BYU Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers Conference

Last week I attended the BYU WIFYR (Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers) Conference.  It was fantastic.

The conference runs for a week and it is intense.  I took the weeklong workshop with Dandi Mackall who is a prolific author.  We workshopped picture book manuscripts in a 15 person group each morning from 8:30-12:30 Mon - Fri.  I learned a ton from Dandi, especially about Point of View and getting in the character's head.  Dandi's website can be found here.  She's got some great books.  I'll make some recommendations on good books later.  (Also, Dandi is a sweetheart.)

I got to talk to Martha Mihalick, an editor from Greenwillow Books (an imprint of Harper Collins.)  She gave me some great feedback on a book dummy I'm working on.  She was great.  She helped me fix some big problems with the story and get it more focussed.

The conference is organized by two local authors (as far as I know) who are hilarious and make the whole thing a lot of fun.  They are Carol Lynch Williams and Cheri Pray Earl.  They are great and their books are great too.

If anybody is considering going into children's lit, either writing or illustrating, the BYU WIFYR conference is an invaluable resource of information and a great place to make connections.

At the end of the week I drew Will Terry (one of the presenters) as a lumberjack.

100 Picture Challenge, Day 14: Silence

A silent comic that still manages to have dialogue.  I make no apologies for the less than tasteful joke; this is how I heard it when I was a kid.

100 Picture Challenge, Day 13: Misfortune

I do 'em when I can.  I might get back on schedule with one image per day but not for a few weeks yet I imagine.

Work (for Reals)

Yeah, I have legit illustration work (that pays real money.)  Here is a taste of the kind of thing I'm doing.  This book will teach about action words and the proper way to deal with monster attacks: dance like you mean it.  The big blank spaces are for Chinese text.

When I get some of these pages together in color and with Chinese text in place I'll post them.

Submarine Tacos

Something I'm working on.  It might make more sense when I include the octopus in the submarine as the taco vendor.  It might also make less sense with an octopus included in the scene.

I can't wait to paint this one.

Will Strong Recommends UP

Unlike any other movie I've ever seen.  I almost never get to say that.

Pete Doctor has come a long way since he directed Monsters Inc. and the mix of comedy, action, drama, adventure and pathos in his new movie is amazing.

Just go see it.

100 Picture Challenge, Day 12: Insanity

It's everybody's favorite green-haired insane freak.  It's The Joker.

I know you might hate me for saying this but, though I thoroughly enjoyed Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight, I have to say that my favorite Joker is still Mark Hamill.  Call me crazy but I think nostalgia plays a big part in that opinion.  

Thank you Bruce Timm.  You created my favorite iteration of the Batman.

Will Strong Recommends: A Talk With Hitchcock

This one is a bit different.  "A Talk with Hitchcock" is nothing more than both halves of a two-part interview with Alfred Hitchcock that was given in 1963 (as near as I can tell) for a Canadian television program called "Telescope."

The best part of the interview involves Hitch explaining his theory on film editing.  He thinks the word "cutting" is completely inappropriate.  Cutting implies separating and disjoining things.  He likes the term montage or assembly better as they imply construction.  He then takes scenes from his movies and explains exactly why he put them together this way.  Good stuff.  If you have any interest in Hitchcock or the mechanics of how film is put together then this is a must see.  

This DVD is not easy to find.  It's not even on IMDB which has just about everything else.  I found it on Netflix.  It's a good rental.  (The DVD was published in 1994 by Image Entertainment.)

Anybody interested in visual storytelling could benefit from this DVD.  Good luck finding it.