Tag: Guiseppe Castellano

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I started a post on December 20th, and here I am finally getting something posted. The holidays are behind us, and although we had a good Christmas and New Year celebrations, it has also been a rough time as we dealt with an ongoing illness with my youngest son. Three trips to the doctor later, we were admitted to Nationwide Children’s Hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia. We spent the weekend in the hospital watching him slowly improve and we got to come home for New Year’s Eve. He is definitely doing much better now!

As many people do, I have been looking to the new year and wondering what it will have in store, as well as reflecting on 2018. This past year was a great year of firsts for my illustration journey. I began this blog, I started my Instagram account, I got involved with SCBWI and the kidlitart chat community on Twitter, I even travelled to Los Angeles to the SCBWI summer conference! I produced dozens of illustrations throughout the year, made lots of new friends, and felt my confidence in my abilities increase.

In 2019, I plan to get back swing of doing colour collective illustrations at least 2x per month, as well as get a few sample pages for a book dummy complete. My biggest step forward that I’m going to work on is mailing out postcards. For real, guys, postcards are going out this year. With a less definite goal in mind, I’m also going to be giving some use to some Christmas gifts I received: some watercolors and a watercolor sketchbook! I have missed traditional media and look forward to getting familiar with a new medium.

What this means for me is compiling my mailing list! I am going to try to go back to what Giuseppe Castellano suggested: add three names to your list per week. We will see how many I can come up with.

The near year holds a lot of opportunities for us all! What are some attainable goals you have for yourself? Don’t be afraid to dream big!

by Categories: New Experiences, Personal LifeTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Artist Postcards

Hello, friends! It’s been busy these past few weeks, and I finally have a moment to catch my breath. I just finished laying out a booklet celebrating the work of a Dayton, Ohio-area DJ who has now been in the radio business for 50 years! I volunteer design services for his current radio station on occasion, but this project was the most involved piece I have worked on for them. It is a relief to have it finished!

With my plate slightly more clear for the time being, I can turn my focus back to building my portfolio and preparing for the SCBWI Annual Summer Conference in August. My mini assignments from Guiseppe are coming along nicely. I have 6 art directors on my contact spreadsheet and I have begun to make more changes to the website, beginning with the actual web address. No longer am I encumbered by the WordPress branding! It feels more official this way.

I’ve been giving some thought to postcards lately. Illustrators generally send out postcards showcasing their work to publishers around May and September: the peak hiring times for the year. With the first big round of mailing coming up, my #kidlitart chat friends on Twitter spent last Thursday sharing postcard designs, postcards in process, and asking/answering questions about mailing them out.

I won’t be ready to send out cards in May, but I plan to design my postcards and have them printed by the end of July so I can take them with me to the SCBWI conference in Los Angeles this August. Having them there with me will allow me to hand them out to fellow illustrators with whom I want to keep in contact as well as potential agents, editors, and art directors. Also, since I will have them ready by then, I will plan to send my first mailing in September of this year!

A quick side note about #kidlitart chat: I am so glad to have found these people. The information I have gotten has been very helpful, and they really made me feel welcome from day one. I speak up more now than I did at first, but no one ever made me feel like an outsider. I’m looking forward to meeting some of them face-to-face at the SCBWI conference!

by Categories: Personal Life, Portfolio ProgressTags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Just One Week Away!

My portfolio review is one week away and I’m starting to feel stressed! Between being in and out of work for over a week as my son was (and still is) sick and volunteering my design skills to compile a celebratory anniversary booklet for my father-in-law’s coworker, time has gotten away from me and I feel underprepared.

I have been working on a larger piece for a little under a month now. I was hoping to have it done for this review, but it looks like it won’t be making it into my portfolio quite yet. The piece is really coming along nicely, so it’s a shame to leave it out. I’m even considering cropping in on a finished bit of it just to get Guiseppe Catellano’s thoughts on what I have! Not sure yet if I will or not. I am compiling all of my most “finished” illustration pieces into an email tonight to send to him so he will have time to review the pieces before we talk if he wants.

My biggest concern is just feeling like I don’t have many pieces to show, and I am not sure what to expect. Really, the worst that could happen is for him to tell me that none of my art is acceptable and that I have no future in illustration. If that is the case (and God, please let that not be the case), I will just need to continue to practice and refine my work until it is acceptable. This is going to be a great learning experience!

by Categories: Portfolio ProgressTags: , , , Leave a comment

The Beginning: Part II

Today’s post is going to focus on my upcoming portfolio review! Here are the basics:

What it is

I will be sending images of my works to Guiseppe Castellano for him to review. The night of the review, we’ll use Google Video Chat and discuss my work. He’ll let me know where my strengths lie and what areas I still need to improve, and then we’ll get to discuss how best to build a portfolio, what art directors are looking for in portfolios, and what next steps I should be taking to get where I want to be in my career.

Who is Guiseppe Castellano?

He is an art director and illustrator with years of experience! He has worked with some big name publishing houses in the past, but now works for himself. He heads up The Illustration Department, a resource for online classes to help illustrators improve their work and build portfolios.

How did you find the opportunity?

Guiseppe was one of the first guests on the Stories Unbound podcast I mentioned yesterday! At the time of his interview, he was working at Penguin Random House as their Executive Art Director. His website has a link for the Illustration Department on it, and I joined their mailing list, hoping to try sign up for something one day. I got an email last week that they were running a 40% off sale on their courses, so I seized the opportunity!

When is it?

April 12th at 9pm. I am severely hoping that my 6 month old will stay asleep for the full hour of the review. My husband has already said he’ll be on baby duty if Baby J wakes up, but his intense attachment to me means he’ll be crying if he knows I’m there and not holding him.

My illustration experience up to this point has all been either college-level course work or small pieces I have made for myself for practice, so my excitement for this review is tempered by nervousness at how my work will be perceived. Some days I look at what I’ve done and think I really have what it takes, and other days it seems that all I see are the flaws and marks of amateurism. I hear all artists deal with this in some form, so I try not to let it get me down.

I’ll be posting some work on my Portfolio page as I prepare files to send to Guiseppe! I’ll also be posting about a work-in-progress here in the next couple days.

Until next time!     

by Categories: Portfolio ProgressTags: , , , , Leave a comment