Comic Workshop with Isabel Greenberg

Today I attended a talk with guest speaker Isabel Greenberg who is a comic illustrator and writer. I really admire her work as her stories and characters have a way of pulling you in. She gave us loads of great advice on how to gain more exposure after graduating from uni, and overall it was just a good experience hearing from somebody who isn't that far off from where we are.
   Afterwards, we had a "Flash workshop" where we had to create our own comics. The first part, as a practise run, we were given 5 minutes only! to draw a comic based on a popular story of our choice (can be film, book, TV series etc.) using only three panels and a brush and ink as materials. This was very exciting and hardly gave us time to think, which in a way was a good thing.
   I just pulled The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from the top of my head and here is what was produced:

Selina Quach The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe comic 

Thankfully, they could guess what it was!
We were then given 1 hour for the real thing. As I'm doing the Snow Queen for my project, I thought this was a good chance to create some thumbnail ideas for illustrations that could be used in my final book.

Selina Quach, The Snow Queen Page 1

Selina Quach The Snow Queen Page 2

Selina Quach The Snow Queen Page 3

Selina Quach The Snow Queen Page 4

Some of the compositions I felt could have been improved but as it was very rushed I couldn't have expected any better really. Kai getting the shard in his eye for example could be depicted with an up close of his eye.

All in all this was a very fun activity to do, and further made me realise that sometimes the best illustrations come out of the ones where you think less, and I also actually really enjoyed using the quick brush effect. I will be trying this quick effect in my project.

Guest Speaker: Deirdre Mcdermot, Publisher from Walker

Today I attended an exciting guest speaker talk from Deirdre Mcdermot who publishes children's picture books at Walker. She was very enthusiastic about her job and it came across whilst talking. She introduced us to a lot of great illustrators that I hadn't heard before, whom she works with, including Chris Haughton, Jon Klassen, Hervre Tullet and Inga Moore to name a few.

Inga Moore

Jon Klassen

Chris Haughton

   Other than that she also gave us a lot of inspiration; some of the main quotes that stuck out to me were as follows:

"Having a good idea is one of the most crucial parts of being an illustrator"

"Every single piece you make is telling a story"

"Think about what you are illustrating, the whole story and world, in order to create the most engaging image"