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Courtesy of the ASIFA - Hollywood Animation Archives: Illustrator Gustaf Tenggren

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  The core education of this membership site is 12 (home study)  lessons:  Make Your Marks and Splashes: A Power Course on Creating Effective Illustrations for Childrens Books, Magazines and Other Media for Children.  

This fun, practical unique online class will provide you with the basics of illustrating for children’s books, magazines and other media for children, and will help you with all of your art-making from now on.

Those editors and art directors at children’s book publishing houses want to see samples of your color work.  So expect to complete some finished, full color pieces for your story. You can upload your best piece from the course to this site, if you wish. 

You’ll learn all the steps in preparing thumbnails, a book “dummy” and a submission package for an editor and/or art director at a publishing house. 

You’ll discover how to use visual references, transfer sketches to a painting surface and work in an assured way with color. Learn the right methods for submitting your final art (after you land that book illustration contract!) and how to effectively market yourself and your work for future assignments. 

More about the course

You’ll receive a hands-on  introduction to children’s book and magazine illustration by Mark Mitchell, an award-winning children’s book author-illustrator.

You’ll gain an exceptional understanding of the children’s book market and how to proceed with any book or magazine illustration project.

You will learn to prepare thumbnail sketches, storyboards and a book “dummy,” and find the reference you need to help you to draw confidently. 

The course will provide you with a real understanding of picture and page design, visual perspective, artistic anatomy and watercolor technique.   You’ll also find insights on working with editors and art directors and pointers for marketing yourself and your work in the intensely competitive field of children’s media. 

As you work through the lessons, you’ll find your individual style emerging as you start to develop artistic confidence.

For more information on the course, write Mark at mark@howtobeachildrensbookillustrator.com — or leave your comment on the ASK survey at this link.

Swedish folk art-inspired? From “Gustaf Tenggren’s Tell It Again Book” courtesy of ASIFA- Hollywood

Animation Archive Little Night, written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales, published by Roaring Book Press - Holtzbrinck (designed by Jennifer Browne) won the Golden Kite Award for best picture book illustration.
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April’s The Artist’s Magazine (F+W Publications) features an interview with Jan Brett (33 million books in print and still going strong.)

Funny, I was reading The Mitten to my three year old-granddaughter just the other night and we were both enjoying this book very much.

Brett’s only formal art training came from museum art classes when she was young.

She works with a very dry (watercolor) brush technique, “almost like a colored pencil,” she tells interviewer Paula Theotocus.

Loved as much by booksellers and librarians as by children, she travels the world researching the locales of the stories she works on, accompanied by her husband, Joe Hearne, who is also her business manager and webmaster.
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Cynsations, the blog of teen and children’s author Cynthia Leitich-Smith  featured interviews with children’s book industry folks who spoke at the March 29-30  SCBWI Bologna Conference 2008 in connection with the Bologna Book Fair.

Cynsations guest writer Anita Loughrey spoke with Caldecott winning illustrator Paul O Zelinksy, French comic author-illustrator Emmanuel Guibert and Harper Collins executive art director Martha Rago.

For Loughrey’s question, “What makes an artists illustrations stand out for you?” Rago had an interesting answer:

“I would not underestimate technical skills, which are very, very important: anatomy, composition, and perspective, good use of color and line, and effective use of materials,” she said.

“But I am always looking for someone who has not just the technical skills but a distinct individual style, a clear voice and images that suggest narrative through context,emotional tone, and the way they relate sequentially.” It’s not often you get to peek inside the mind of an art director at a major children’s publishing house. Read the full interview with Martha Rago here.