Dinner with Robin

I had dinner last night with illustrator Robin Brickman. You might remember Robin's beautiful snowflake for Robert's Snow. She is also part of Zade Educational Partners, so we manage to catch up with each other from time to time.

Robert's Snow

Final phase of bidding starts Monday, December 3.

Robert's Snow

The second round of auctions begins today at Robert's Snow.

It's snowing!

Robert's Snow auction starts today!

Blogging for a Cure Week 5

The schedule for week five of Blogging for a Cure (Robert's Snow fundraiser for cancer research) is in the sidebar to the right.

Robert's Snow Week 4

The schedule for week 4 of the Robert's Snow fundraiser is in the sidebar to the right.

Blogging for a Cure Presents Robin Brickman

Today I am honored to feature a good friend and brilliant artist, Robin Brickman. Robin is one of the generous artists participating in the Robert's Snow project to raise money for Dana Farber cancer research. Her beautiful snowflake will be included in the online auction.


(There are many more artists participating in this event, so please check them out.)


Robin has been illustrating children's books for over 20 years. She is perhaps best known for her breathtakingly beautiful and detailed cut-paper collages of nature books for children.

Her books have been recognized with many awards, including a Reading Rainbow selection, IRA Teachers Choice, the Giverny Award for best children's science book.


Her books include A Log's Life (Simon and Schuster), Beaks, and One Night in the Coral Sea (Charlesbridge).





She has a new book coming out in February 2008 that is magnificent:













And now, an interview with Robin:

How did you get involved with the Robert's Snow project?

I am a member of PBAA http://www.picturebookartists.org/, an internet children's illustration group. The snowflake project was announced by Grace Lin on that group's website, when it first started in 2005. I had already been interested in a fund-raiser involving my art, but I wanted to contribute to one that would have higher or national visibility. As the story behind Robert's Snow became known I was truly moved to be able to contribute. I'd like to mention that the snowflake I made for the 2005 auction was created in memory of Mathias Jessup Bartels, who died suddenly at the age of 17. Purchasing that snowflake became a focus for many people who knew and loved Mathias. It was given to his parents and the contribution of the purchase price went to Dana Farber for cancer research.

How did ten-year-old Robin answer the question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

I was going to be a lot of different things, like a veterinarian or interior designer, but I kept coming back to art. I considered art conservation in college, and although I have a great deal of patience for fine and careful work, I did not excell at the math and chemistry needed for that profession. All these years later, however, I bet I could do it.

What are some of your earliest memories of creating art?

I have always loved making things with my hands: sewing and other fiber arts, jewelry, paper-making, bookbinding, stained glass, callligraphy, and illumination. All of these interests came into play when I started to illustrate stories and science.

Tell us a bit about your college experience?

I did decide on a major combining botany and art, something I continue to do even now!

Your road to children's book publication in six (or ten or a hundred) easy steps?

I don't know of any sure fire road to pubishing success other than developing a solid portfolio that is truly your own style and one that will impress your professional peers. There are wonderful books and groups available for information that did not exist when I started out. However, there are so many people trying to get going in this profession, sometimes it helps to not know how hard or unlikely it is. Finding what resources work for oneself, is trial and error.

Any particular inspirations, heroes or mentors?

What helped me was joining WMIG http://www.wmig.org/, twenty years ago. The monthly meetings, at one another's studios, are a mixture of critique and inspiration. I created my 3-D technique in part to impress that very skilled group of illustrators.

Will you share with us the story behind your most recent published book?

My next book is WINGS! It is a sequel to BEAKS! Sneed Collard has written a wonderful set, and these two books are a part of that.

Anything in the works at the moment?

I am working on a few book ideas of my own and being both author and illustrator is my next goal.

Anything you've learned along the way that you can share with newbies?

Persistence and optimism is key! When things don't work out, find the right people in your life to help you get going again.

And now, drum roll, please.....Robin Brickman's beautiful snowflake:

Go place your bids at Robert's Snow.

Robert's Snow

The schedule for Week #3 is in the sidebar to the right.

Blogging for a Cure Presents: Brian Lies

I am delighted to feature one of the artists who has so generously contributed to the Robert's Snow project to raise money for Dana Farber cancer research:

Brian Lies

Brian is an enormously talented artist, New York Times bestselling author, world's best blueberry scone maker, and a dear friend of mine. It is my honor to feature him today in conjunction with the Blogging for a Cure project to draw attention to the Robert's Snow online auction. (There are many more artists participating in this event, so please check them out.)




Brian has illustrated many books for children, including Finklehopper Frog by Irene Livingston (Tricycle Press)and the Flatfoot Fox series by Eth Clifford (Houghton Mifflin).






He has both written and illustrated the popular Hamlet books (Moon Mountain), and his most recent, the New York Times bestselling Bats at the Beach (Houghton Mifflin).




And now, let's hear from Brian:

How did you get involved with the Robert's Snow project?

I honestly don't remember. I'm a member of several illustrator listservs, and my guess is that somebody on one of the lists mentioned the Robert's Snow project. It sounded like a great thing to be a part of, and this is my third year of making a snowflake.

How did ten-year-old Brian answer the question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Like many kids, my dream job shifted shape a lot. When I was growing up, lots of boys wanted to be astronauts (there weren't any American female astronauts at the time). I also wanted to be a fireman, an actor, a chemist (my Dad was a researcher), a paleontologist, and a herpetologist. It wasn't until I was in fifth grade that I even really thought about being an author. An author/illustrator, Harry Devlin, visited our school, and I was amazed that you could actually make a JOB out of writing and drawing--both things I loved to do.

What are some of your earliest memories of creating art?

I think my earliest memory is from preschool, making papier mache-covered balloon animals. I got in trouble because I was more interested in mooshing my hands around in the flour paste than actually finishing my project.

Another time, in first grade, we did line drawings on burlap and then embroidered the lines with blunt needles. My drawing was of a lion and a tree and I was proud of it, until the art teacher picked out some of my stitching and "fixed" it. There was a rule against drawing "lollipop trees," which was sad because that's how little kids see a tree--a stick and a blob on top of it. She hung my lion in the hallway and told me how nice it was, but I couldn't even look at it--it wasn't mine any more.

Tell us a bit about your college experience?

In college, I was studying for a "real" career--in psychology, or something equally worthy. I drew to let off steam, and took an art class for fun, but was irritated by "artier than thou" attitudes of the teacher and some of the students. In protest, I used socks and dried American cheese slices to create an assemblage for one project, and was horrified that during the in-class critique, only one student suggested that I was poking fun at the assignment. I found out that Brown students could cross-register at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), and took a class or two there. But then I started doing drawings for the college newspaper and realized that those illustrations were the best part of my week. A new idea hit me--I could become a political cartoonist! It combined my growing interest in politics, my love of drawing, and my hope to change the world.

During my senior year, I applied to 140 major metropolitan daily newspapers, creating 140 individual portfolios of my editorial cartoons. While my friends were getting acceptance letters from great companies, I collected rejection letters--141 in all (one Ohio paper sent me the duplicate form rejection letters on two consecutive days, as if to hammer the point home). My ideas were good, they said, but my drawing wasn't. I graduated from college with no job, and few prospects.

Your road to children's book publication in six (or ten or a hundred) easy steps?

Then I heard about an art school in Boston--the School of the Museum of Fine Arts--and it sounded like the perfect thing for me. I drew and painted for nearly three years, and during that time, called Jeff Danziger, the Christian Science Monitor's political cartoonist, to ask for advice. Jeff liked my drawings, and took me into the next room to meet Cynthia Hanson, designer of the Op Ed page, who took me on right then as a freelancer, to do editorial illustrations.

A year or so later, lightning struck. I was standing in a store in my neighborhood of Cambridge, MA, when the woman in line ahead of me turned around. She'd overheard me talking with a friend and asked, "Did I hear you say you're an illustrator?" I said yes, and she asked, "Have you ever done any children's illustration?" Again I said yes--I was working on a picture book at the time, and was hoping to send it to Houghton Mifflin, one of the biggest publishers in Boston.

It turned out that she was the art director at Houghton Mifflin, Susan Sherman--the very person to whom I was planning to send my story! We arranged a meeting for a portfolio review, and a month after that, she sent me my first book to illustrate--a black and white chapter book. I've worked with Sue now on a number of books, both at Houghton Mifflin and Charlesbridge Publishing, where she now works.

Any particular inspirations, heroes or mentors?

My first inspiration was Harry Devlin, when he visited my fifth grade library. Several of his books had been favorites when I was younger (THE WONDERFUL TREE HOUSE and THE KNOBBY BOYS TO THE RESCUE), and seeing the man who had actually made those books (with his writer wife, Wende Devlin) was astounding.

But I'm also inspired by the illustration-world mirepoix of NC Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish, for their color work, and Winsor McCay for his no-holds-barred imagination in "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend."


Will you share with us the story behind your most recent published book?

BATS AT THE BEACH came about because my daughter, who was a 2nd grader at the time, saw a frost pattern in a guest-room window which she announced looked "like a bat, with sea foam." That sounded like a book to me--what would bats do at the beach? I liked the idea of inverting the typical day at the beach and seeing what it would look like at night.

Anything in the works at the moment?

I'm working on another bat book, BAT NIGHT AT THE LIBRARY, which is due to be published in fall, 2008. I'm having a lot of fun with it!

Any particular goals you have yet to accomplish?

There are lots of things I'd like to try, from wordless picture books to novel-length pieces, and anything in between. I like the idea of writing books for a variety of ages, so when kids decide they've outgrown my picture books, for instance, they could switch over to my chapter books. When I was a kid, I hated to realize that I'd finished all of my favorite authors' books there on the shelf. But if I could have learned that there was a whole NEW shelf, in another section of the library, with MORE books by those authors...that would have been great!

Anything you've learned along the way that you can share with newbies?

I think the most important thing is NOT to focus just on getting published, even though that's an aspiring author/illustrator's immediate goal. What's really important is craft--making your writing or drawing as strong as it can be. What's your weakest skill? Description? Dialogue? Drawing hands? Work on those. I think weaknesses are fairly easy to see in writing or drawings, and you're often judged not by what you do brilliantly, but by those weaknesses.

I think getting published is a lot like golf (which I don't play)--if you perfect your swing, the ball should go more or less where you want it to. Likewise, if you learn to tell stories in an original and compelling way, either in words or pictures, and hone your skills so that they're truly professional. . . you're going to get published. It may take a while, but you'll get published.

The other most important thing if you want to write or draw is to DO it, as regularly as you can. My ability to draw waxes and wanes. When I'm in the writing stage of a book and don't draw for several weeks, my drawing becomes terrible. It's only after drawing daily for a week or so that my skills return, and the mental muscles get back into shape. But it's important to build those mental muscles first--and the only way to do it is by spending time practicing.

And now.....drum roll, please:

Brian's Snowflake: Free Fall

Blogging for a Cure - Week 2

Week two of Blogging for a Cure - drawing attention to the fundraiser for Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

This week's blogs are posted in my sidebar to the right.

(Note: I'll be featuring Brian Lies on Tuesday - so come back and check it out.)






Note to Blog Readers about Blogging for a Cure: When Jules of 7-Imp put out her call in September for bloggers to interview/feature artists who had created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007 at their blogs, a number of artists had not yet sent in their snowflakes to Dana-Farber. As time was of the essence to get Blogging for a Cure underway, we worked with the list of artists whose snowflakes were already in possession of Dana-Farber. Therefore, not all the participating artists will be featured. This in no way diminishes our appreciation for their contributions to this worthy cause. We hope everyone will understand that once the list of artists was emailed to bloggers and it was determined which bloggers would feature which artists at their blogs, a schedule was organized and sent out so we could get to work on Blogging for a Cure ASAP. Our aim is to raise people’s awareness about Robert’s Snow and to promote the three auctions. We hope our efforts will help to make Robert’s Snow 2007 a resounding success.

Blogging for a Cure

Starts today!!!

The weekly schedule, along with links to each blog, is posted in my sidebar to the right.

Robert's Snow Gallery Showings

You can view the beautiful snowflakes made by children's book artist's for the Robert's Snow Cancer Cure project at The Child at Heart Gallery in Newburyport, MA and Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, MA.

For information on both galleries, check here.

And remember, I will be featuring artists Brian Lies and Robin Brickman in the coming weeks.

Blogging for a Cure

The wonderful Robert's Snow Blogging for a Cure project is taking off! It's the brainchild of Jules and Eisha over at Seven Impossible Things. The idea is for bloggers to feature this year's Robert's Snow artists to attract attention to the auction. The response has been terrific.

The complete list of participating blogs is here.

I have the honor of featuring dear friends and amazing artists: Robin Brickman and Brian Lies.

So, stay tuned....

Robert's Snow

If you blog, I hope you'll consider participating in Blogging for a Cure.