Happy Birthday Mr. Sendak

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak!

 

Yesterday June 10th was Mr. Sendak's Birthday he would of been 85 yesterday.

 

One of the things I find funny is; (and this just happened the other day).

 

Me: Society of Illustrators is having an exhibit on Maurice Sendak

 

Her: Who?

 

Me: the guy who wrote and illustrated “Where the Wild Things Are”

 

  Her: Oh! Cool…

 

I will never know everything about this man, I find things out from one interview or another I even run into a book I never knew he illustrated like “How Little Lori Visited Times Square”.

Even this little gem that he illustrated the Velveteen Rabbit can’t find that one on the book shelves.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But it must of been hard to be judged by one book, and it must have been great all at the same time.

I wonder if Mo Willems is having the same problem “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”

 is a good book, after that well… 

  

Anyway I am looking forward to see Mr. Sendak art on exhibit the last time I saw his artwork was several years ago during the release of the movie “Where the Wild Things Are”

at The Morgan Library that was truly magical for me.

(I may be going to the Friday June 14 reception is anyone else going?) 

SCBWI 14th Winter Conference "the end"

“The end”

Well what I can say about the conference, on Saturday we started off listening to Meg Rosoff she was great what wit, fantastic! I am still wondering what happened to Peter Glassman he is the owner of Books of Wonder and was supposed to be part of panel talk but did not show up.
There were two breakout sessions I got to listen to Kate Fletcher editor of Candlewick and Nancy Siscone senior executive editor Knopf Books for Young Readers both I found to be very nice who cared about the quality of a good story the term “layers and voice” was used often. The speaking part of the conference closed with Shaun Tan interesting person he said a lot about his work in an odd about way that was inspirational and entertaining.

 

A couple of the treats for me that night after the speaking part was done was a portfolio viewing I had to step away from my portfolio it is hard to watch people viewing it, but a lot of postcards were taken not sure by whom . It was followed by a Gala event where I got a vodka and orange juice (I think say screwdriver is silly) at the event a charming women came up to me to tell me how much she loved my elephants that was a great moment it meant I touched someone with my artwork and that is all I ever want to do.
Then one last get to know your fellow attendees this was a little silly But!

 
I met Tomie dePaola I did not think I would like this man but it was not the case he was generous with his time and answered everyone’s questions and told us straight how it is out there also who I did not get to speak to was the Hilt brothers it was nice for them to take the time to share their experiences with the group.
 

On Sunday one of the speakers put me to sleep I felt she did not know her audience. 
This was followed by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton, who talked about sequential books and what to look out for very helpful. 
And finally Mo Willems who does a good job entertaining the audience even though I recognized some of his talk from a past event the info is still valid.

This was followed by a book signing were I finally got to meet David Ezra Stein and had him as well as Tomie dePaola sign their books.


p.s. I had Aha moment I came up to an ending for Sidney and friends!

SCBWI 12th Annual Winter Conference 2011

Yes that is the back of my head

(photo taken from SCBWI bog post)

The Winter conference is over and I had a great time. The speakers were fantastic. The breakout workshops were eye opening. It was nice to hear from other illustrators on there creative process of developing a story from reading the text to working with their Art Directors.
 So thank you SCBWI for making this happen and to all the speakers and faculty.

 I meet a lot of nice people while I was there and hope to stay in touch with some of them. I also had two books signed one by Jules Feiffer & the other by Mo Willems it was nice to see Mo again, we worked together at Michael Sporn Animation about sixteen or seventeen years ago time does fly.

 some of the postcards

I am a bit sad it is over