Above: The cover for The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra. I love Ana Aranda’s work, and I especially love her incredible color sense. She embraces purple and pink, and makes these colors feel sophisticated and fresh in a way I haven’t seen before. (Look at that amazing palette on the cover!) Today I talk to her about her U.S. illustration debut, The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra.
Illustrator Maral Sassouni combines ink, pencil, crayon, and monoprinting to create the rich collages in The Green Umbrella, a sweet picture book about friendship and imagination by Jackie Azúa Kramer. There are so many great details to linger over. Today Maral tells Pen and Oink about her inspirations and her really cool process.
Dasha's work really inspires me — so fresh and loose and graphic. I got chance to meet with her recently at her home studio in Brooklyn talk about the making of her author-illustrator debut, A Year Without Mom.
Jessie Hartland discusses the process for her graphic novel, Steve Jobs: Insanely Great. "I'm really drawn to taking very complicated material and simplifying it with drawings and words."
Laura Carlin's work is sensitive, thoughtful, and beautiful. With her author-illustrator debut, A World of Your Own, Laura adds a nice dose of humor to the mix. Today she tells us all about it.
Above: A new piece for my portfolio, based on feedback from SCBWI-LA. ©Robin Rosenthal For the past few months I’ve been working on new pieces for my portfolio based on the amazing feedback I received at the 2014 SCBWI LA Summer Conference. (I was one of six illustrators who received the SCBWI Mentorship Award, and I got to meet individually with six mentors who each gave me guidance on my work. It. Was. Awesome. Read more […]
I talked with Dan Santat about his picture book, The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend. Read on for a detailed behind-the-scenes look into the making of this beautiful and thoughtful story.
Paul O. Zelinsky’s style changes depending on, and in service to, the story. We interviewed him at his Brooklyn studio.
Above: My piece for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an assignment for the Illustrators’ Intensive. I am still riding an inspired high from last weekend’s SCBWI Winter Conference. I’ve been to the conference four times now and the Illustrators’ Intensive Day is always the highlight for me. Art Director Cecilia Yung’s interview of Tomie dePaola was fantastic. They structured the talk around a comparison of Tomie’s book illustrations and his costume and set design work. Tomie […]
Art Director Tova Diamond at Real Simple asked me to create some illustrations for an article about sleep for their 2013 family issue. The article, titled "Creatures of the Night," details different child sleep behaviors and how parents can handle them. Each behavior is represented by a different animal.
Above: Christoph Niemann: Petting Zoo, Limited Edition Silkscreen Print Fellow art director Jenn McManus recently tipped me off to We Art Boston, an awesome online auction of original children’s book art that starts today. Susan and Joe McKendry have collected over 100 original works of art from 50+ amazing children’s book illustrators and are auctioning them off online to raise money for the Emergency and Trauma Fund at Boston Children’s Hospital in memory of the Boston […]
I love opening a children's book to find beautiful, surprising endpapers inside. Here's a round up of some of my favorites.
Pen and Oink 