Marla Frazee - Saturday Morning Keynote

Marla being
generally awesome

Marla Frazee is a longtime SCBWI member, incredible teacher, and all around terrific person. Her books have won Caldecott Honors, movie deals, and numerous illustration awards. Marla's keynotes are always a lesson in picturebook magic and heart/life insights so she's the perfect choice to set the vibe for our first time back together in person. Marla thanks SCBWI for bringing us all together again as well as thanks them for shifting and adapting during the Pandemic to bring our beloved community together online.

Marla tells us about hearing Trina Schart Hyman's SCBWI keynote many years ago where she complained unapologetically about the publishing industry (Trina was known for being brutally honest). Marla admired Trina's frankness and badassery and began a correspondence with her that lasted many years. Marla, as a struggling newbie, wrote to Trina complaining about work/life balance. Trina wrote back: You're right, the center doesn't hold and most things are falling apart.

Trina and Marla's correspondence went on, Trina posing these sorts of questions to Marla when Marla shared her worries about having enough time and money to continue making books:

Do you want to be an artist? Or do you want to fuck around?

Who are you doing this for? And is it worth it? 

At the time, Trina's answer to that last question was that she didn't know anymore. After a few years of back-to-back family tragedies and big life/relational changes Trina had stopped wanting to make pictures even though, after 37 years of a very successful illustration career, she was still at the top of her game. At the time Marla couldn't understand how Trina could lose her creative spark so fully, but the Pandemic changed that.

The baddest of all asses, Trina Schart Hyman

Marla talks about all the sorts of loss that happened during the Pandemic for all of us—time, purpose, routine, relationships, and cognitive space for creativity among those less tangible things than a negative Covid test or toilet paper were gone, not for weeks, but for years. Though Marla still felt creative she couldn't get to 'funny' during 2020, so she gave up working on the humorous picture book she'd been trying to make and instead turned to a book she'd been working on since 1998 based on the lines of a Jewish baby-naming blessing. 

The question of balancing our life with our work will never be resolved, says Marla. When she looks back at her first six books, all made while she had young children, they were all made in small pockets of time and the art for them bubbled up from her life experiences at the time. This is how the art finally bubbled up for In Every Life during the Pandemic. Kirkus calls it a "lyrical blessing of a picture book [that] belongs on every shelf". In Every Life will help you answer Trina's questions above as well as provide you some life and art inspiration so order your copy today. 

 

If you want to watch Jennifer Garner read In Every Life to Marla's adorable grandbaby:

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The Art of the Picture Book Panel begins!

Lin introduces the picture book panel, from Left to Right, Moderator Arthur A. Levin, Shadra Strickland, Oliver Jeffers, Marla Frazee, Raúl Colón and Peter Brown.

Jaime Temairik Celebrates #NY14SCBWI Award-Winning Faculty Member Marla Frazee With A Love-Fest!

Check out Jaime's sweet and remarkably informative post about author/illustrator Marla Frazee.

Just a few hours left to register for the 2014 SCBWI Winter Conference!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

My Experience at the Monday Intensive for Illustrators

L-R Kadir, hidden David, Paul, Richard, Marla and Jerry. Denise was looking for her acorn. The black and blue goody bags are not full of booze, I asked.

It's not hyperbole, Monday was the best day of my illustrating life. I didn't spend four years, or even one, in a traditional art school, so I don't know if this is standard procedure, but Monday was unlike anything I've every experienced.

The seven artists tapped to do this first-ever live demo format, I am beyond thankful they so freely shared their talents and thoughts with us. I am bowing down to our SCBWI Illustrator Committee and SCBWI headquarters for making this happen. Compared to other conferences and conventions, SCBWI internationals are cheap. And I happily admit I'd pay a bazillion more dollars to see another live demo day. Don't hesitate to fork over big bills to attend the next live-demo illustrator intensive. And if any of these people are teaching a class near you, be sure you sign up.

Other attendees are going to blog the crap out of today, I'm sure, but I can't do it justice. My brief notes are below:

Each artist answered technical and philosophical questions while they worked for about an hour on an art piece.

Paul showed us how he does a monochromatic/grisaille underpainting in watercolor before adding oil glazes on top.

Marla showed us how she gets her amazing dark lines, she also started one of her fifty color washes, and talked to us about problem solving in final art.

Richard made a mess. But then he made a beautiful painting out of it full of energy and color and a bit of egg tempera.

Kadir did a portrait of Dan Santat while we got up in his business. Lots of talk about the importance of making personal art and loving life.

Denise forgot her acorn. This is not a euphemism. She painted with paper pulp and did a teensy bit of swearing, but we were all completely mesmerized by her process and loved her and her final piece.

David sketched art director/Penguin Putnam VP Cecilia Yung before doing a sketch of himself and showing us how he retains life in his lines when moving from the exuberant pencil sketch to the finished ink drawing.

And Jerry sketched and painted me! No. It was a wild bird. Wait, that could still be me... Anyway.

He showed us how he uses photo reference to make his amazing animals and we watched his light watercolors build up to brilliant gorgeousness.

Jerry's painting in progress. I thought it was me he was painting— that bird and I use the same eyeshadow.

 The day ended with a brief group Q&A. It was a bonhomie love fest.

One way we can say thank you to the seven artists who gave so much to us is to go out and buy a buttload of their books.

Paul's books on Indiebound

Richard's books on Indiebound

Marla's books on Indiebound

Jerry's books on Indiebound

Denise's books on Indiebound

Kadir's books on Indiebound

David's books on Indiebound

THANKS FOR THE BEST SUMMER CONFERENCE EVER!

Allyn Johnston & Marla Frazee: Why We Still Love Picture Books (Even Though They're Supposed to Be Dead)

Allyn Johnston is the Publisher of Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Allyn and Marla Frazee have worked on a number of pictures books together (ROLLER COASTER, WALK ON, MRS. BIDDLEBOX, A COUPLE OF BOYS HAVE THE BEST WEEK EVER, BOSS BABY and more.)

Marla read the manuscript for an upcoming picture book called STARS. Allyn points out the unexpected language, that fact that is doesn't call out how it should be illustrated. It intrigues her.

Picture books, Allyn says, need to tell the story with both the text and the illustrations. The artist has to figure out how to do page turns, when to ramp up the emotions. A picture book has to build to a satisfying ending. They are written to be performed--and this is something that a lot of new writers forget. You have to think about the fact that you're writing something that will be read aloud. That's the key goal.

In the manuscripts Allyn gets, bad rhyme is a common problem. She also sees lot of manuscripts that aren't picture books but feel like they should be part of a chapter book. She's looking for manuscripts that give her "the feeling" a good picture book should. It's a rare manuscript that has that kind of strength, she says.

Allyn says writers should not send illustrations notes with their manuscripts--99.9% of the time, they are not necessary.

Marla disagrees with the notion that readers should be able to follow the story of a picture book without text. For books like ALL THE WORLD, she tries to think about what the text feels like when she's approaching the illustrations, allowing her illustrations to evoke a feeling rather than offering a literal interpretation of the text. She's prefers text that is not specific.

STARS will be published in October by
Beach Lane Books, but it's available in
the conference bookstore.

Celebrity Sighting in the Lobby #1

Marla Frazee! Two Caldecott Honors under her fashionable belt and more to come, we know. Marla has been doing consultations/portfolio critiques for the conference.

Her latest book, THE BOSS BABY, comes out August 10th.

I asked Marla what she was working on right now. She's just finished sketches and is starting to paint the illustrations for a text written by poet Mary Lyn Ray. There's no set title yet, but Marla has been calling it "The Star Book." She LOVES it.

If you haven't checked out her site, you are a knucklehead. It's packed with loads of amazing tips under the STUDIO section.

Marla Frazee: How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures--and How They Don't

Marla was interested in illustration the song "Hush, Little Baby" so she began to research lullabies.

She found there were three categories: soothing, bribery, threat. When Marla illustrated "Hush, Little Baby (a bribery lullaby) she set her book in the 1850s in her book. She added an older sister into the mix, who's helping her papa get her new little sister to sleep.

Marla showed us images of the whole book (which is wonderful). You can pretend you were here by checking out of copy of Hush, Little Baby and studying the way the illustrations and text work together.

POSTED BY ALICE POPE

Marla Frazee: How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures--and How They Don't

Illustrators, Marla says, need their pictures to be in a relationship with the text and she feels security in the text when she's illustrating books she hasn't written. If she's written the text and she finds herself in a spot where things aren't working, it's almost as if there are too many options--which Marla finds scary yet exhilarating.

She keeps hearing rules about picture books such as that a readers should be able to understand and follow the story just by looking at the illustrations, and that the illustrations should say something different than what's being said in the words. Marla disagrees with these rules.

Instead, the words and picture should work together, they should dance.

POSTED BY ALICE POPE

Marla Frazee: How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures--and How They Don't

Marla is showing the last few page turns of The Carrot Seed. She wants her talk to focus on how to make the chemistry between words and pictures happen.

Marla is showing some great example of the chemistry.

Here first editor with Linda Zuckerman after taking 12 years to break into the field. After her first book, it took her five years to get another one. Then she got the manuscript for her book The Seven Silly Eaters.

She's taking us through her process of working on Silly Eaters. For example, she added a father to the illustrations, thought there was no father mentioned in the text, but made him smaller than the mother in the story since she was more important.

We're seeing early sketches and final art. (I love that!)

POSTED BY ALICE POPE

Marla Frazee: How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures--and How They Don't

(Marla Frazee has a hot pink Mac and she's wearing a super cool pair of Fluevogs.)

POSTED BY ALICE POPE