What are you reading winner.

We have a winner! Karin Marie's name was drawn for this contest. A signed copy of First Snow is on the way to her.

Karin Marie said...
I enjoy reading The Night Before Christmas, but I often find that I will pick up the newest Debbie Macomber Christmas book. It seems like she has a new Christmas themed one every year!

What a fitting choice. I recently had a neighbor send these amazing photos of our cabin with the first snow of the year. I thought I'd share this winter sight with you all. For a desert dweller it's such a treat. Enjoy!

Our cabin.

 Our dog's house.

(She really doesn't stay there. She's an indoor dog.)

 Our favorite place to sit. Usually!

 

Our View!

What are you reading for Christmas?

Mention a favorite book you like to read over and over each Christmas, and you can win a signed print, your choice, of my holiday art. Just leave a comment with the title and I'll add your name to the list. Get your comment in by midnight on December 31, 2012. In the spirit of procrastination I'll announce the winner on January 2, 2013. Merry Christmas!

My favorites are, The Polar Express and The Homecoming.


Choose from either...

 Jack Frost

or...

First Snow

Take the Dare...

Cynthea Liu has a new book coming out! It's called Paris Pan takes the Dare. And boy, does she know how to celebrate! Join in on the fun and help out. There are a ton of great prizes you can win. Plus, she just announced "Due to the craziness of the holiday weekend, the auction has been EXTENDED through July 8th."

To learn more about “Take the Dare: Show You Care,” please visit www.cynthealiu.com/showyoucare or contact cynthea@cynthealiu.com.

Have you seen Betsy Bird's poll results for the Top 100 Picture Books on A Fuse #8 Production? Sure, everybody's seen them right! In case you missed it, or want to go back and check them out again, here's that link Top 100 Picture Books.


I can't believe with all the books on my bookshelf I don't have either of the top two voted classic. But thanks to Jean Reidy, it's now one down, one to go! Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon is one the way to my studio. Thanks for the contest Jean.


Now, for the #1 ranked picture book Where the Wild Things Are. I had to check my bookshelf to make sure. Maybe I have a Scholastic paperback sandwiched somewhere between a couple of other titles. Maybe I forgot to file it alphabetically. Maybe I filed it with my autographed copies. (OK, now that's dreaming!) But alas, maybe I just check it out from the library for extended periods of time over and over. I mean I know the text by heart. I know all the images. But I don't have my own copy of Maurice Sendak's all time classic! That's just wrong. I guess know the next book I'm buying.

Wednesday Links

If you haven't seen it yet, you have to checkout Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup. She posted a wonderful interview with this year's 2009 Caldecott Honor Medal winner Melissa Sweet! It's chock full of sweet advice, sweet pictures, sweet links, and even a sweet give-away!

Be sure to check out Melissa's blog too. You can see how she celebrated her win.

Wednesday Links

Check out what books are winning awards!
NY Times Best Illustrated Children's books

Check out contests and book giveaways.
Cynsations
Anastasia Suen's Blog
The Apple (Teachers only-Winner gets 35 Autographed Copies of Jack of All Tails by Kim Norman for their school.)

Check out a great round-up of holiday books.
Wild Rose Reader

Remember to support the industry.

Links

Stop by my friend and fellow illustrator's blog for a great round-up (with photos!) of the Founders' Workshop in Honesdale, Pennsylvania put on by the Highlights Foundation. Tanja is always great at sharing everything she learns and continually supports our local talent. Thanks for passing on our promos Tanja!
Tanja Bauerle's Blog

You'll find a great video with Patrick Arrasmith explaining how he creates his amazing scratchboard illustrations and how book design helps define what he creates at:
Mishaps and Adventures

Head over and find the answers to "Seven Questions Over Breakfast with Brian Lies" and see some very cool behind the scenes sketches (Love Brian’s sketch of the library from Bats at the Library!) at:
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Don't forget to keep checking the Cynsations Blog. There's been some great giveaways. And of course always great interviews. You might even get lucky and win a book like I did. This week my mailbox held this little treasure. Listening for Crickets by David Gifaldi . Thank you Cynthia!

An Interview!

Want to find out more about me? Check out my interview on the Susan Sandmore Blog! Thanks Susan! Susan's a very talented writer who just landed an agent. (Not that long ago I called her up and coming. I was right!) She's got a great blog and a great sense of humor. She threw some fun and unexpected questions at me. If you haven't done so yet, head over and check it out. I won this honor by choosing the right answer on her 10 Truths and a Lie post. I love contests and winning things! In fact, since then I also won the book Moon, Have You Met My Mother:
The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin, thanks to Elaine at Wild Rose Reader.

Want to win a book yourself? Check out Cynsations for the latest Giveaways!

Note: This post was re-posted and updated from last week. I felt it got lost in the middle of my W-I-P, so I'm giving it another go with a few more links.

The Prize Winner is...

or should I say are!

Kate and
Angela Fox (azang)

Why two winners you may ask? As it turns out when I set the rules for this contest, I was celebrating the 10,000th visitor to this blog and I figured the chances were slim, even with Statcounter, that I'd be able to discover the true identity of the 10,000th visitor. Well I was wrong! I hit 10,000 right on schedule on Wednesday and guess what? I was able to track it right to Angela Fox.

Kate your name was drawn out of a hat! OK, I didn't think of actually using a hat, it was more like a Tupperware container. Among everyone who left a comment last week your name was chosen!

Thanks to all who entered!

If the winners could please drop me an email with your mailing address I will send the prints off to you. You can reach me at gail (at) gailmakiwilson (dot) com. Kate, if you have a blog or website let me know and I'll add the link!

Work-In-Progress Part 5

And here's the final! Click on the image to enlarge.


To see all the steps of this work-in-progress click here.
To find out how you can win a signed print of the finished illustration click here.

Work-In-Progress Part 4

Finally the bubbles! They are done with Prismacolor colored pencils on DuraLar Matte . I've never used Prismacolor on Duralar before and thought this piece would be perfect for it. I've seen others use it, and I've played with it some, but wasn't sure how it would work with my "many layers" technique. (Which can easily be 10-20 layers. For the bubbles I probably have 4 or 5.) It was very different for me. There is less detail than I normally do. Which is fine. I was going for a softer focus, blurred motion thing. It sure went a lot quicker! And it gave me the shiny quality of a bubble that I don't think I would have gotten as quickly on paper.

Here's detail of one of the bubbles. I'm doing them on a separate sheet of Duralar, scanning, and adding them to the composition in Photoshop. This way I can play with the exact placement and add a transparent quality. Even though I'm drawing each element in this piece by hand my final "original" will be a digital file.

To see all the steps of this work-in-progress click here.
To find out how you can win a signed print of the finished illustration click here.

Work-In-Progress Part 3

Now I've finished most of the girl. I need to soften the darks underneath her neck a bit more. I faded out the wisps of hair at the ends. I like the white of the shirt. Having it vignette works fine. I don't feel the same about the hand. It's actually drawing more attention to it then I want. It looks kind of awkward. Like I didn't know where to stop, which is true. So I will be including her wrist.

Once I've got the form down, I really like drawing hands. Seems like most people don't, but I find if you look at what's really there, and don't let your mind tell you what to draw it's not so hard. Same thing with ears. Draw what you see.

The other thing that happened, without me realizing it, is my paper angle had shifted. While focusing on the details I lost sight of the original placement. Here I have angled the image properly and will have to extent her hair (hair extensions!) and sleeve down to make the bottom edge horizontal again. I guess you can see where I'm going with the color now.

To see all the steps of this work-in-progress click here.
To find out how you can win a signed print of the finished illustration click here.

Work-In-Progress Part 2

Here I have finished up her hair and face. As I work down her neck, I will decide just how "finished" to go with her shirt. I'm picturing having it vignette. I like the whiteness of the shirt. I'm noticing a dark, hard edge under her neck where I left off. I'll be softening that as I go. I'm considering doing a vignette with her hand too, but will have to see how it looks. Even though I'm working in values of gray here, I know as I work that she has blue eyes and sandy blonde hair.

To see all the steps of this work-in-progress click here.
To find out how you can win a signed print of the finished illustration click here.

Work-In-Progress and a Prize!

Prize!
Each day this week I'll be posting a different stage of this illustration. In celebration of hitting my 10,000th visitor to this blog, I will be giving away a signed print of the finished piece. Since it will be difficult to know exactly who the 10,000th person is, I'm going to open this up as a contest. Just stop by any day this week, check out the W-I-P, and leave a comment. Each comment will count as an entry in the drawing. (There will be no limit to the numbers of times you may enter.) On Monday June 23th I will post the name of the winner. So stop by and have a look. Good luck!

Work-In-Progress Part One
At this point I am using Graphite pencils on Duralar Matte. The overall size is 9x18. I know this piece will be mixed media, I know I will be combing B&W with color to push the "concept" of the piece. I'm undecided on where the two will meet. I'm approaching the girl as a complete B&W drawing that can stand on it's own, but keeping the option of it becoming an underpainting, with some color being added, in the back of my mind.

To see all the steps in this work-in-progress click here.

The Grand Prize W.I.N.NER: Elizabeth Dulemba!

Well I'll be! The grand prize winner goes to an illustrator this year. Way to go Elizabeth! She is an extremely talented and deserving recipient of this prestigious award. All her hard work is paying off. Congratulations to all the winners in this category, very nice work. I'm happy to see that most of the winners are names of I know. I'm not familiar with Michael A. Tyson's work, but what a cool piece that cinched him a first place tie.

Illustration
1st Place (tie) - Elizabeth Dulemba
1st Place (tie) - Michael A. Tyson
2nd Place - Paige Kaiser
3rd Place - Ginger Nielson

You can see all the winners in all the categories at Smartwriters.com.

And the W.I.N.NERS are...

Smartwriters.com has now posted most of the the winners of the 2007 competition. The only category that hasn't been posted at this time is the Illustration category. I'll keep checking, but in the meantime I'm basking in the glow of a Honorable Mention win in the picture book category! My words without the art! An honorable mention. I'm thrilled. A big congratulations to all the winners and everyone who helped make this contest happen.

Next up. Turning those thumbnails into a dummy book.

Mermaids and Contests

Leave it to those Disco Mermaids! They sure know how run a contest. And since I tend to win things, I'm entering! How about you? In honor of the sale of Jay’s first book, Thirteen Reasons Why those Mermaids are going to pick up the tuition tab for one lucky winner to the SCBWI Summer Conference. Looking for a way to get to LA this summer? Here's your chance. That is unless I'm the winner.

Logo design by Don Tate II