Illustrator's Group: April Meeting Recap

The RISD CE's Children's Book Illustrator Group met Monday night for our second-ever group critique held at the Providence Athenaeum!

Our meeting room in the Children's Section was
much fuller once our meeting commenced!

This was my first time attending the group, my first time visiting the AMAZING (and surprisingly huge) library, and it was my first turn as Guest Leader. It also happened to be the first time I got to show Little Raindrop's book dummy to my peers. So it was a big night for me!

Before the meeting began I was able to sneak downstairs to meet author Ann Hood, who was having a book signing and talk about her children's book series, The Treasure Chest. I bought the first three of her to-be-eight book series, (after she was kind enough to sign them for me) and scrambled back upstairs to get the group rolling!

The group that attended included the following talented folks: 

Caroline Gray

Dede Carlston (we need to get your portfolio online, Dede! I smell a group project...)

Alayna Paquette

Debra Maher

Wendy Johnston

Wendy Nilsson

Cathren Housley

and myself. :)

I was able to get a lot of great feedback on the dummy; specifically the different aspects of printing and how the printing and cutting process affects my art bleeds and things. (I'm afraid I took up too much time on this particular critique! Sorry!) We enjoyed Cathren's painting in-progress, learning new techniques as she explained her process. We helped Caroline gather ideas on how to save herself some time when sculpting her imaginary worlds and gave her some portfolio feedback. Dede was able to get some feedback on both her self portrait and her current work-in-progress, which included a bit of talk on perspective. Alayna shared with us her vivid illustrations to be published in the new iPad app, FarFaria. And we also had a bit of a chat about how we feel about Work for Hire contracts and situations to watch out for, and how to use such projects to our advantage and for fun, too!

Overall it was a productive night! Each person with their unique background of experiences had something useful to share, and something to learn as well.

But the warm and fuzzy feeling we all had by the end of the night wasn't because of what we learned, or what we shared, but what we were reminded that we have: each other!

So keep up the good work, Everyone! It's easy to forget in our lonely studios that there are others feeling the same way we do, and fighting the same uphill freelancing battle. We're all in it together, so hang in there, we're rooting for you!