E.B. Lewis' Workshop "Mastering The Visual Language"

E.B. Lewis presents to a room full of illustrators

E.B. Lewis has illustrated 57 books for children in the last 17 years!

His works include Nikki Grimes' Talkin' About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman, the 2003 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner; Alice Schertle's Down the Road, an ALA Notable Book; Tolowa M. Mollel's My Rows and Piles of Coins, an ALA Notable Book and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book; Bat Boy and His Violin by Garvin Curtis a Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and Jacqueline Woodson's The Other Side, a 2002 Notable Book for the Language Arts.

Part of the Workshops for Illustrators series (twelve illustrator workshops across six time slots over the three conference days), E.B. is excited to take us on his journey of Mastering Story.

Toni DeTerlizzi's keynote was so resonate, E.B. started out speaking about the importance of imagination for illustrators, quoting Picasso,

All children are artists, the trick is to maintain that.

He talks about how illustrators have to develop a voice, and references the 10,000 hours to master something (a powerful idea from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.)

Like learning a spoken language, where you need to learn the parts of speech so you can articulate the finer details, the same is true for illustrators.  You're presented a manuscript and you have to visually tell the story, re-tell the story.

He talks about the importance of doing your research, that

"we have to dig so deep to the point where we actually smell it."

For his upcoming Trouper the Three-Legged Dog (written by Meg Kearney), E.B. had to illustrate a three-legged dog.  So he had to go find a three-legged dog, and when he did, he saw how it walked.  How the tail reached out to one side to compensate.  He wouldn't have known that unless he'd done his research.


He loves Texture.  Light.  Direction.  Nuance.  Putting his own emotions into it.  In fact, he defines his voice as an illustrator as "Emotion."

When E.B. sits to do a book, he figures out his beginning, middle and end images.  That way the story is being told sequentially, it flows.  He's illustrating that with the book he illustrated, The Negro Speaks Of Rivers.

And also with the classic picture book, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.  E.B. is explaining how the illustrations, page turn after page turn, tell the story, even without the words.  It's remarkable.

He shares a short film clip about passion and creativity, perception and inspiration...

And E.B.'s words resonate for us,

"Writers write.  Painters paint.  Dancers dance.  Don't do it to get published.  Do it because you love it."

And then,

"As long as you are true and honest in your work, they will come and find you."

Spot Yourself! Autograph Party Photos Part 1

Right before the autograph party, Katy Betz and Lauren Gallegos show off their excellent sleuthing abilities. They found the conference CANDY STASH.

E.B. Lewis and E.B. fan/author/Southern Breeze Co-RA Jo Kittinger

Author and Western Washington Co-RA Joni Sensel waits for Loren Long to sign his lovely picture books

Cocoa & Kate author Erica Silverman, nonfiction powerhouse Melissa Stewart, and Simon Bloom author Michael Reisman

It is Mac Barnett. He always looks this happy to see someone. That's why we like him.

E.B. Lewis- Process vs. Product: Pointing Our Kids in the Right Direction

I recently had a discussion about whether or not artists are responsible for what they put into the world. I was arguing that no, artists are simply responsible for making art, be it music, literature, images, etc, and what the world does with it is out of the artists' hands. But after E.B. Lewis's session today, I've changed my opinion. A main topic of the session was our responsibility as artists to put work into the world that really benefits children, especially considering the way many schools and the whole school system is currently failing to truly engage them.

Among many gems I scribbled down during the session, here are a few quotes from Lewis:

- A kid does not care what you know, until they know that you care.

- Knowledge that doesn't come from the heart is dangerous.

- We have a great priveledge to make a mark, but you have to work to earn the right to leave a mark.

Lewis also showed us a dvd by photographer and public speaker Dewitt Jones called Everyday Creativity. If you can, try to watch it—but a warning if you want to buy it, it's expensive! Jones compares using the right lense in order to get the right photo to finding the right perspective in a situation. He talked about the need to change up our perspective to keep searching for the way to be your most creative and create your best art.

Even if Jones's photography style isn't your fave, the advice about ways in which to view the world to be your most creative makes the dvd worthwhile.

It's refreshing and a great reality check to hear E.B. Lewis talk about the importance of making art and books that give children what they deserve—to be engaged with the world, to explore, to be creative.

E.B. Lewis Saturday Afternoon Keynote - Pursue Your Passions

E.B. Lewis is correcting Lin as she does her intro for him

Lin: He's illustrated over 30 picture books.
E.B.: 50
Lin: He's won three, Coretta Scott King awards.
E.B.: 5
Lin: He's 6'5"
E.B.: 6'3"

A screenshot of his awesome website, where you can see he uses the title Artistrator (which Lin says is a nice bridging of the artist vs. illustrator conundrum.)

E.B.: Being a writer or illustrator of children's books is an amazing thing. A beautiful thing. But author or illustrator is just a subtitle, our real title is: Artists. And when we become artists, we become scary people, we observe, we are critical thinkers, we try to shape and change minds. That's a lot of power. If you look back in history, we're the kind of people that get destroyed first.

E.B.'s putting a big elephant in the room: what feeds our passion to write and create art is inspiration. What happens when you don't have any inspiration or ideas? What happens when that dries up? For E.B., he had two and a half years of not feeling inspired or turned on by the work he'd been doing.

E.B. starts his slide show:

We see photos of him as a kid. And his uncle, who he credits with turning his life around. He enrolled E.B. in painting classes, talked to him about his paintings, took him to galleries, and bought him a book of Modigliani paintings, one of E.B.'s all-time favorite artists.

Slides of his art from the 1980s when he was not not sure what to paint, so he began documenting his life. He painted children playing outside, wheelbarrows, cheesesteakeries, 19th century slave safe houses, and Philadelphia neighborhoods in flux.

He relates the very impressive story of how he got an agent and got into the children's book world followed by a brief bibliography of his early books. So many great covers and stories.

And here's the book that won him the Coretta Scott King Honor this year:

So, we've seen all these great books and art being produced by E.B., but all that hard work takes a toll. During those two and a half years that E.B. was trying to figure out how to reinvigorate his inspiration and passions, he decided, no matter what, he would:

• Go into his studio every day, even if it was just to sweep the floors
• When on school visits out-of-town, always get some Thai food
• And absolutely go to a local art museum

Two of these three practices resulted in a moment where "the ceiling opened up and a pearl dropped," E.B. rediscovered his passion.

I've omitted so much great stuff, but if you have a chance to see E.B.'s exquisite paintings that he made in response to the moment above, I think you'll be as blown away by the power of his ideas and images as the conference audience was. A true artist.