The following is an interview with an art student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA majoring in Illustration:

1. What specific skills (Artistically) in your opinion do you find most essential for your success in illustrating children’s books?

Empathy. You have to genuinely love people and be able to put yourself in their shoes. The ability to tap into universal human experience is a gift. If you have it, it needs to be nurtured, coached and developed. Find role models, mentors and peers who can help you grow. Read poetry and good stories and look at great works of art that move you and make you want to go create stuff.

You have to love sequential story telling, with an understanding of how images contribute to character and story apart from the text.

You need to be able to identify the emotional tone of the story and create art that enhances it.

Technically, you need to be able to draw — the ability to create a unified visual world with its own internal logic. It may be whimsical, serious, abstracted or realistic, but it needs to be visually unified and compelling to look at.

Be willing to work hard, trying multiple solutions for any given image. Most of my images involve 10-30 sketches, not counting black and white miniature paintings and mini color paintings before going to final art. Like a film director doing multiple takes of a scene and then choosing the best, we also need to do the hard work of finding the best solution.

I’m reading a book by Leonard Bernstein which has a chapter explaining Beethoven’s methods. Beethoven would try up to 20+ versions of a given passage of music before settling on the right answer. Bernstein’s point was that the quality of “inevitability” which characterizes Beethoven’s music was something he paid for with sheer perseverance.

The same is true of Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, and many, many other master painters. They did countless studies in preparation for the final statement. Most of art making is this kind of digging for gold. The greats don’t just sit down and bang out a great image. They work for it.

2. What specific skills (Business Related) in your opinion do you find most essential for your success in illustrating children’s books?

Never miss a deadline. EVER. Be easy to work with. Take feedback like a grown-up – grateful that the art director or editor want to help you excel. The story is king.
If it serves the story, do it. Success in business is at least 80% working well with people. Be kind, express gratitude, be reliable, be friendly. And do good work.

3. What affiliations and/or organizations do you find the most prominent and beneficial to the children’s book illustrator?

Building relationships is the key to success.  People need to know you, like you, and trust you.  Face to face is best, when possible.  The Mazza Museum has annual Fall and Spring conferences where top talent shares insights and where relationships are formed.  SCBWI has local chapters with member meetings and events.

4. Do you attend conventions and/or conferences regularly? Which do you find the most beneficial for yourself and the aspiring children’s book illustrator?

The Mazza Museum conferences have been very helpful.

5. What ways of self promotion have you found to be the most successful?

My web site, blog, Facebook page, and speaking engagements are the main things I do to promote what I do.

6. What is the competitive price range for the work of children’s book illustrators?

It varies widely depending on experience, reputation and track record. You normally get an advance against royalties, with a royalty of 5% of retail (artist only) or 10% of retail (author/ illustrator). If the book earns back the advance, you then earn royalties.

7. What methods are used to calculate the prices?

They will tell you what they are offering. If you need the money, say yes!
On a few contracts recently I have asked for a little more than they were offering.

8. Do you have any advice, thoughts or insights for the aspiring children’ book illustrator?

Expect rejections. Work hard. Experiment a lot. Figure out what you most enjoy doing. Make the work only you could have made.

You will probably need another source of income. Maybe for a while, maybe forever. You never know.
But if you are doing books because it’s what you were born to do, that’s not important. What’s important is that you dig around in your own soul, find the gems down there, and get them out into books for other people to enjoy.

Children’s books create an opportunity for children and their parents and grandparents to come together and make memories that will last a lifetime. It’s an incredible privilege to be invited into a child’s world that way.

This is me reading to my daughter when we were both a lot younger.  :o)

Breaking In to the Children’s Book Market

Aspiring children’s book authors often ask how to break in to the business.   Here are a few thoughts from one guy’s perspective:

Do I need to submit illustration samples with my story? Short answer:  No.
Children’s books all begin as manuscripts (a type written story) which are submitted to the editor at a publishing house.  Once the editorial staff decides to buy the rights to publish the story, it is the publishing house that seeks and hires an illustrator.  Not only is it not necessary to submit illustrations along with a manuscript, I’ve been told it can even be a negative in the eyes of the publisher.  It might be perceived as unprofessional, in large part because they see their role as pairing art and text to match their vision for the book.

How do I get names and addresses of decision makers?

Short answer:  Research.
Submitting stories to publishers is relatively simple.  You need to research which publishers would be most likely to want your story, then find the name(s) of the specific editor(s) you will be submitting to, mail the story to them, and as a professional courtesy, indicate in your cover letter whether you are submitting simultaneously to other publishers.

Resources to help in your research:

• Your public library.  Tell the reference librarian what you need, they will be happy to help.
• The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Check out their advice on getting started: http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Just-Getting-Started
• The Children’s Book Council (NY) – they have a downloadable mailing list of editors and publishers
• PictureBook.com links to resources and info
• Jane Yolen’s web site – advice to writers

Conferences? Short answer:  Yes.
There are conferences an aspiring author should probably go to if they are serious about a career as a children’s author.   Business success boils down to relationships in the end.  Face to face contact is one great way to build those relationships.  The more people you know on the “inside,” the more likely you are to be invited in.  Check out:

• the children’s book conference in Chautauqua, NY,
• the Highlights Foundation conference
• Mazza Museum, University of Findlay, OH

At these events and many others like them, established authors, editors, and publishers give workshops and critiques to up and coming authors.   People will be the key to your success.
Get to know them.

Is writing children’s books easy? Short answer:  No.
Writing for children is as difficult as writing for adults, if not more so.  The tight constraints of the form require an economy of language and expression that take time to master.  Continuous effort to improve as a writer is vital to anybody who is in this line of work.

Writing for children is also extremely competitive, as much or more than for any other market.  So rejection is part of the children’s writer’s life.   In addition, the recent turmoil in the economy has not left children’s publishing untouched.  The reality is that they are buying less than before.

I’m just pointing out the obvious — this is not an easy path, whether you are trying to break in or whether you are trying to stay in.

Will you illustrate my story? Short answer:  No.   It’s not necessary.
An illustrator is hired by a publisher.  If your story is good enough to get published, you won’t have to find an artist.  The publisher will.  It’s their job, not yours.

Can you help me get published? Short answer.  I’m sorry, but I can’t.
There are gatekeepers and those who are knocking on the gate.  I’m not a gatekeeper.  I have no decision-making power or influence over what publishers choose to publish.  (I wish I did sometimes!)  So I have no inside track to getting somebody else published.   We’re in the same boat as far as that goes.

I hope this helps in your journey.
Whatever happens, keep writing!

Here’s the link again to info from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators on getting started: http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Just-Getting-Started

40 x 40

2016

oil on linen

SOLD

Muriel Guepin Gallery

New York, NY

Muriel Guepin Gallery began representing my work in January 2016.

I had a great time with the students at Waterville Primary School in Waterville, OH this week.

To schedule a school visit with David Slonim, contact the studio:  david@davidslonim.com

more info on David’s school visits here

For my drawing demos, the students tell me what to draw.  They invent a character, tell me what problem the character is having, and an emotion the character is feeling.  I draw the image in a few short minutes, then three kids help me color it.

In this case, it’s a unicorn farting rainbows while her friend Frog gags:

Another drawing demo- a harp seal and a one-eyed dinosaur in UFOs, shooting lasers at each other:

We talked about nostrils, perseverance, determination and being willing to keep trying until it’s right.

Authors and illustrators traditionally sign the library wall…

Thanks for a great visit, Waterville Primary!

To schedule a school visit with David Slonim, contact the studio:  david@davidslonim.com

I used to feel guilty for not finishing most of my ideas.  Not anymore.   I’ve leaned that having more ideas than I have time to finish is not a weakness, it is a strength.   An artist should be creating a small mountain of unfinished ideas, half-baked attempts & false starts, abandoned projects, screw ups and do-overs.    I created the pyramid doodle to remind myself.  I’m sharing it here in case it may encourage you, too.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”

– Linus Pauling (1901-1994, American Chemist, Bio-Chemist, Nobel Laureate)

From the pile of ideas, we select the best ones to experiment with.

From the pile of experiments, we choose the strongest results to refine.

From those come the small number of works anybody will ever see.

The viewer will never know what it took to produce the work they see,  but I’m confident that they will sense the honesty in it and feel respected.

To paint better

PAINT MORE.

• A judge eliminated all landscapes on principle.
• Another one ruled out any painting with the color green.
• A judge was coached by the show committee (which hired him) to give awards to the paintings that had the best chance of selling, since it was a fund raising event.   (I’ve heard the same story from several judges over the years).

But even if you leave out the extreme examples of behind-the-scenes art show nonsense, judging art remains highly subjective.  In many cases, judges simply gravitate toward work that appeals to their personal taste.  So the award-winning work all ends up looking like the judge could have produced it.  This is more than unfortunate.  It is stifling to the creative impulse, and teaches you nothing about how to improve your work in the future.

So what can be done?

When I judge a show, my goal is to be as objective as possible.    I want to give awards to the best work, not to the work that looks most like my own.  I created a checklist using numerical values to evaluate paintings, similar to the process used to judge disciplines such as diving, gymnastics, or debate.  The subjective element is balanced as much as possible by a set of objective criteria that can be given a numerical value.

The numbers don’t lie!

This checklist is just one guy’s attempt to be fair.  It can be improved.  But it’s a starting place.

Ok, here is a judges statement followed by the checklist.  If you have any suggestions for modifying or improving the checklist, please let me know.  If you have your own that you are already using, feel free to post a link so others can check it out.

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Judge’s Statement

Nobody makes a picture or sculpture and walks away from it without saying something about it, good or bad.  The creative process always ends with evaluation.   In the beginning, God declared creation to be “very good.   We do the same thing all the time.  Even a toddler will show scribbles to a parent in order to get feedback.  The last time you finished making something, what went through your head?  What came out of your mouth?  We can’t help ourselves.

So what standards are we going to use to evaluate our artwork?   How can you judge your own work in a way that will help you improve?  How can you offer feedback to a fellow painter that will be based on more than personal taste?

My focus as the awards judge was on the arrangement or design of the entire artwork.   Did the artist create a harmony of form that conveys one visual idea? I looked at the elements of design- line, shape, space, value, and color –  in light of universal principles of design- hierarchy, rhythm, balance, unity.

Each contender for awards was evaluated using this checklist.  Awards were given based on the numerical scores.    You may not agree with all the selections, but you can be sure the choices were not made on a whim.    And more importantly, if you evaluate your own work using fundamental principles of good design, you will know where the next step on your creative journey lies.

David Michael Slonim

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(If the checklist below is too small to read easily, you can click on it to see a larger file)

– Linus Pauling, (1901-1994), American Chemist and Biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Here are some of the many character studies I did for my book I LOATHE YOU:

Stacks of drawings piled up around the studio.

Finally I came up with this purple-gourd-pig-snout thing with wings.  I thought surely this was IT:

I was so excited I even sculpted it:

But the editorial team at Simon & Schuster said no.  Try again.  The pig snout was too much.

Here’s the approved character design:

Next it was time for color studies.  Here is a small fraction of the color combinations I tried and tested on friends and family:

And at last the final character:

I tell kids every time I speak to school audiences,

“A professional artist isn’t someone who gets it right on the first try.

A professional is someone who is willing to keep trying until it’s right.”