Mazza Museum Summer Conference Day 5

Wow! It's hard to believe it's been a whole week! Today started with a bang with a keynote from Roger Roth. Roger grew up in a family that embraced the arts--his father was a writer and taught radio drama, and his mother went to art school, painted, and took Roger to art museums as a child. Roger himself attended art schools as a youth, and has kept a sketchbook his his first class. After a false start at a university, Roger worked odd jobs, painting in his free time. Eventually, he landed at the Pratt Institute and when he graduated, he worked as a freelance illustrator for the likes of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. After doing an ad about Paris for a travel magazine, an editor contacted him. "We have a book about Paris," she said. "We wonder if you'd like to do it." That became the book (recently released by another publisher) The Giraffe That Walked To Paris. It'sbeauty!

Roger has since illustrated 18 books, including several by Jane Yolan. One fascinating story Roger told was of doing the book The American Story, which is 368 pages long. When he asked when they needed the art they said, "In a year."

Do the math, illustrators.

His answer was "I don't think I can get it to you that quickly," but they agreed to have him illustrate it anyway. For the next two and a half years, Roger delivered a finished drawing to them every three days! This book is worth taking a look at. The art is beautiful and wow--you've got to be impressed by the speed! Roger was a comfortable speaker and put his audience at ease. He shared about his family and hobbies ("Ice fishing is a very slow sport. Great for creative work.") We all enjoyed him.

Following Roger was Chris Raschka. Chris is a meticulous guy who admits to putting away all his art materials every night so "I can see my empty table in the morning." Whoever said creatives are messy? Roger is also very smart. He turned down medical school to pursue his love of art and has published over 50 books in his 20 years in the industry.

One particularly interesting thing Chris shared was that his book Otter and Odder: A Love Story (Candlewick 2012) was actually printed from the color book dummy (blown up 200%) he sent the
publisher. Can you imagine?
Chris won the Caledcott honor in 1994 for Yo! Yes!, and the Caldecott Medal in 1996 for Hello Goodbye Window, and again in 2012 for A Ball for Daisy. 

Chris looks the part of an artist, but on the other hand, I can imagine him a doctor as well. His speaking style is warm and friendly and at the same time to the point, with a "let's not waste time" attitude. It was a treat to hear him speak and to meet him!

Mazza Museum Summer Conference Day 3

Our day began with Michael Hall (My Heart is Like a Zoo) speaking about his books.  Michael had a fun presentation style, sharing pictures of the women in his life—his wife, daughters, agent, and editor, all of whom came into his story as the presentation progressed.  After a while I decided that, despite his classic looks, he reminded me of Bob Newhart, so I’m now dubbing him the Bob Newhart of the kidlit world. Bob—I mean Michael—showed us some of his design work, and it’s easy to see how he went from that to the books he And he did. Brilliantly!

does. One logo was a pelican. “I would never draw a pelican,” he said, “there are people who do that much better than me, but I would try to find a pelican in a few simple shapes.”

Michael also shared that he was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 8. I can’t help but think that this “disability” might be the driving force in the kind of artwork he excels at. He takes simple shapes and flips them, rotates them, and moves them around the page until he has created something else entirely. He also works a great deal with negative space—more divergent thinking.

Toward the end of his talk, Michael shared his 2014 release, It’s an Orange Aardvark. Cute stuff!

Michael is a quiet man with a story of hope for all the kids out there that struggle with any type of disability. As much as these things can be a struggle, they can also be something that kids grow into in a way that makes them unique, and uniquely abled.

Michael commented, “Brokenness is the source of all beauty,” followed quickly by “we are all broken.”

  

Next up was Ed Young, illustrator of nearly 90 books, one of which won a Caldecott.  Ed, who was born in China but has lived nearly 60 years in the U.S. considers himself to now have a mostly American mindset. Yet what I heard from Ed rang with a deeper, more philosophical tone than I normally encounter.

Ed was transparent in his generous sharing of his life story. He spoke of a time when he left an entire book of final art in a taxi cab and could not recover it. This happened at a time when his wife had just been diagnosed with cancer.  He promised his editor that he would recreate it, but he wasn’t sure when. His wife died two months later, leaving him with two preteen daughters to help grieve and heal. After a time, Ed left his daughters with friends for a week and went home where he worked on the book from 6 am until 11 pm. In a week’s time, he had “most of it down,” (and he feels the second version is better than the first.)

Ed feels that losing something, while stressful and unnerving, “is not the end of the world. It’s the promise of something more.”

Ed went on to tell us about growing up in China in a house his father built, (The House Baba Built). He shared artwork from the book at various stages, and photos, as he told stories of his family. He even told of the Jewish German family that came to live with his family at the end of WWII. With them, he said, was a blonde-haired little girl name Jean, whom he referred to as his "Jewish sister, and me, her Chinese brother." To our surprise, he asked a tiny woman in the front row to stand. It was Jean.

Ed was warm, funny, and sensitive, letting us take in a peek of his fascinating life, and I think we could have listened to him all day!

 

Mazza Museum Summer Conference Day 2

The conference today began with James Dean, who is famous for illustrating Pete the Cat. James was humble, warm, and funny. “I have 5 cats and 4 litter boxes. Those are my credentials for doing what I do.” If it were only that easy!

James’s talk resonated with me. He grew up drawing, but worried that trying to find his way in art was “irresponsible,” so he quit sketching and studied engineering.  He picked up his art materials again at age 35, and quit his engineering position four years later. After self-publishing his 2 picture books, a friend sent Pete the Cat Loves his White Shoes to New York where it was picked up. And the rest, my friends, is history!

A few other interesting comments:

                “Give your kids a vision of being something—even if it’s the wrong thing.”

                “You are never too old for a fresh start.”

                “Last night I felt really old. I got to spend about an hour and a half with Jon Klassen.” 

James is a quiet man who exudes gratitude for what life has brought him. It felt like an honor to hear his story.

Following James, Julie Paschkis spoke.  Julie has written and/or illustrated so many exquisite books!  When illustrating someone else’s story, she says she reads a manuscript several times, but does not sketch. First, she waits and lets her unconscious mind work on it.

She shared her process, showing sketches and final art.

An interesting thing about her process is this: While I believe that most illustrators would tell you that they sketch out an entire book before doing anything else, Julie completes one finished illustration and lets that piece “ set the tone” for all the coming pages. Sometimes, she says, that final piece doesn’t get used, because it somehow doesn’t work and must be redone, but that’s okay. It’s a good reminder to creatives  to “respect the process.”  The process is working for Julie!

A few other interesting comments:

                “I’m a crossword puzzle fanatic.”

                “Starting something is the hardest part.”

                “Make mistakes, make false starts and good starts.”

                “Everything leads to something else—even the projects that don’t work out.”

Another great day!

Mazza Museum Summer Conference, Day 1

If you don't know about the Mazza Museum, at the University of Findlay, Ohio, it's a beautifully curated museum of picture book art. For the last 20+ years, they've been holding a summer conference and today was day 1, 2013.

Starting off the day was Walter Wick, whose I SPY books held my

boys' attention many long hours when they were kids. Not only that, they held the attention of many an adult with their beautiful photography and challenging rhymes. Walter, a photographer, has gone on to author another series called Can You See What I See? Picture Puzzles to Search and Solve. The Can You See books are very similar to the I SPYs in that they involve pages of intricate photos coupled with a rhyme that prompts kids to find things. One cool thing about them, though, is that they actually involve visual puzzles to solve, making them that much more cognitively stimulating for the reader.  (Puzzles also utilize higher-order thinking skills too--thinking "outside of the box"--so hooray for that too!) Walter went on to show pictures of his "studio"--an old, brick firehouse he bought and transformed, and where he employs staff members to build many of the "props" that end up as part of his books. It reminded me a bit of looking into Santa's workshop!

Best of all, Walter has promised to let me interview him in the near future so he can be featured author/illustrator here on the AIIS blog. Yay!

The second author/illustrator of the day was Jon Klassen. Jon told the hilarious story of how he

received two phone calls the day he won two Caldecott awards (only the second person in history to have done so). He woke up to a call from his taxi waiting downstairs to take him to the airport. As he was jumping out of bed, the Caldecott committee called and told him he had won the award. As he hung up the phone, the taxi driver called again--anxious for him to get downstairs. As he hung up from that phone call, the phone rang again--the Caldecott committee again. They they then told him that another of his books won the Caldecott honor.

Jon, a warm and very funny speaker, shared with us his background in animation, even sharing a short film he completed in school (very cute and very funny!). He also told us a lot about the books he wrote and/or illustrated, This Is Not My Hat;  I Want My Hat Back, and Extra Yarn, to name a few (and those few are all Caldecott Award or Honor winners!). He, too, has promised an featured author/illustrator interview with us here at the AIIS blog--yay!

It was an awesome kick-off for the summer conference! Stay tuned for more as the week progresses!

Otis and The Tornado

It was a fitful night in the upper Midwest with severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Here in my particular neck of the woods we fared well, but I woke thinking of the destructive force of nature...and of Otis.

I had the great joy of hearing author/illustrator Loren Long speak at a conference a few years back. He shared sketches he'd done while working on the first Otis, and the transformation he made from the first tractor images (rather stiff and toy-like) to his final tractor images that stretch and move and practically jump off the page! He also talked about being a lover of film, and trying to think like a cinematographer as he imagined scenes before putting pencil to paper. This shows in his always interesting final art.

Otis and the Tornado is a charming book about friendship, emergency, doing the right thing, and through that, developing more and deeper friendships. But that's just the beginning.

In the classroom, Otis and the Tornado is an opening to talk with students about weather--especially scary weather and how to stay safe. It's a must-read for Severe Weather Safety Week, and that time when teachers and students in tornado-prone areas must do tornado drills.

As a science experiment, students can make a tornado in a bottle--there are a number of lesson on the web with instructions on how to do this using 2 liter bottles, tape, and water. PBS Kids has a good one here.

For younger kids, Loren Long has a coloring page, maze, and other printables on his site here.

This book could be used as a mentor text for writing in the classroom as well. Have students write about a severe weather situation they have been in and what they did. Encourage them to write about how it felt to be there (both emotionally and physically--this is a good chance to write about what the five senses experienced), and how it resolved in the end. You could have your students read these aloud and discuss their feelings.

The weather has move out from here, but with all the severe weather in the news these days, there will be plenty of times when this warm and fuzzy book will be appropriate to pull off the shelf.

I wish you all a safe summer!