Pat Cummings & Cecilia Yung- Illustrator Tips: On Portfolios and Promotion

Cecilia Yung, art director and vice president of G.P. Putnam's Sons and Philomel Books, and Pat Cummings, teacher and creator of over 30 books for children, are imparting some wisdom about illustrators' portfolios and promotion. As art director and artist, they offer differing perspectives on portfolios and promotion.

They point out that many items we'll discuss in the session are subjective, and Cecilia tells the group that our challenge for the weekend is to find out what the "rules" are, and figure out how to break them to our advantage. So, the session is offering some great rules—but if you break the rules, you better do it successfully!

Cecilia and Pat provide a detailed and rather specific checklist for the group, which covers topics that are important for any illustrator, beginner or experienced. The topics listed are:
Portfolio
Promotional Piece
Website
Research
Making Contact
Agents

Among many great pieces of advice given at the session is this one from Cecilia—she advises illustrators not to "throw words" at her, but to give her a paragraph of cohesive images.

Cecilia and Pat show the group a few examples of really successful illustrators' websites, two of which are Dan Yaccarino's and Sophie Blackall's.
danyaccarino.com
sophieblackall.com

At the end of the session we have some Q & A, and one of the questions is:

Should illustrators contact Cecilia with SCBWI in the subject line of their email?

Cecilia's answer: Yes, and having really great art attached will catch her eye, too!