My Illustration Adventures For 2016 have been planned. Since I retired from teaching art in inner city schools in 2011, I have been working on my art and learning about illustration and writing children’s books. Although I have a lot of education in fine art, I had no training in illustration and picture books for children. In the last four years I became a member of SCBWI and have participated in numerous workshops and online courses on illustration for children’s literature. This has also required for me to learn digital illustration which is has been a challenge. I remember at the first Illustrator Day that I attended with SCBWI, I had no illustrations for a portfolio. I had been painting on canvas, but I had no work that was appropriate for children’s literature.

After the first year of my venture in to children’s literature, I had several books that I had written so had the illustrations from those books, but I was advised that I needed a variety of illustrations. One of my friends in my critique group, started a group of FaceBook, called Doodle Day.  I became active in the group drawing and posting my illustrations from the prompts. I discovered that if you discipline yourself to draw daily and participate, it easy to quickly build a portfolio. One month I completed enough illustrations for a book on insects.

As 2015 came to an end, I began to plan my illustration adventures for 2016.  I decided to branch out some and challenge myself a little more. I have long admired Will Terry,who is a college instructor in illustration. His SVSlearn.com has great resources for illustrators including online courses and a forum for critiquing your artwork.  There is also a monthly competition with an online webinar with Will Terry, Jake Parker, and Lynn White, called Third Thursday Critiques. The level of education and learning available for illustrators on this website is astounding.

Another wonderful treasure that I have found and am participating in this year is the 52 Week Illustration Challenge. With over 4,000 participants there are illustrators from around the world, and a weekly prompt that can be interpreted with your choice of medium and creative ideas.  The favorite illustrations are are posted on the blog.  There is also a FaceBook group for posting and discussion. A community page also exists with tutorials and other info for illustrators.

As I continue with My Illustration Adventures For 2016, I still am participating in Doodle Day on FaceBook and still painting fine art paintings and have a shop on Etsy.  It keeps me very busy but it is so much fun. Check out these links and let me know what you think on the form below.

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Jan Watford
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Jan Watford

Manager at JCW Prism LLC
artist, author, illustrator
Jan Watford
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