is my art telling you this?

Make the characters interact with one another. Imagine you are the director of a film and just yelled "action!". Actors don't just turn around, look at the camera, stand still and smile do they? No, they act. They interact. They are interesting and alive. Your art should be no different.

We are so lucky to be able to illustrate for children. I'm sure you all have fond memories of a favorite book you had as a child. And I bet you that even tough the story was amazing it was the art that spoke to you. The images are still imprinted in your mind as if it was yesterday, aren't they? How powerful is that?

Don't take your images lightly. Always make the best of them.

Drawing For Kids - 1 of 5 by Will Terry

Check out this series of five videos by the fun Will Terry.
Here he teaches Elementary Kids how to draw. Fun stuff!
I've posted 1 of 5 but you can find all 5 at Youtube. =o)

Clever Jack Takes the Cake

Since the holidays, my son and I have been reading Clever Jack Takes the Cake, written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by G. Brian Karas. The text is quite long, but the adventure story pays off with humor, heart, and beautiful illustrations.

They are rendered in gouache and pencil (and what looks like a bit of cut paper?) and very befitting the fairy-tale setting. It's just a small part of the story, but if you know any little ones with a strawberry allergy, it would be a nice bonus for them too.

Posting via email

If you have a blog in blogger then you can take advantage of this easy way of posting. Just send an email and voila you get an instant new post on your blog.

I found about this a few weeks ago when I wasn't home and was at a place with no internet connection. I needed to post that day and only had my handy dandy iphone with me, which is almost as good as a notebook as I'm sure Steve would agree. ;o)

So here is how it's done:

When you are in the dashboard and are able to see all your blogs in blogger, look for a small envelope icon just next to the title of your blog and click on it.

A new window appears that lets you create some secret words which will be added to a new email address you are creating. Make sure not to loose this and not share it. I'm sure you got the point by the term secret words.. You don't want strangers posting as you on your blog. That would be bad. ;o)

Click "save".

Now the email address you created will look something like this:

YourUserName.YourSecretWord.blogger.com

Now to the fun part!

Go to your email.

Create a new email.

Add the email address you just created to the recipient's email box.

Don't forget the subject of the email because that will be your title for the post.

Then on the body of the email, write your post.

Hit send.

Now run, open your blog and see, it should be there. :o)

tip: if you are posting via your iphone, remember to delete the "sent from my iphone" part. I forgot to do that when I posted the first time. Hee...

The Months

After reading Kathy's post on Monday about picture books that feature seasons of the year, I searched my bookshelf to see if I had any that picture books that related to the theme. And guess what? I came across MY copy of Kathy Weller's book The Months, Fun with Friends All Year 'Round!

I know she mentioned her book in her post on Monday but I thought maybe we could toot her horn a little...afterall, she is one of our own! I scanned in several of the spreads that I just loved. Unfortunately my scanner is not a large format scanner, so these images are cropped, but you can see just how adorable her characters are. All the paintings are so beautiful, with a delicate touch and soft feel. So fun and playful!

January brings the snow,

Makes our feet and fingers glow.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

Fills the children's hands with posies.

Fresh October brings the pheasant,

Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

The illustrations are accompanied by Sara Coleridge's poem "The Months" which was first published in the 1834 collection "Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children." Don't you just

love that little pheasant!

I'm a Big Brother!

I didn't have any month or season books to add to the theme this week, but I do know that my year includes a new addition arriving in late Spring. In anticipation of baby #2, my sister thoughtfully gave my son this book for Christmas. I'm a Big Brother, written by Ronne Randall and illustrated by Kristina Stephenson is a great picture book to get him used to the reality of baby - not just in my tummy! I've tried reading a few new baby books without success but my sister really picked a winner here.
The story focuses on the little boy having to wait (and wait, and wait) for baby to grow big enough to play with. They kindly show the mother looking a little frumpy, and Daddy changing a diaper - a dash of reality is always nice.
I love the sensitive gestures on all these characters - she makes poses on simply designed characters express so much. There's also an iPhone app, which we may check out ourselves this week - although our new iPad is the hotter item these day around here (more to come on that next week!).

Tomie dePaola award- Heidi

© Copyright Alicia Padrón 2011

This is my submission for the Tomie dePaola award this year. The text chosen was the opening of Johanna Spyri’s Heidi!

Heidi was my absolute favorite when I was a little girl. I posted a bit more about this illustration on my blog today. If you'd like to read more you can by clicking here.

This is the text we had to illustrate:

"From the pleasant town of Maienfeld a footpath leads up through shady green pastures to the foot of the high peaks that gaze down solemnly and majestically on the valley below. Anyone who sets out in the path will soon catch the keen fragrance of low mountain herbs and grasses, for the footpath rises straight and steep to the Alps.

One bright, sunny June morning, a tall, sturdy-looking young woman, evidently a native of the mountains, was climbing this narrow path. She led by the hand a little girl, whose cheeks glowed as if there were a ruddy flame under deep-tanned skin. And what wonder? In spite of the hot June sun, the child was bundled up as if she were to confront the sharpest frost. She could not have been five years old, but it was impossible to tell anything about her natural figure, for she wore two or three dresses, one over the other, and a big red cotton scarf around her neck; her feet were lost in heavy hobnailed shoes, and the little girl looked quite shapeless as she made her hot and laborious way up the mountain."

Hope you all like it! :o)

Happy New Year 2011

Hello friends.
I too thought of "months" books when contemplating our first week of the new year posting.
In honor of my beloved son, Kevin, who passed away on Nov. 1st I want to share one of his favorite books.

"Kevvy" absolutely loved stories and we read this particular book many times together.

Kipper's new year's resolution is to not throw snowballs at Tiger (which he doesn't keep btw). Kipper and Tiger explore the months of the year with Kipper taking photos to capture memories. It is a delightful story that will teach the months while keeping children amused with the antics the two of them get up to. And as usual, can the illustrations be any more endearing? Mick Inkpen has such a talent for weaving sweet scenes, humour, and childhood innocence.
I love the ending and the last "photo" of the year. Hint: Tiger gets his snowball revenge. ;o)


Happy New Year everyone. I hope this year brings you peace, joy, prosperity and good health.

For my sweetie.

Kevin Fulcher Jr.
Feb 1, 1995- Nov. 1 2010

Children's books about the seasons of the year

The beginning of the new year reminds me of my book The Months, which features a spread for every month of the year. It got me to thinking about what other picture books are out there that feature the seasons of the year? I am particularly interested in books which feature ALL of the months of the year, like The Months does, not just one particular season. I found this blog post which talks about four such books. I also found some other books worth checking out, all with the same theme.

I haven't looked at any of these books yet but I thought I'd post a list of the books I found, in case you would like to look for them yourself on your next visit to the library!

•Skip Through the Seasons by Stella Blackstone

•Around the Year by Elsa Beskow

•Around the Year by Tasha Tudor

•Circle of Seasons by Gerda Muller

•Our Seasons by Grace Lin

•Four Seasons Make A Year by Anne Rockwell/ Illustrated by Megan Halsey

...and lastly, here is a link to my book about the seasons of the year,

•The Months, Fun With Friends All Year 'Round,  by Sara Coleridge and illustrated by yours truly!

I hope you enjoy these books with your young one, or by yourself!

Happy New Year!

As 2010 comes to a close, the PBJ's would like to thank all of you who follow our blog and leave such wonderful comments. We wish you a fun, creative and peaceful New Year!

Link Love: Anne Rockwell on Got Story Countdown

There's nothing I like better about this time between Christmas and New Years than reading. Amazingly, I didn't ask for a single book this year - my mind has been utterly scattered. Rather than lose out, I went back searching for an extended interview that I didn't have time to fully enjoy when it was posted in November. I highly recommend curling up with the Got Story Countdown interviews with Anne Rockwell. Got Story Countdown did an amazing job of looking at many angles of Anne's career and interviewing not only her, but the many illustrators she has worked with. I feel like I learned something new about many different areas - reading, illustrating, the collaboration process, writing, life.

The image above is by Anne, from her own blog. The funny thing for me is that I had an Anne Rockwell illustrated book as a child, beloved by me - The Girl with a Donkey Tail. I was a voracious reader, but actually owned and remembered just a few illustrated books. Until I was learning more about children's illustration when I entered the profession, I had no idea of her long, broad, and notable career as an author/illustrator. And then until I read that interview, I had no idea that I had actually worked with her son, Oliver, at my first post-college job at an animation studio (where I met my husband as well). What a funny world of seeming coincidences, is it not?

Sneak Peek

I'm at a place right now that has no wifi or Internet connection. 

So I tried to find a way to post using my iPhone. Thing is, I couldn't post a picture. But after looking I found a way to post via email and the picture posted is an attachment. 

I have no idea if this will work, hope so.. :)
If it does work, I'll share with you guys how it's done on another post. 

The illustration above is a small section of an illustration I created recently for the Tomie dePaola award.  The theme this year is Heidi and I really couldn't resist! She was my first love when I was little. 

It's not a very good picture as it's a photo of my computer screen. I promise to post the entire image soon. 

Hope you all have a lovely week and Happy New Year to all!!

Merry Christmas!

Cocoa Time

Happy Holidays to all my PBJ ladies, and all of you who read our blog.

I hope in the midst of all your hectic holiday preparations you find a little moment like this.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all the warmest holiday season.
From me and the PBJ's! :o)

Merry Christmas! Olive the other Reindeer!

One of my favorite 'contemporary classics' in the realm of children's books is "Olive the Other Reindeer" by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh. First it was released as a book, then it became an animated holiday TV special (with Olive voiced by Drew Barrymore, with many other actors of note in the cast), and then it became a bevy of licensed merchandise (of which I personally have an advent calendar and greeting cards!)

Enjoy some Olive animated clips here:
http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/olive_the_other_reindeer.htm#

Check the original book out on Amazon (you can pick up a copy used for a buck)!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Olive%2C+the+Other+Reindeer&tag=ovgcom08-20&index=dvd&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

A Doggy Christmas

Here is some art I made for my girlfriends in Bible study. We each have a dog and I was inspired one day by a doodle I had done of Kassie the Collie when she was visiting at my house.

Well, one thing led to another and I used the characters I drew of each of the dogs and created a repeat pattern for gift wrap and gave each dog a toy wrapped in the paper this week for Christmas. The dogs loved it! :)

The wrap was quick and dirty and not particulary Christmassy, but with the characters on separate layers and the wonders of photoshop, I decided to group them together in a Christmas card.

My dog is the Airedale named Mack. He came to me as a rescue in June. I drove up to Oregon from the Bay Area to pick him up, trusting the rescue group who told me he was a really good dog. Here is a picture of what he looked liked when I first saw him. Oh, he was skinny! We took two days to drive home and he slept the entire way he was so exhausted from running as a stray for who knows how long.

Well, here he is today! He has gained 15 pounds and grew in some hair on his legs.

In November we had a new Petco move into our neighborhood and they had a photo shoot special where you could get your dog photographed against a white screen. He is still a puppy and gets very excited if a blade of grass moves, so it wasn't easy to get him to sit for a portrait.

The photographer was sooooo patient and managed to get six great shots of him. Several had to be cropped because I was in the shot holding his rear end down so he wouldn't move. Isn't he cute? What a great dog he has turned out to be.

Great links- A Portfolio Makeover

I've mentioned several times in the past what a big fan I am of Christopher Denise's work. I don't know if you know but besides making beautiful books he also blogs.

He recently posted about portfolios and what it takes to have a critical eye when it come to your own work. Updating and editing portfolio pieces and leaving only your best work is no easy task. He starts by saying less is in fact more and he found a solution on how to pick the best pieces. Click here if you want to know more.

Brontorina

A couple of months ago I drove up to Marin County (California) for the author signing of "Baby Me" which was illustrated by our own Alicia Padron. While I was waiting for the festivities to begin, I began browsing through the picture book section, which is very dangerous for my bank account, as I tend to buy too many books.....I tried to limit myself and chose just a couple. The minute I laid eyes on "Brontorina," I knew I had to have it. Written by James Howe and illustrated by Randy Cecil, this book is all about dreams and obstacles and believing it can happen....with a little help from your friends.

It's always the art that attracts me to a picture book and Bronterina just popped off the shelf with it's graphic flair and adorable character. Not only is Bronterina (who wants to be a ballerina in the worst way) too large for the dance studio, but her character can barely be contained in the pages of the book. Randy Cecil has used the contrast of the tiny children and the elegantly cropped images of the dinasour to really give the reader the feel of how incredibly large this dinasour is. The book was painted in oils and there is a fine texture to the paintings that give the pages a soft, atmospheric feel.

Randy Cecil knew as a very young boy that writing and illustrating children's books was what he wanted to do. At the age of four he began writing letters with pictures to some of his favorite illustrators telling them that he loved their work and that this was what he wanted to do. Uri Shulevitz and Joel Schick wrote really nice letters including pictures back to him, which he said helped reinforce the feeling that this was something that he could do. He has illustrated many picture books and is the author and illustrator of "Duck" and "Gator."

You can see more of his art on his website.

Carmine: A little more red

I feel like I must have blogged about Carmine before, but I could think of no other book I wanted to blog about more today. My son has been solidly hooked on this Melissa Sweet book for the past week although he's been 'reading' it since he was just a few months old. It's a wonderful abecedarian play on Little Red Riding Hood. Each time we come back to it, he enjoys the depth of the story more.
Above are some beautiful character studies of Carmine, the main character, and a bit of her Granny too. Below is a sketch of a layout, and beyond that, the final art. These three images came from Jama Rattigan's awesome interview with Melissa Sweet last year.

It's the layers of story, dialogue, and image that have made this a great book to grow with. I've read this book at least 100 times now, and I always find a new detail that makes me smile - or think of new approaches as an illustrator.
In my opinion, Melissa does some of the best illustrated 'talk bubbles'. The maps at the front and back of the book are not to be overlooked either. She comes up with some zany sounds and illustrations of screams, yip-yaps, etc. throughout. I noticed this in Tupelo as well. It's the little songs and chances to play different voices to my son that make her books SO fun to read over and over. I also have a lot more patience reading a story repeatedly when I adore the art and the story.

Feeling slow?

I was driving in a hurry out my Sister in Law's house a couple of days ago when I spotted a slow moving something on the road. I stopped the car to take a better look and saw this cute sloth. How about that?!

He was - ok, don't know if it was a "he" but it somehow reminded me of Beau Bridges so a he it is.. ;o) - so adorable and looked so in peace. He looked at me, looked at the kids, looked both ways and continued walking. Lazily stretching his front paws one after the other on the pavement.

It got me thinking that he looked so content and unaware of the fast moving/crazy world around him. I could swear he was smiling. Little things like this always make me think twice about what's important.

I took a couple of pictures with my iphone and then decided to skip the errands I was supposed to do and instead slowly drove home, played some music and talked with the kids about silly stuff and life.

I suggest you do the same. Take your time and enjoy your surroundings. Be a sloth from time to time! :o)

Don Weller

My father is artist Don Weller. It's hard for me to hold back the bragging when it comes to my dad. He is extremely talented and prolific. He has had an amazing (and I do mean, an AMAZING) career. He did tons of print design and illustration in Los Angeles in the 1960's, 70's and 80's -- Time magazine, multiple TV Guide's and a series of U.S.P.S. postage stamps for one of the Olympics, to name a few. He has also illustrated a few children's books in his time, too. Today, I realized with surprise I've never blogged about his art here before.

I did a search on Google to locate some links to his children's books (which I found) but I also came across this recent blog post. I've never read this blog before, and I'm really happy I found this.

Overview of Don's career by Greg Newbold (easy to read blog post with pretty pictures)

Part Two of the above post, centering on Dad's current career as a painter of western art

One last post (same blog) about my dad's work

Here are some of the children's books my dad has illustrated:


A Cowboy's Night Before Christmas


Phantom Of The Opera (Sorry, no photos here, unfortunately!!)


Professor Fergus Farenheit and his Wonderful Weather Machine


Don's work on Stock Art portfolio


See Don's most recent work here: Western paintings

Hope you enjoyed this peek into my dad's work!

Step by Step

If you ever need motivation to get yourself organized, watch an episode of "Hoarders." It will scare the procrastination right out of you! Over the summer I had my hardwood floors refinished and had to move everything out of the first floor of my house which included a piano. The furniture and piano was the easy part, as I hired professionals to transfer everything to my garage and back into my house several weeks later. The hard part was putting back all the clutter. Not real clutter, but when you have a clean slate to work with, it's hard to bring all the "stuff" back into your house. I kind of liked the minimalist look.

I got most of it done, but my bookcase that stores my collection of picture books and artist reference books was a big mental roadblock. Lots of work carting all the books back into the house. I told myself I'd go through them and donate the ones I didn't really want anymore. A rather large undertaking. I procrastinated for months, looking at the poor things stored in my garage in bags and boxes everyday. A big pile of stuff now cluttering up my garage. But my fear was that putting them back on the shelf was also going to look like a big messy eyesore.

My sister Sherri, who is an interior designer, wrote a creative post about bookshelves on her blog. She talked about arranging books by color which really inspired me. So in came all the books from the garage. I sorted and donated and put the books back on the shelf and arranged them by their colors. Much easier on the eye, and actually much easier to find books I'm looking for!

While I was sorting through all the books, I came across some very old issues of Step-By-Step Magazine, which unfortunately is no longer in publication. I used to love the articles about illustrators and their process. This magazine was popular before artists had websites and blogs to talk about how they created their art. My favorite issue was with artwork by the Swiss artist Etienne Delessert. He and his wife, designer Rita Marshall, have collaborated for years creating the most beautiful children's art. I remembered that he had such rich texture in his work and people were always asking him how he got that effect.

He admitted that at first he wanted to keep it a secret, because in his early days of being the new kid on the block, he didn't want to reveal a technique that he had made up and that no one else was using. But finally, Milton Glaser was able to get him to tell how he got such incredible richness in his work.

After inking his drawing with sepia ink, he roughly lays down watercolor, not caring if there are brush strokes. He then wraps a tiny portion of an old cotton handkerchief around his index finger, wets the fine cloth with his tongue, rubs it lightly on his hand, and begins erasing the color, smoothing it out, softening it, blending it as he creates texture. After the painting is completely finished in watercolor, he then goes back in with colored pencil.

His website has a large gallery of his incredible work. There is a video of him working if you go into the "News" section. Unfortunately it is in French, but you can see a master artist at work just the way he described in Step-by-Step magazine which was published in 1993.

Link Love: PiBoMo and Holli's Tips

In November Tara Lazar kicked off the 2nd annual Picture Book Idea Month. Sadly, I only lasted about 10 days - but those 10 days STILL generated so many great ideas and got me thinking about future book ideas. I'll be doing it again next year, and hopefully I'll last the whole month on a 2nd attempt! The good news for all of you is that Tara's blog has a whole month of amazing posts to inspire and motivate you.


And... for the month of December, Holli Conger is posting daily tips for illustrators. Holli's advice and insight is always awesome, so I'm eagerly reading her posts every day - you should too!

From the sketchbook..

© Copyright Alicia Padrón

A little drawing from my sketchbook.

These three seemed to appear out of nowhere and I kind of love them. :o)