2012 Midsouth Conference Art Intensive

 Martha Rago, Associate Creative Director for Harper Collins was our fabulous Art Director at the Fall conference this year. Word of her reputation was widespread and the 10 person max for the Intensive was filled within 3 days.

She gave our Artists the choice of illustrating a spread from one of two manuscripts. Besides the manuscripts she supplied helpful tips for pacing and creating a rough dummy, as well as developing character studies.

5 weeks before the Conference, sketches were sent to her for review. At the end of two weeks she wrote each participant a private detailed letter of one or two pages, with encouragement and suggestions for improvement.

The day of the Intensive she critiqued each illustration in the group setting, incorporating her sketch feedback and other helpful advice that applied to most illustrations in general. Her comments were thoughtful, honest and kind.

 Here are some samples of those before and after sketches with comments. Many thanks to Martha for her expertise!

Mary Uhles

 comments were to connect the image more with the words. She could not tell which dogs were curly and which were burley etc. Think about  exaggerating the descriptions in the image. She also said push the interest of the piece - does it just have to be dogs running over the hill or is there a way to put in even more story?

FINAL

Cheryl Mendenhall- Thumbnails

Cheryl Mendenhall sketch

recommended that characters be made younger to fit the manuscript and target audience and clarify the setting for the right hand corner spot.

FINAL

Detail

Detail

Rebecca Rae Mudd

Comment was to simplify backgrounds and make children younger

FINAL

Susan Eaddy

Comments were that B.Bear looked kind of like a gopher with his skinny arms and legs. Lolly looked too old. Type needed to have more consideration in the page and illustration design

FINAL

Kris Sexton

Martha's suggestion was to make the girl look a little younger, and Kris loved running with her suggestion of adding fairy tale characters into the background, with maybe little bit of mischief going on. 

FINAL

Illustrator Workshop Update

The Midsouth Region was supremely fortunate to have Laurent Linn, Art director for Simon & Schuster, come to Nashville for a day long workshop in June.  

Here's how it worked:

The goal was to create a finished picture book illustration by going through a speeded-up version of the basic process an illustrator and art director go through when creating art for a picture book.

Laurent assigned a manuscript, and the artists worked up character sketches and a full page spread from anywhere in the book. He critiqued the sketches via email, and our illustrators followed his suggestions.

The day of the workshop, each artist brought the original illustration, after having sent jpegs so we could project the images on screen.

Using a handy-dandy timer, Laurent spoke for 15 minutes about each piece, telling us what worked, and what needed attention, and kept up an ongoing dialogue with the artist on display. He was honest and extremely kind, and with every critique EVERYBODY learned some new nugget about what goes into making a spectacular illustration.

It was a fabulous day for our Midsouth Illustrators!

Here are some of the finals:

Mary Uhles

Meridth Gimbel

Danaye Shiplett

Steven Knudson

Kris Sexton

Cheryl Mendenhall

Wanda Johnson

Rebecca Rae Mudd