Giuseppe Castellano: An Introduction to the Art Department

Caught the last half of super Giuseppe Castellano's talk and got there just in time to see the cool test drawings of Giada de Laurentiis's Recipe For Adventure cover done by a couple of illustrator contenders. 

Giuseppe mentioned later that these test drawings are often paid work, and artists have between one and three weeks to make something. Choosing the winning cover is a collaborative effort—AD, editor, author, and more may weigh in on it—even if Giuseppe finds all of the artists, the winner may not ultimately have been his top pick. Though we can all agree, whoever picked the Giada cover artist picked well, this is Francesca Gambatesa's final cover:

out soon!

And sometimes nobody wins from the original test group of illustrators. For Michelle Schusterman's I Heart Band cover, for example, it ultimately went to a non-test grouper, Genevieve Kote, whom Giuseppe found through Twitter!

also out soon!

And if you aren't following Giuseppe on Twitter yet, YOU are missing out on some lively art and publishing tips, and I pity you fools. @pinocastellano

Final piece of advice from Giuseppe: Illustrators must have some sort of Internet presence (not Facebook) or many art directors are likely to skip over you, a strong internet presence lets them easily see what else you can do.