SVS Virtual Studio JANUARY 2023

[ArtistErin]

@kirsten-mcg Yes I love this idea... I made a coloring book for an author I worked with years ago. Loved it! Something so cool about just line art and letting someone else color it in... I agree there aren't great coloring books in the current market! @mag I love your concept here! Kudos for taking on the proactive measures to make your work! I was just saying to Asya maybe developing a line of puzzles, and launching a kickstarter, along with setting up something with Amazon could be a way to get out there. It's sooo exciting to see how artists can take the proactive approach to their careers. So thank you for showing how this can be done.

[ArtistErin]

Love the funny way penguins slide, this piece is jenky now as I'm learning frame sequencing and everything, but I'm having a ball doing this. Not trying to animate a full feature, just working out the notions stirring around my brain.

[kirsten-mcg]

@ArtistErin these little animations you’ve been doing are so cute! I have zero experience with animation, so it might as well be magic you are doing. It’s on my very long term to do list…

[ArtMelC]

@Asyas_illos Ooo I want this fishy blanket 🥰

[kirsten-mcg]

It's been a long time since I did something like this...just a simple character illustration without overthinking story or composition. It felt so good to paint in watercolors and gouache again. I've been pushing hard to learn digital this fall, and missing my traditional mediums. Happy New Year everyone!

[Kim Rosenlof]

@kirsten-mcg This is so cute. I really like that you used traditional media!

[Asyas_illos]

@kirsten-mcg I love it! It’s nice to break out of the “illustration” zone once and while get back to the art.

[ArtistErin]

@Asyas_illos agreed!! I'm heading this direction too. Craving the traditional vibe, just need to get my materials organized, and my desk cleaned off! Might be today's project.

[Melissa_Bailey]

@mag I just downloaded HAIR to my Kindle -- can't wait to read it! Congratulations on self-publishing TWO books!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Asyas_illos LOVE these colors and the shape of your fish!

[Melissa_Bailey]

Took a bit of a break from social media and things to focus on personal work -- getting picture book dummies ready to submit to agents. The goal is to start submitting this month. Here is an illustration from one of the dummies:

[ArtistErin]

@Melissa_Bailey Beautiful Love it!!!!

[ArtistErin]

Mice Basketball

[mag]

@Melissa_Bailey Now I really do hope I haven't messed up!

[mag]

@ArtistErin This is awesome!!!

[mag]

@Melissa_Bailey Such a nice scene! 🥰 How many book dummies are you preparing? Are you going to submit all of them at once, or just one and have the rest of the manuscripts ready just in case the agent asks for more?
I've queried agents with only one book dummy, but I had about 3 more other manuscripts ready for them to see. But now - I am trying to work on multiple book dummies at once, and it seems a bit difficult for me to skip from one to the other, so I wanted to know if you have some kind of a trick how to schudule the workflow, if you have multiple book dummies to work on...?

[mag]

@kirsten-mcg I love it! It's really cute and the textures are so nice! 🥰

[ArtMelC]

A simple illustration I made for my monthly handwritten newsletter. I still find writing on iPad not as nice as pen on paper but I try to enjoy it more!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@mag it was a cute book! Your characters, as always, are delightful. And I loved your adorable guinea piglets!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@mag thanks!

About the book dummies — I will have 3 ready for agents to see. Two are about ready to go and 1 needs some work on back matter (it has nonfiction elements to the story). I worked on them pretty much one at a time, but there has been some skipping back and forth. There are other manuscripts I’m working on and am starting another book dummy this week, but those will not be ready when I start submitting to agents.

As far as how I’m going to submit them, it will depend on what each agent prefers. I’ll be submitting to 5-7 agents to start. One of them has already critiqued a dummy for an SCBWI event I took part in, so I’ll be submitting the revised dummy to her. For most of the agents, I’ll be sending a link to a private page of my website, so they can read more than one dummy if they want (as some do, according to their submission guidelines).

Work has been really slow the last 2 months, so I’ve taken advantage of the lull to work on getting these dummies ready to submit. I don’t really have any tricks on managing workflow. It might have been knowing that this slow period isn’t going to last that kept me productive!

It’s been a tough year, and I’ve found that I really don’t want to work digitally, so a lot of the work was done traditionally, and I found that I worked faster that way. If I tried to switch over to my iPad I became really unmotivated and slowed right down.

Not sure if any of this helps or not; it’s just what has worked for me the last few months.