THE BLOG
The Tooele Children’s Book Festival
I wasn’t sure what the weather would be like on August 28th. I was scheduled to be at the Tooele Children’s Book Festival which was sponsored in part by The Purple Cow Bookstore. The weather was important because this was an outdoor event at the park. Some blustery rain storms had been pounding through the area lately but this morning the sun was shining. The sun was shining because the wind was blowing every single cloud away. The wind blew Rusty Gregory’s painting into Guy Francis’ leg and shattered the glass. The wind blew easels that had to be duct taped to pavilion posts in order to stand. The wind grabbed balloons from tiny hands and sent them sailing. It was eat brunch with an author and illustrator and then later the children were going to paint with an illustrator. The food was amazing and the company was great. I was able to talk to many great families and a few aspiring artists. We dined on real plates and drank glasses of strawberry lemonade. One of the fathers got me a glass of lemonade and made sure there was a strawberry in it. The covered pavilion sheltered us from the wind.
After fine dining, it was time for the “Paint with an Illustrator”. Big sheets of butcher paper were put out on picnic tables and immediately they started blowing across the park. Wind gust would pick up boxes of crayons and blow them from the tables. But with a little Tooele ingenuity, the papers and crayons were duct taped to the tables and I taught the kids how to draw a hound dog. The boys and girls drew some amazing pictures. We also talked about story boards and book dummies and answered a few questions about illustrating picture books. All in all, the wind blew in a great festival.
A sketch book can go places and record many things that a camera can not. Sketching on site captures feelings that cannot be caught by a photo. You get a sense for the activity that you are witnessing. It connects your hand, your eyes and your mind. You become quicker and more observant. It also can serve as reference on illustrations. The mouse and the lion were under the bench in front of me. They also enjoyed the concert. You are never bored if you have your sketch book. Get into the habit.
Observation
An observation: You don’t have to have a pencil in your hand to improve your art. A lot of art involves your eyes and your mind. The more you observe, the more you learn.
To capture the personality of your subject, you need to see how it moves and how it relates to the world. You need to observe. Part of being an artist is noticing colors, shapes and how things change in different light. This is a photo of a Western Tanager outside my studio. I looked out my window and for three days they were flying all over, passing through on there way to somewhere else. One day I came home and my son said look. There on the window was a splat of red and yellow color. One of the birds had slammed its head into the window leaving a circle of feathers behind. My son ran outside and picked it up in a little box to keep it safe until it got it’s bearings back. It then flew up into a nearby tree to recover. One morning they were here and then they were gone, not a single flash of yellow and orange in the trees. The splat of feathers is gone from my window but the observation of the birds is tucked safely in my brain for future illustrations.
First stroke of brush to paper
Sometimes we get stuck in a certain way of doing things. I attended the conference Writers for Young Readers in Salt Lake City, Utah this year. I attended the Kevin Hawkes Workshop. It was a great experience. He said you should try an ink line with a brush. There is a certain freshness that comes from the first sketch of brush to paper. The viewer can see the freshness leap off the page. It is like looking at the test sheet of watercolor paper where you sample the colors. It is fun to see the first stroke of uninhibited paint to paper. The drawing above is of Bubba and Quack.
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