Welcome and Introduction Sarah Baker

 Welcome and Introduction Sarah Baker

We opened up the 2025 Summer Conference with a welcome and introduction from the wonderful, Sarah Baker, the Executive Director of SCBWI. 

There were over 440 people signed in to the conference, all saying hi from all corners of the globe! "Over  the next few days, you will have access to a really incredible lineup of keynotes, panel, and really interesting and important breakout sessions deigned to support you!" 

SCBWI has brought together some of the most talented voices in the children's book world to share their insights and experiences. From crafting to storytelling to the realities of the publishing industry and how to navigate it all, this conference will have so much valuable information.

"So, wherever you are on your path. You belong right here, right now, and we really hope that you enjoy this conference."

No matter where you are on your creative journey to publication, the conference was designed to help you grow your skills, spark new ideas and connect with other creators. Sarah reminded the viewers to check out the Virtual Portfolio Showcase, available through the SCBWI homepage, featuring over 150 illustrators. "It is fun to see what people are making right now. "

You can also join Peer Critiques as well as the NEW Coffee Lounge Virtual Hangout, where you can meet fellow attendees. 

Reminder: Attendees will have access to the full video library. Every single session that is offered at the conference, every keynote and panel, will be available to watch all month long via the membership portal. You can enjoy them until September 14th, so you can revisit your favorite sessions or catch up on anything that you missed. 

"On behalf of all of us at SCBWI, we want to thank you for being here, for taking the time and investing in your own career and your own creativity."

sarahlynnbaker.com

Sarah Baker (she/her) is the Executive Director of SCBWI, where she leads the SCBWI staff and works closely with the Board of Directors, the Advisory Council, and the official SCBWI volunteers. She joined the SCBWI staff in 2011. Sarah graduated from UCSB with a major in Studio Art and began her career in children’s book publishing at Penguin Young Readers Group, where she designed children’s books. Sarah is also a children’s book illustrator, with her debut illustrated picture book coming out in 2026: Becca and Bubbe's Bucket List, written by Laura Gehl, published by Rocky Pond Books.

Breakout Session: Illustrating Stories Digitally with Juanita Londoño

Illustrating Stories Digitally: From Concept to Final Artwork 

with Juanita Londoño

About this Breakout Session:

In this workshop, participants will learn how to develop a final illustration using Procreate and how to use value, color, and composition.

During this session, Juanita worked on an original illustration for the webinar, since she doesn't usually record her process.

CONCEPT | CONTENT | COMPOSITION

"They occur simultaneously, but its a good idea to understand them separately"

"What the illustration is about"

Writing down what you like is a great way to keep track of your interests and subjects to draw. As you pare it down, start to brief on your own, or if for a commission, write what the concept is, defining ideas, limitations, and guidelines.

"What will be represented in the illustration"

This is the stage where you define what you want to have in your piece. 

For this particular illustration, Juanita wanted to do something with fantasy and magic. Since she loves magical realism, she wanted to incorporate those elements into her piece.

"What if dragons existed amongst us, sort of like pigeons?"

With these ideas from the brainstorming, Juanita then created a mood board.

Her prefers to use Pinterest, where you can create folders to group together images for a mood board.

From there, she begins to draw her studies. Here she starts building her visual library, strengthening her memory, and honing her skills around any particular subject matter. This will help you understand what you're drawing so you can translate it into your illustration. 

Here she did some studies of dragons that will be in the park.

Here she made studies of children, which would become the focal subjects along with the dragons.

"How the content will be arranged to tell the concept"

This is where you begin to explore composition to enhance the feeling of the sketch. Here you decide what composition you want the story to tell.

Composition Structures: Shape, Repetition, Balance/Hierarchy, Dimension, Focus, Contrast

Below are some examples:

Once you choose a composition, it's best to test it out with your concept. Here you want to work small. Thumbnail drawings allow you to stay loose and fast while you discern if the composition is compelling or tells the story you desire. 

Then Juanita explored Value & Color

"The lightness or darkness of a color"

Juanita broke the value scale into 9 parts, going from the whitest white to the blackest black. 

All hues fall within a range (1-3, 4-6, or 7-9) and different values can help your main point of interest stand out.

"Conveys mood, enhances storytelling, evokes emotions and guide the viewer's eye"

Juanita broke the color wheel down into three sections, Hue, Shades, and Tint, defining what PRIMARY, SECONDARY,and TERTIARY colors are and how they relate to one another. ,

After experimenting with many different values and hues, she whittled it down to a select few.

 

Once she decided on the best color palette, she showed us her painting process.

Later, Juanita walked us through a few Procreate features, the brushes she uses, and even how you can edit pre-existing brushes to get the results you want.  

IN SUMMARY here are the steps we took to a complete illustration:

For those illustrators who LOVE the process, this is the webinar for you! Super informative and so helpful to see step-by-step decision-making. A must--by-watch for all of those starting out in Procreate but also, those who want to sharpen their skills!

JUANITA LONDONO GAVIRIA
Author, Illustrator

About
Hey there! I'm Juanita, a children's book illustrator from Colombia. I absolutely LOVE infusing my characters and environments with magic through vibrant colors, textured details, and deep emotions. My passion for storytelling and whimsy shines through in every piece I create. Growing up, I cherished bedtime stories and delighted in recreating the images from my favorite books with a pencil. Today, those beloved childhood stories continue to inspire my work. When I'm not illustrating or writing, you might find me dancing, singing, exploring astrology, or napping under the sun. ✨Let’s work together and create something magical!✨ juanitalondono.com 

Breakout Session: Building the YA Universe with Abigail Hing Wen

Building the YA Universe

with Abigail Hing Wen

About the Breakout Session:

It’s hard enough to find a novel-length story arc for a character. From setting, to multiple interweaving plotlines, to a complex cast of characters - what does it take to create a contemporary young adult series? Join New York Times best-selling author, Abigail Hing Wen as we explore the topics that populate a YA universe.

Abigail got her start at the SCBWI in 2009, where she found her critique partner and met so many wonderful people. Once she joined, it really inspired her to write.

Inspired by YA Fantasy, which helped her build worlds for her own stories, we focused mostly on YA Contemporary novels using four points to help create our YA Universes.

Some of her influences and inspirations:

"Don't save all of the good stuff for a later book. Put everything in your first book and really build that world up"

Cast of Characters: 

This can be the hardest part. A Story-Length arc with an emotional arc stretched throughout is key. Find the moment that the character has a pivotal moment in their life and that is your story. 

A rich ENSEMBLE can help you build up your world or even expand into other books. With their own subplots, it can enhance the journey of the main character. 

Attendees sent in their ideas and Abigail analyzed what a potential arc could be, which was really awesome to see what the writer could explore in their character development.

Immersive Setting 

Characters can arise from their setting, fall in love in their setting, etc.

Contemporary YA novels can learn from Fantasy YA novels; interesting settings can allow your character to grow, and expand and provide them with a playground to enhance their character arc.

We continued to analyze more pitches and with every new tool, we dissected them, building potential worlds in real-time.

Multiple Plotlines

Themes that Matter

This one comes from you!

Write hat themes matters to you. This is where your authenticity comes from.

Abigail Wen
Author

About
Abigail Hing Wen is the New York Times Best Selling author of Loveboat, Taipei (HarperCollins 2020), and companion novel Loveboat Reunion. The book has been adapted for film starring Ashley Liao (Hunger Games) and Ross Butler (13 Reasons Why). ,She holds a BA from Harvard, JD from Columbia Law School and MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Like Ever, she is obsessed with musicals. When she’s not writing stories or listening to her favorite scores, she is busy working in venture capital and artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Loveboat, Taipei is her first novel. Bylines: Fortune, Forbes, LitHub, School Library Journal's Teen Librarian Toolbox and others. www.abigailhingwen.com

Welcome and Keynote with Felicita Sala

Welcome and Keynote with Felicita Sala

Happy Day Two of the 2024 SCBWI Summer Conference!

The morning began with the most exciting presentation by Felicita Sala! Though she wasn't able to join us for a live session, the pre-recorded keynote was absolutely fabulous! 

Felicita Sala began with a bit of her background but spent most of her time diving into her influences, why she makes picture books, and how they shaped her work.

Felicita wasn't always a picture bookmaker. In fact, it wasn't necessarily her dream. She just happened into it. But as a kid who loved to read and to escape to fantasy worlds with imaginary friends. From a very young age, Felicita had a love and fascination with fairytales that she would listen to on audio cassettes and read along. Some of her earliest influences were Italian illustrators and authors from the 60s and 70s. She would pour over them, and attribute them to her sense of aesthetic. 

Felicita thought that these books just existed. She didn't realize that an artist- made the pictures, even though she grew up in Italy looking at brilliant artwork. 

So she began to ask herself:

"What it means to be a child, and what is her service to them?"

When Felicita creates, she doesn't think of the audience when she begins a story but rather, thinks more about the personal need of what the story needs.

As a teenager, Felicita read Sophie's World which led her to study philosophy.

That is when she became interested in the word "WONDER," which she feels means to "leave space for something mysterious."

What attracted her to "wonder" was the connection between child and philosopher. This connection to the artist.

" I don't believe we can make children's books if we have lost the faculty of wonder."

Disillusioned by modern and post-modern art, Felicita went on to explore other things. She didn't think illustration could be a career path until she returned to Europe where she discovered picture books were an art form. 

Picture books lives outside the conventional art world. It bridges the world of adults and children and called back to the fairytales of her childhood. 

"Children have the key to understanding them (on picture books), that most adults have lost."

So Felicita began her work in the publishing world. She mostly works with Australian and UK publishing which she believes has a different sensibility than US publishing, and this has been a great environment for her experimental and playful aesthetic and storytelling.

Felicita loved books that "help children climb through the window, not the door."

Here are some of her INFLUENCES:

Gianni Rodari 

A creator of picture book from 60s through the 80s who played with words  annd surrealism. 

Felicita loved the experimental aspects of his writing and own "The Grammar of Fantasy" by Gianni Rodari, which dives into the storytelling she admires and loves. 

Emanuele Luzzati 

Illustrator that was influenced by folk art from Eastern Europe. 

The decorative, flat style influenced Felicita's aesthetic. 

Loves surreal, nonsense, over-the-top things, entertaining- Feeds her inner child

Scandinavian Literature: 

Felicita loved the way these artists drew children and this influenced several of her books and how she drew children.

"When you work on something that appeals to your inner child, it will appeal to children as well"

Russian Influences: 

Leo Lionni "Swimmy" 

It is textural, and experimental, where the artist is free from creative constraints.

This influenced Felicita's book "When You Find the Right Rock." 

In this book, she allowed herself to play with paint, brushes/brushstrokes, and collage which she usually doesn't do. It felt very freeing and this is one of her favorite works which releases in September 2024.

FELICITA'S PROCESS

Starts with a light sketch to map out the piece.

Using masking fluid to keep some spaces white, and light washes of color

More washes of color and added color detail.

Deepening color, defining shapes, and adding more details.

Color pencil to add features, minute details.

Then she scans and adds/cleans up digitally.

At the very end, Felicita showed some pages from SKETCHBOOK:

 Sketchbooks allow you to work on fundamental skills (linework, texture, etc) and allow you to learn to play.

Check out her STUNNING work!

https://www.felicitasala.com/

Felicita Sala
Illustrator

About
Felicita was born in Rome but grew up in Perth. She graduated with Honours in Philosophy form the University of Western Australia. She moved back to Italy in 2007 where she taught herself illustration and very slowly started making picture books. Over the years she collaborated on various papercut animations with husband and animator Gianluca Maruotti. She now works as a full time illustrator. One of her books 'She Made a Monster' was selected among the 10 best picture books of 2018 by the New York Times, and her self authored book 'Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street' has been translated in over 10 languages. In 2020 she won the Premio Andersen as best illustrator in Italy. She lives in Rome with her family.