Mark Mitchell | How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator

Award-winning children’s illustrator Terry Widener critiques Wednesday

Posted by Mark Mitchell | Nov 5, 2016 | Art instruction, Children's book art, children's book illustration, Children's book publishers and publishing, digital children's books, drawing and painting, Illustrators, Make Your Marks & Splashes course, Pictures worth a thousand words |

Baseball, not illustration critiques, has been in the air all week. So we’re repurposing a video post that ran here a few years ago about illustrator Terry Widener, who is known for his masterful acrylic illustrations for children’s picture books about famous athletes, especially baseball legends. Terry will be guest-instructing in November’s online group critique, this Wednesday, November 9. (That’s another reason we’re featuring him again here!) The interview videos below focus on the work he did on a PB biography of the greatest baseball player of all time, You Never Heard of Willie Mays!? by Jonah Winter (Schwartz & Wade/Random...

Watercolor Wednesday – Paper as light: Wendy Artin

Posted by Mark Mitchell | Oct 19, 2016 | Art instruction, drawing and painting, Pictures worth a thousand words |

Cogent watercolor painting insights to be had in absorbing the watercolors of Wendy Artin, an American artist living in Rome. “She’s very unusual because she doesn’t sketch her subject first,” says Adele Chatfield-Taylor, president of the American Academy of Rome in this engrossing 2002 video. “She watches what the light creates in her composition and she paints that effect,” Chatfield continues. “In other words, She doesn’t even paint the figure. She paints the effect of the light on the figure.” Or to put it another way, Wendy paints shadows to reveal the form in the light. Sometimes it works...

Smarter Dummies?

Posted by Mark Mitchell | Oct 2, 2016 | children's book illustration, Children's book publishers and publishing, Illustrators |

Smart Dummies, Dani Duck‘s free month-long event for illustrators to get their creative juices flowing and picture book dummies going and growing launched after last week’s Google Live Event Thursday. We got to talk with Dani about this year’s challenge and why dummies (penciled mock-ups of the complete book or partial book) are central to any illustrator’s proposal for one. The video below excerpts from the hour-long September 23 Google Hangout joined by Dani, NYC-based illustrated Traci Van Wagoner, Children’s Book Academy founder and director Mira Reisberg and me. You can catch the entire hour-long webinar via the opt-in page here....

A timid dog finds a tender home in “Toby”

Posted by Mark Mitchell | Sep 16, 2016 | Children's book art, children's book illustration, drawing and painting, Illustrators |

Acclimating to change, even a good change is not always easy, but love and patience help! That’s the theme in Hazel Mitchell’s debut picture book Toby (released this week by Candlewick Press.) The beautifully drawn story will tug at the hearts of five-year-olds and adults alike. You can get a sense of that from the book trailer below, which Hazel made herself. Hazel has developed an effective process of drawing with a 6B pencil on either hot-pressed or cold-pressed watercolor paper, laying a watercolor wash (of either blue or burnt sienna, depending on the mood of the story) for an underpainting and...

Sneak a peek at guest group critiques!

Posted by Mark Mitchell | May 12, 2016 | Art instruction, children's book illustration, drawing and painting, Illustrators, Make Your Marks & Splashes course |

(Sketch by Shannon Sanders for May 24 Guest Group Critiques.) If you’ve ever taken a drawing or painting class, you’ve probably experienced some group critiques, when everyone puts their work up, the instructor talks and everyone just looks. I’ve always considered these to be the most fun and second most valuable (after ‘doing’ the art) – part of the art classes I’ve taken in my life. I’ve talked to many illustrators and fine artists who feel the same way. No surprise there! Critiques are a key way artists learn. The tradition goes back to the ateliers of the 19th century and before that, the master and apprentice arrangements of the Renaissance...