I love getting ready for the annual big night. . . catching a ferry into Seattle. . . the nervous energy. Will they like it? Will I embarrass myself? Each year we have the opportunity to have our work reviewed by a published author/illustrator with insider knowledge of what works and does not work for children’s literature portfolios. Having come out of teaching Digital Painting and Concept Art for the video game industry, my portfolio after retirement was generally not geared towards children. So I joined the SCBWI and started attending the monthly meetings and conferences.
It was an eye opening experience to have my portfolio shredded for not fitting in at all. And the most problematic was my tendency to wander around through different styles. Also the use of photo reference was apparently a big no no. Generally this could be attributed to the fact that my portfolio was largely built from Digital Art and Concept Art class demonstrations, so a variety of styles was more advantageous to the students. So I buckled down and began the process of finding an appropriate style and more importantly a consistency from image to image.
Year One looked like this:
These images were fairly well received in terms of digital painting skills, but the subject matter and variances in style were a major roadblock.
Year Two:
These were fairly well received, but the general consensus was that “team” work was not acceptable. The backgrounds were designed by Jason Nelson and the characters by Rachel Teigrob Willis. I art directed and did the painting. This type of team work is a given in the animation and game arts industries that I had been teaching in, so it had not crossed my mind that it would be discouraged for children’s publishing Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed, but left determined to come up with a style that was all me.
Year Three:
After licking my wounds a bit, I sat down with real pencil and paper and determined to start drawing my own characters. This may seem strange for someone in their 50s, but I only drew animals and landscapes, even as a child. I never imitated cartoon and comic book characters for some reason. The truth was my eyes were fixed on the backgrounds of every cartoon or animation I watched. I had little interest in what the characters were doing. But that excuse was not serving me any longer so I started the painful journey of drawing characters.
After one month, I had enough to head into Seattle for the Great Critique. My crit group leader was Richard Jesse Watson, who I admire greatly! When he looked at the pieces and said, “New Yorker” I was surprised and thrilled even though that was obviously not going to work for children’s art. But it did give me the proverbial wind in the sails to keep drawing. And draw I did! Day after day, week after week and the sketches stacked up going past a full ream of paper.
page 1
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Next Step. . .
I tried so many different styles, trying to discover something that I enjoyed but was also appropriate for children. At some point my designer son suggested I take a look at dribbble.com to see the retro and graphic style illustrations that were currently popular. I played around with it and at the April 2012 SCBWI-WA annual conference Master’s Class, I received a great review from Scott Magoon and Lucy Cummins, New York publishing house art directors!
Again I was thrilled, but this time the problem was me. I did not love it! I was beginning to realize that I love soft edges and textures, muted colors and gentle images. So, back to the drawing board.
Year Four:
I bounced around within a general direction on my quest during the remainder of 2012. . . from retro country kids and little cowboys. . .
to women in period dress. . .
to men in top hats. . .
to female elves with big hair. . .
and various women, girls. . .
and a princess here and there. . .
But the winner is:
And this was my mother’s bright idea! I mentioned that I needed more animals in the batch, to which she replied that perhaps I could put animals in period clothing, too. And so I did.
I believe that the pages of polar bear sketches were due to the coca-cola napkin handed to me with my ginger ale on a delta flight. It was pure white with just two black eyes and a black nose. And while I think colas in general are not great for the body, the napkin was captivating as a design piece.
As I sketched the group above I laughed that the nanny was being invited to join the family at The Great Exhibition, and that Papa Bear might be just a bit too fond of her. Most likely the result of too many hours of British period dramas on Netflix. I, along with everyone else, have been captivated first by steampunk several years ago, then period dramas covering the victorian era as well as the coinciding war in the states. I will be hanging out in this time period for the year, so let’s hope I will create a passel of pictures of polar bears, and their pleasantly genteel friends.
This post is soooooo good! Thanks Kathryn. The female elves w/big hair remind me of the early seventies – one of my school’s lunch ladies had big hair in a different color every month! Great stuff, keep it coming! BTW, are you doing 12×12 this year?
Thanks, Julie!! Oh, how I remember women with those tall, tall, teased and sprayed “hair-dos”! I enjoyed the 12 x 12 last year but I see she is charging a fee now, which I understand, but I’m not actually heading towards developing my own picture books. So I’ll keep focusing on individual illustrations. But it was fun meeting so many great people! Like you!
This is so interesting, to see your journey to perfect your portfolio. I definitely need to work on my people too, and I am impressed by how hard you worked at finding your style.
Thank you so much, Sylvia! It has been an interesting journey indeed. There have been many days when I was pretty sure I was kidding myself, that I would never get as good as I had hoped to be. So I wept, jousted at windmills, slapped myself around a bit, then jumped back in with both feet. Repeat ad nauseum. :) Now just who was it that said art was fun! ; ) And yes, take up the challenge and don’t give up. Ever.
Gorgeous. I love your polar bears. Thanks for sharing your process.
Thank you Hannah! Teaching 14 years built in my enthusiasm for people sharing their process. We all can learn from each other!
I love the diversity of styles as you progress through the years.
I hope that my pieces can reach such high standards one day.
I’m sure they will, Rusty, especially if you refuse to give up! I have to say that the research I do almost daily, studying art and technique is the equivalent of a degree every few years. Never stop learning! :)
Thank you for sharing your portfolio journey, it’s fun to see the twists and turns in your art as you explored different styles. The Polar Bear family is gorgeous.
Thank you for stopping by with your kind words, Heather! The first Creative Director I worked with told me to enjoy the process because clients and bad print jobs can destroy the final piece. I learned that the hard way when a large poster illustration, that had taken weeks using color pencils, came back with a major color shift on the printed piece. I wept. Then I remembered his words. Process, experimentation, stretching our voice, that is how we learn and grow!
Kathryn, what an intrepid explorer of self you are!!! I found this post via Julie Rowan Zoch on 12×12. Thank you for sharing your journey (warts and all – altho’ I loved and admired every year’s portf). With your awesome talent and determination you are certainly on your way to success. I am 58 and am now entering my 2nd yr of fulltime pursuit of writing and illustrating. I was a principal and teacher (art & English) when our private school closed. I have such an eclectic art background I also need to refine my style. You have given me great motivation and encouragement. Thank you so much for sharing.
Laura, I am thrilled to have motivated and encouraged you! Being a teacher at heart like yourself, some days those are better words to hear than “nice art”, because the bottom line is we care about people. And we are the exact same age, so I know that on the one hand we are seasoned professionals, but on the other we are like twenty somethings just starting out. You go!
I found this fascinating. Thanks for sharing your journey. As a writer, and wanna-be artist, I get discouraged over the years spent in trying to “get it right.” Reading this post helped me put things back into prospective. The important thing is to keep going for it and keep finding your style.
That thought has kept running though the back of my mind when I do sit down to sketch. “Find my style.” And now I understand why that is important.
Your work is beautiful. Keep it up. And again, thanks so much for sharing your process. This is the first time I’ve actually visited your site. I’ll be back. =0D
Thanks Jackie, I’m glad you stopped by! I applaud you for your willingness to branch out from your writing to to embrace another artform. Being a writer you understand finding your “voice”. We even refer to typefaces as having a “voice” (at least we did back in the old days when I taught typography). Perhaps thinking of it that way helps bridge between the writing and the art. One of the things that helped me in the quest was to write down what it is that I am trying to say with my art, what emotions do I want to elicit, do I want to uplift and/or educate? Once I knew that my strongest desire was to make the world a better place, I knew instantly what styles I did not want to do and helped immensely to narrow the focus. I look forward to watching you find your visual voice!
Thanks Kathryn,
That’s good advice and something I’m going to really think about. What I want to say with my art. In all practicality, I did the same thing with my writing- having to decide what I really want to say, or not say.
I’ve loved drawing since I was in kindergarten. Maybe before. I always had a pad and pencil with me wherever I went. My way of keeping myself entertained when Mom had to run errands. I grew up dreaming of working for Disney one day. However, I’ve never had any formal training. I’ve just simply always did it. My hope now is to keep “doing it” and perhaps intertwine my writing and art together some day.
Never know, right?
Thanks for the advice.