Thursday, September 25, 2008

I won SCBWI Midsouth Conference Poster Contest!



I packed my bags and headed to the Midsouth SCBWI Conference last weekend. I had a wonderful time.

A new part of the conference this year was a poster contest for children's book art. The conference faculty chose the one that they felt looked most like the cover of a children's book and mine won. How exciting is that!

There were a lot of beautiful illustrations at this conference. Those of us who had attended last year's conference and had met with the Art Director, Laurent Linn, have greatly improved our portfolios based on his articulate suggestions. It's so encouraging to learn at these conferences what makes strong illustrations for the picture book industry and to see other artists grow. I can't wait to see next year's artwork after meeting with Victoria Jamieson this year.

37 comments:

jama said...

Congratulations, Kristi! Your illustration is just lovely. :)

C. Rod. Unalt said...

Wow that's amazing!! What an accomplishment!! Congrats Kristie!!

Robert Squier said...

Congratulations! SCBWI Conferences are a lot of fun and great learning/networking opportunities. My poster won honorable at the New England Conference this past Spring. I won a shirt and bragging rights!

Tracy said...

Your poster was (is) absolutely gorgeous! I'm happy that you won the poster contest! I agree with all of your postings below about the conference...this being my first SCBWI conference, I really learned a LOT and was inspired by all the art I saw there. Thanks for your kind support at the conference; I'm so glad I got to meet you in person. I've enjoyed your art for a long time! :)

Connie said...

Well done, you! And that's a gorgeous poster. What colour!

Bobo said...

Wow! Congratulation! This is truly a charming poster!

roz said...

Not surprising, this is wonderful.
Congratulations!

Melissa said...

Congrats! Its a terrific image, I love the expression of the cow - all soft and mothery looking.

I love the warmth of the image as well, very nice.

studio lolo said...

Congrats! This is a beauty!
I haven't been to an SCBWI conference in forever. Actually since they were pretty new :(
I need to get back in the saddle!

Vanessa Brantley Newton said...

CONGRATS!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!. This is great! The illustration is just wonderful and full of everything. Great job. I hope that this will bring lots of work your work and that you will be busy, busy, busy!!

franhilz said...

congrats!!!

your contribution is really nice - high quality illo

sruble said...

Congratulations! Your poster is wonderful, I can see how it won. I had a portfolio review with Laurent this summer, and he is amazing and so helpful. Glad to hear that others have been able to have the same experience. Thanks for the notes too.

Dot said...

Congrats!!

Edrian said...

Congratulations! This is wonderful piece! Well deserved!

Anonymous said...

That's awesome. It looks like it deserved to win. I'm trying to do something for their online contest.

murphy girl said...

bravo!

Teri said...

A beautiful illo! You deserve to win!

Juan said...

Wonderful illustration Kristi! Nicely executed

Jacqui said...

Congratulations! I love the layout of your poster.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the conference; thanks for sharing the recap!

Roberta said...

Congratulations! It's well deserved!

Ginger*:) said...

Congratulations, Kristi, this is wonderful!

froggie is... said...

atta girl, kristi! a fantastic piece!

mazeltov, mazeltov! i'm with roberta, well well deserved!

INDIGENE said...

Congratulations! This is so beautifully rendered. You absolutely deserved to win! Wow! Great job and wonderful work!

http://indigeneartforms.blogspot.com

Donna Farrell said...

Congrats! Great piece.

Anthony VanArsdale said...

Congratulations Kristi!!! that's a beautiful piece! and thanks for sharing your notes in the last post... I'm not surprised you got a great portfolio critique either.. your work is fantastic :)

Eric Barclay said...

Really beautiful piece!

Ratlion said...

Hey! Congratulations! This is a ovely piece.

Carli said...

Congratulations Kristi, your poster is beautiful. good job. I just attended the Philadelphia conference (my first) It was a great experience and I too look forward to improving my portfolio. Good job!

Joanie said...

Congratulations! This is such a beautiful illustration.

Kathleen Rietz said...

Wow!! That is so awesome Kristi!! I love the eye-catching illustration, too. Congratulations.

Debbie Meyer said...

Way to go, Kristi!! I love it. Congratulations on such a great win.

Shishir Naik said...

Congratulations! This is fantastic design!

Gulzar said...

WOOOOAHHHH! 30! BOOKS...PHEW! I HAVE DONE ONLY TWO :(

love your style
regards
Gulzar

Julie Olson said...

Congrats. Your work is beautiful. What is your medium?

Kristi Valiant said...

Woah, I've never had so many comments on one post before. How fun! Thank you all for commenting. I'm going to be licensing this image to Christian Collection for a 2009 Christmas card, so I'll post a link to it next year in case you want to buy Christmas cards of it.

Julie, to answer your question, my work is all digital. From sketch to finish, this illustration was created in Photoshop CS3 using a 5"x7" Wacom tablet and pen on my Mac with an Apple Cinema Display. I should really add an "How I work" section to my website. Check back for that later!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! Your artwork is beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Kristi,
This is fantastic. The lighting, the characters, expressions, color, etc. Just great.

teri