New and Improved

Hello dear followers

I'm not sure if anyone reads this anymore, but if you are reading this - then thank you! Being time poor as most of us are, I've decided to let my little blogspot go for a while, in the shadow of the shiny new blog over on my new website.

So please if you haven't already, you can visit the blog at www.kimflemingillustration.com/blog/ or plug the rss into your feed reader: feed://www.kimflemingillustration.com/blog/?format=rss

Thank you and happy surf-reading!

SHOP! & Exhibition

I've finally done it - I've jumped onto the retail therapy bandwagon. It's one of those things I've been 'meaning to do' for a while. And luckily a little opportunity courtesy of Illustrators Australia and RedBubble gave me a little boot up the rear end.

So TA DAAAAAAHHH! Please say hello to my brand spanking new RedBubble shop where you may purchase to your heart's content: prints, cards, T-shirts, tote bags, it's all there. There isn't too much on the racks at the moment, but I'll be adding more as I go along, so stay tuned shoppers.

The opportunity that made me get my act together is an upcoming exhibition entitled 'Wear Art Thou' which I am very excited to be included in. Opening is this Friday!

News! / Nouvelles!

I have just found out that publication rights for my latest children's book Mummy You're Special To Me (Scholastic Australia) have been sold to Scholastic CANADA! They will be publishing board book editions in French and English in (North American) Spring 2015.

This is so exciting for me for several reasons:

1. It is my first book with international publication

2. I am from Canada!

3. This will be my first board book

4. I speak French to my son!

5. It should then be available on Amazon, so accessible worldwide.

Everything seems to have fallen into place perfectly with this book.

* it came at the right time of my life (a book about mothers and babies when I was a new mum)

* It will be available in my homeland (Canada);

* I will have a book (my book!) in a French and English version I can read to my son.

Yep, I'm one happy little chappy :-)

Oui, je suis très contente!

And along the way I have found some very lovely reviews of this book. So amazed to have my illustrations described so positively (especially in this review - thank you so much!)

Juicy pattern

Just because I didn't have quite enough to do, I decided to sign up for Make it In Design Summer school (or Winter school for me!), which is quite simply a series of prompts for creating new designs and patterns– an area where I really want to improve and increase the number of pieces in my portfolio.

The brief for this first round was 'Tropical' - think pink flamingos, palm trees, swaying fronds. Except my mind went straight to fruity cocktails haha! But I decided to make a virgin edition and kept it to juicy fruit. :)

This was all done with hand-carved stamps, except for the lettering which I drew then digitised in Illustrator. Fun!

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!