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A
letter from 2006 Southern Breeze Illustrator Contest Choosing a winner and two runners-up from a field of 12 wildly divergent illustrators is kind of like having to pick which one of your kids you like best. You just can't do it easily nor nonchalantly, so when you DO have to choose you look at as many factors as you can think of, as objectively as you possibly can, then plunge ahead. "P.J. climbed up and found _____________." is the premise for Illustrators 2006. Would you like to know who or what P.J. is? Nine out of 12 times, P.J. is a small child: 6 are clearly boys, one is a girl, and two are androgynous but very small. In one instance P.J. is a monkey; and in a couple of instances it is difficult to know about P.J. exactly. Seven out of 12 illustrations were on a vertical format and five were horizontal. Eleven scenes indicated the weather as warm; in one scene it was definitely cold. Eleven times all action took place out of doors, and only one happened indoors. Seven times the action was at night and five times it was daytime. (I want a word with whoever that was that let those little kids run around outdoors at night without adult supervision….! But, oh well, as we know, anything can and does happen just like that in storybookland.) What P.J. found ran the gamut. Magical creatures lead the way with two baby magical creatures and one sleeping fantasy pony-all three of them in trees! Other animals in trees showed up-one a giraffe and another a dog on a branch. In fact, trees as central to the action at hand happened exactly 50% of the time (6 out of the 12 scenes). Another scene featured a magical land on many, many stilts. A zipper in the sky in one picture and a man in the moon in another put our tiny heroes in outer space. An old trunk in the attic, the very large eye of an elephant, and a sleeping baby in an eagle's nest figured among P.J.'s finds. Imaginations were afire with a myriad range of ideas. Illustration styles were likewise varied, from detailed and painterly to more abstract, from quiet and soft to crazily zany, from subtle and subdued palettes to the very colorful. Most were quite appropriate for the picturebook crowd, and a couple of them were also appropriate for the slightly older reader or perhaps an editorial project. For future reference in 2007 and beyond, judges might want to know what medium or combination of media the artist has used. There were instances where I suspected the color printout might not have done full justice to the colors and textures of the actual piece. But art directors are aware of this, are willing to take that into consideration and compensate for it. It helps when we know the medium. Thank you all for the singular honor of being invited to serve as Judge for your 1st Annual Illustration Competition. I hope the comments offered as critique and guidance on the check sheets prove useful to each artist. There is obviously talent aplenty in SCBWI and I encourage each of you to follow your muse. Do keep on painting, concepting, studying the market, practicing, practicing, practicing, and getting better all the time. Loraine
Joyner, Art Director
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