Hand-lettering

I recently completed this hand-lettering job for the Teacher Learning Network who offer Professional Development opportunities for teachers (and I also do their design work) The content theme for this journal was 'Gifted and Talented' and the visual theme was 'Words' so a hand-lettered cover seemed perfect. This was a lot of fun and I hope is well received!

SCBWI Australia conference wrap-up

Well it went by in a flash.... a lovely bubble for 3 days... inspirational speakers, meeting like-minded individuals, lovely cooked meals, no cleaning, and no toddler-wrangling! Now that I'm back to reality (with a large thump!), it's time for a conference wrap-up.

It's always so hard to sum these things up... As usual it was half mind-boggling information, half uplifting inspiration. But I think it's more about the feeling you walk away with. I walked away feeling like I belong to a wonderful community. Even though I didn't know many people going this year, I had no trepidation walking into a room full of people (OK, I did at first, but that soon dissipated) and striking up a conversation with any attendee, knowing that we were all in the same boat, speaking a shared language.

Some highlights for me were hearing the Walker Books team take The Croc And The Platypus from conception to completion– a panel equipped with Editor, Author, Art Director, Illustrator, and Marketing Director, and hearing the renowned Bruce Whatley speak of his artistic journey. There is plenty more detail on the SCBWI-Aus/NZ blog so I won't go into it too much here.

Another feeling I got is that the picture book (and wider children's book) market is alive and well. A few years ago the discussion centred around how digital publishing might take away from traditional publishing. Now it feels like the panic has mellowed a bit and everyone is more confident. In fact, this wasn't even a topic for discussion throughout the whole conference! And I even heard a few publishers say they were actively looking for new illustrators, so that is wonderful news.

Another wonderful part of the conference is the Illustrator Portfolio Showcase, which gives participants a chance for local publishers, art directors and editor to view their work - a rare chance to get your illustrations under the noses of important people! This is only the 2nd time they have featured this, but it was very popular with publishers. Viewers are encouraged to leave comments on the folios, and I got a few on mine, leaving me feeling quite jumpy and positive. You can see the folio I submitted here.

All in all, a wonderful experience and one I would love to repeat... tomorrow!

ps. I took not a one photo the whole time, so all photos are courtesy the SCBWI blog

Conference Portfolio

Well I've put the finishing touches on my folio and I'm ready to rock into the SCBWI conference in Sydney on Sunday.

I put a lot of thought into my folio this year, and I thought I'd give you a run-down for anyone who might be trying to do the same and not knowing where to start!

Which illustrations?

Deciding on the pieces you are going to include is naturally the hardest part. The best piece of advice I have heard about this is: Less is More. And: only put in your strongest pieces. Don't fall for putting something in just because it was published once. That doesn't mean it's your strongest work. It's better to omit weaker pieces than to have a bulging folio filled with mediocre work.

I chose to put in about half published work, half personal work. Often personal work is where are joy, love and passion come out the most anyway.  

Keep it flowing

Once you have made your selections, arranging them in a sequence that flows is paramount. Think of it like laying out a book and you should have no problem!

The Book

Next, it's time to put them all together. Your display book should have a professional look about it. These days I think an A3 size is fairly standard. I also feel that a binder system which lets the pages sit flat is really important. Some of them have a bit in the middle that clasps shut which makes it hard for the folio to sit open, and could even potentially damage the prints. I actually made a dash out this morning to buy a new folio to avoid this problem!

Here is mine:

And here's how my folio looks:

(I have made notes on each image as to some things to think about so if you're interested make sure you scroll through!)

To see my folio I'll have to direct you to the original post at my same-same-but-different-blog at 

https://kim-fleming.squarespace.com/blog/2014/7/11/portfolio-preparation

I hope this gives you some insight into putting together a successful (I hope!) children's book illustrator's portfolio.

I would also suggest looking at these posts from illustrators who have won, yes WON the international SCBWI folio contest:

Juana Martinez-Neal

Molly Idle

Have fun!

Conference countdown...

Well it's T-minus 1 week to the SCBWI conference in Sydney. This time next week I'll be settling into my hotel room ready for the conference to start. This conference takes place every two years and is the only major SCBWI conference in Australia. I have never been before so am very excited to attend!

I'm slowly but surely getting all my goodies ready...

I picked up my updated business cards and new promo postcards recently:

I'm very happy with how they turned out. I think they are all tying in nicely together, along with my newly redesigned website too. The giraffe is a bit of a mascot for me (as you may have noticed!) and he has always been on my business card. It just so happens that my latest book features a giraffe as well, so she has made in onto my postcard this time.

So this is the baby and toddler... next is... the Mother..... The Portfolio!

How much can one obsess over an inanimate object? A fair bit it turns out.

I decided to squeeze in a new portfolio piece. Since most of my work is sweet, cute and happy, I wanted to do something a bit more moody with some darker emotions. Here is the sketch:

new portfolio piece!

I have just finished it and did another time-lapse of me painting it (woo!) so if I get a chance to edit it together before I go I will post it soon.

Either way I'll be doing another post about this piece and my conference portfolio soon so stay tuned....

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Well this is another special Mother's Day for me. Last Mother's Day was my first Mother's Day as a mum, and I was illustrating a book at the time. This year, that book is available, and I am so proud it is out there in the world!

It is such as special book to me as I was working on it during a really lovely time in my little boy's life. I started it when he was 8 months old, so the real difficulties of having a newborn were over, things got a bit easier and more fun. He went through incredible changes in his little life like crawling, turning one, walking and starting to talk! what an amazing time. Truly a time of marvel. I feel like I was able to put a lot of emotion into this book, and it will always remind me of this time in my life.

This is the next to last illustration in the book, and I said to my husband when I finished it that this is my son and I :)

I hope you like it. And as a little treat for following along and reading this post (does anyone read blogs anymore?) here is a bit of downloadable goodness:

mother's day card

colouring-in page

If you are interested in buying the book you can get it here: booktopia or bookworld
(only in Australia, unfortunately. With any luck it will be available in other countries/on Amazon soon....)

So happy mother's day to all the mums out there! I certainly enjoyed my special day :)

One Word One Day

In the middle of all the Make Art That Sells mayhem, I made time to go to the ASA's One Word One Day event, to benefit the indigenous literacy foundation. This is the third year they have run this event and the first time I've been able to make it, so I was determined to go.

Basically illustrators get together for a few hours and illustrate a word. This year was 'Pounce'. You can make as many images as you like, in any medium you like, and there is a plethora of beautiful art supplies supplied by Zart.

For me, it was a time to see some friends, have a bit of fun, and play with some new materials. I think when you are constantly producing art for deadlines, it is difficult to give yourself the time to just play and be free and not worry too much about the outcome.

I was sitting next to Ann James from Books Illustrated who has a very lovely loose way of working and I think this was influencing all of us at the table. I played around with some 'Magiclay' which is like mouldable paper which then dries and you can paint it, plus some collage, feathers, leaves, buttons, watercolours, oil pastels, charcoal, fingerprinting and even mud!

I didnt know where I was going with this when I started, and that was part of the fun. Here's the craziness I ended up with :

Make Art That Sells: Scrapbooking

So this 3rd week in the online illustration course I'm doing 'Make Art That Sells' focussed on the Scrapbooking market. I can't say I was terribly excited about this market - even though I often use scrapbooking papers as collage in my work - but in the end I really enjoyed the process of creating this piece and it was one of my better received in the MATS community! So there you go. Open minds, people, open minds...

Our 'mini' assignment this week was to sketch ink bottles, vintage ones to be specific. This was fun. I actually went straight to carving some stamps. I've really enjoyed doing this for previous assignments, love the texture they create and am loving improving my skills with practice. So here is what I did for the 'mini':

Then we got the main assignment which was to create a design for a scrapbooking paper using the theme of 'correspondence', again with a vintage slant. I think the stamps really helped me with that look.

Thinking about how this piece would sit in my portfolio, I decided I wanted to do something that was more of a pattern which could be used in many different markets, as opposed to something suited only to scrapbooking, which might have text like 'my memories' or 'that summer' etc etc.

I went for a 'love letter' correspondence vibe, and when you think looooove, what else do you think but Paris?! So some French crept in there too. I did some more hand-carved stamps, ink work, fun splatters, and some hand-lettering:

 

I even managed to use a pressed flower I did in university!!

plus a photo I took of the Eiffel tower when I was there a few (ok many) years ago. Here's how it turned out...

As I said, really happy with this one. I even managed to finish early so that I could have the weekend doing easter egg hunts and gardening in the Autumn sunshine. perfect end to the week :)

Next week: Editorial.

Make Art That Sells : Babywear market

This week was all about baby wear - so right up my alley. Cute, fun, whimsical.

Topic: Pirates!!! Lots of fun!

So first I did some sketching and came up with the idea of doing Pirate Pigs! I made it into a bit of a pattern and everything - was all ready to start painting, and then I realised it's not really very 'baby' like. perhaps a bit of an older child with slightly edgier look and swords and everything??

so I quickly had to resketch as the assignment was upon us to do use our sketches to create a pattern for a baby onesie, and went for the all-out-cute factor.

I added in some hand carved stamps (which I am REALLY enjoying doing) and here's how the main pattern turned out:

I made up a placement graphic (a single image that might be used by itself as opposed to a pattern)

 and put it all together with some 'coordinate' patterns. ta dah!!!

and we're already into this week's market: scrapbooking! check back next week for another post.

Make Art That Sells : Paper market

I am back into the swing of Make Art That Sells and already the first week is nearly done! I am very excited about the Paper market which includes greeting cards, journal covers, notepads, etc...

our 'warm-up' exercise was to draw/paint gingerbread houses which were a lot of fun (and somewhat reminiscent of cuckoo clocks!) -- looking at reference, it's amazing the amount of work people put into decorating gingerbread. they are works of art and i don't think i'd want to eat them, they're too beautiful!

then our main assignment was to create a holiday greeting card (i.e.. christmas but non-denominational) at particular dimensions, using gingerbread houses.

here was my process:

for the 'mini' warm-up I sketched here there and everywhere - in a big sketchbook, on the train in my moleskine, and on some craft paper which i quite liked because i could use white for the icing.

Then once we got the main assignment i started doing some compositional sketches. i pretty quickly came up with the idea of gingerBIRD houses which i liked. (But I PROMISE I will not draw birds next week. Can't seem to get away from them!)

At first I had the birdhouses as hanging Xmas bauble-type things

But decided that was trying to combine too many things (gingerbread, birdhouses, bauble) so made them more birdhousey.

Once I had the sketch, the fun part came. This was actually pretty tricky to do traditionally because all the detail for the houses is in white. I decided I wanted to do this in separate layers so I could move things around if I needed. 

So first I did the linework in black, which I later reversed in Photoshop: 

(I was planning on using the smudginess/fingerprints in the background but didn't in the end)

Then came the colour on the craft paper which i liked so much and gave it good 'gingerbreadiness' (wow i'm writing my own dictionary here!)

 I did the birds separately and some black snowflakes to be reversed and used in the background:
 

as well as some hand-carved stamps of candy canes, stars and circles to be used on the garlands (i changed the colours in Photoshop)

And then I got to assemble it! It all came together pretty easily (for once!) Here was the first try with some text in Photoshop.

not working so well. I decided to change the location of the garland of lights to the bottom of the poles to break them up a bit. I also added some hand-lettered text.

and then submitted! WOHOO! :-)

Coming soon...

Coming soon to a website near you…

Some major revamping going on behind the scenes at kimflemingillustration.com.

stay tuned-- a few more practice sessions and we'll be ready to rock the house! :-)

MATS Bootcamp: Main assignment February : Cuckoo clock iPhone cover

Our assignment for this month was to create art for an iPhone cover.

Somehow in converting my sketches from the mini assignment to the iPhone dimensions, it became more about the birds than the cuckoo clocks. I'd still like to take some of the sketches and turn them into something more - patterns maybe? But here's what I submitted to the Bootcamp gallery for February:

You should DEFINITELY go check out the gallery and see what everyone else has come up with… as usual… Blows Me Away! so much talent!!

Here are some of my faves:

Ohn Mar Win

Anais Lee

Jennifer L Wambach

Anita Kingsley

Betsy Wood

Melanie Ritchie

Carolyn Gavin

Nic Squirrel

Diane Neukirch

Gillian Martin

Jan Gerardi