From the Archives: Teacher Appreciation Week

From the Archives: Teacher Appreciation Week

Wonderful anecdotes from Authors and Illustrators of Kidlit about their memorable teachers. Enjoy!

Sharon Lane-Holm, Kittens and Glitter and the SMELL of new crayons

kindergarten Sharon

I have had the great pleasure of working with Sharon as a colleague in our Picture Book Artists critique group. Sharon is a talented writer, a fabulous illustrator AND a Tae Kwon Do Blue Belt. She is also a kind and thoughtful friend. This week my little friend Charlotte, who is in Senior Kindergarten, has a few questions for Sharon. I paired these guys up since they both LOVE cats and are particularly sweet people.

Enjoy...

some early high school art

Charlotte: What kind of stuff do you use to make your drawings? They all look so different. What is your favorite thing to draw with?

high school art - already out of the box

 

Sharon: PENCILS!!! I love the initial pencil sketches on tracing paper. Old school for me. For final art- I mix it all together-pencils, color pencils, fluid acrylics, pens, acrylics, gouache. Everything. I am working on using photoshop/illustrator more-its a slow go for me. I have issues with anything that plugs into the wall.

C: Did you draw when you were little?  When did you become an expert at drawing?

S: I am still working on being an "expert' at drawing! It is an ongoing process. I am trying really hard to remember who my art really is for and go back to being me. I want to relax more and enjoy the process of creating – to please me first. I have been drawing forever. One year my sister got the drawing pad and "how to book" – I coveted them. I still have the book. In 2nd grade it became official – my little Jackie Paper from Puff the Magic dragon made the bulletin board. My high school art teacher told me I would never be an artist. Never ever give up.
 

C: Sometimes I get frustrated because I can't draw what I want to draw. I am good at drawing butterflies but not so good at some other stuff. Is there anything that is hard for you to draw?
 

S: I can't draw horses or cars or bikes.

C: I really wanted to draw some monkeys but I had to draw numbers instead (because it was math time). Do you ever want to draw when you're not supposed to (like when you're sleeping or in the bath tub)?
  
S: I get my best ideas in the shower, walking the dog, right before I fall asleep. Even  lines of writing for my own books. I always doodle while on the phone. 

C: I imagine that if I was an illustrator I could draw in a lot of books about anything I wanted. What's it like being an illustrator? Do you get to draw what you want?
 

S: I get to draw what I want most of the time. Some Art Director's will micro manage, takes the fun out of the project. After all these years I have been mostly right one with their expectations. I'd love to actually finish up my own stories and books and art- they are my elephants in the closet. One person dislikes them, and I put them away-for years. My other passion is working with dogs and animals.

C: If I was an illustrator my studio would have one of my favorite things to draw with - markers. I would also have chalk, paint, crayons, paintbrushes and A LOT of all different colors of glitter! What's it like in your studio? Do you have glitter? My mom and I think Casper the Cat would like to play with glitter.

S: My office is organized chaos. (I love your glitter idea for Casper!) On my walls are my son's artwork from 1st grade, my Taekwodo certificates, my medals from TKD tournament, old toys, too many books and lots of post it notes of ideas.
 
C: My mom is good at drawing and my friend Mo's mom is good at drawing. They let us draw too. Do you have kids? Do you ever show kids how to draw?

Art by little Michael

S: I have a son, Michael. He is an excellent illustrator-but his passion  is writing. One day we will see his name out there. I teach a 3rd-5th grade literacy course. They write and create their own picture books. Very inspiring. I try to help them maintain their confidence and self esteem for writing and drawing. 

Sharon and a new box of crayons (they do smell SO good)

Peggy: Do you remember the smell of a new workbook, and the thrill of making the marks on the first page? I always used to be SO careful on that first page...

S: I still love the smell of new crayons. I always get the notebooks with perforated pages-then proceed to rip out the art I don't like. Silly. I use tracing paper to refine my work projects. I have just started a visual journal and leave the pages in.

Peggy: What was your favourite picture book when you were a kid? 

S: My 1st book-Pinocchio- I loved the art of the bad boy island. (is that what it was called?) I still have it. I have always loved books, forever and still. I love what I do.

Thank you so much Sharon for stopping by to answer our questions - and thank you to Charlotte and her mom for asking them.

If you would like to see more of Sharon's fabulous NEW work, please visit these links:


Blog: sharonlaneholm.blogspot.com
Website: www.sharonholm.com

Sharon also belongs to the Picture Book Artists Association

Grey

This is Grey. He is going to appear in a book one day...

--
author • illustrator • momma
www.peggysillustration.com
peggydrawsandwrites.blogspot.com

Tooter's Stinky Wish – 2012 Shining Willow Nominee
Fatou Fetch the Water – Shortlisted for the Dundee Book Awards 2011
In the Garden and In the Snow were named in the CCBC Best Books for Kids 2010

Bryan Ballinger on Termites and Teachers

Mowat and I have been wondering what OTHER illustrators did in Elementary school... did they like art? Did they get in trouble for doodling? Do they have messy rooms - and other important questions.

We also wanted to see what kinds of things THEY drew before they got paid to draw.

Today we have a very special featured guest.... Bryan Ballinger!

a young Bryan in his classroom

Bryan is an illustrator, animator, professor and author of all sorts of cool and kooky things... He's worked with NINTENDO, MICROSOFT and veggietales to name a few. He is also the co-author of The Great Cheese Squeeze, a children’s book he did with his buddy Keith Lango. to read Bryan's full bio - click here. Bryan has shared some of his doodles from grade 3 and 4 - and has graciously answered our questions...

 

MO: Your illustrations are really, I mean REALLY funny. I like the pigs a lot. The termites are very funny too. Have you always written stories?

BRYAN: I’ve been coming up with funny stories since, hmmm, probably 3^rd or 4^th grade I’d say. That’s about when I started making comics and drawing cartoon characters anyway. The termites were my first real cartoon/comic series. I used to do them with my best friend Heath, in elementary school.

MO: When you were in school did you ever take too long doing your work or did you get into trouble for drawing while your teacher was talking? 

BRYAN: YES! Here’s the thing though. When I am doodling and drawing, most of the time it actually helps me to concentrate on what the teacher or speaker is saying. It helps me focus. Otherwise my mind can wander. Here’s the funny thing. I am almost 44 years old, and I still sometimes get in trouble for drawing during meetings, etc. But it really does help me pay attention more, and many of my best drawings have been done while I’m in class or in a meeting.

MO: Did you LIKE art class?

BRYAN: Mostly yes. When I had a good art teacher, I LOVED art class. By the time I was in high school, I spent most of the day in the art room. I have an inner drive to always be making stuff. When I’m not making stuff, I get antsy and sometimes sad. And in art class, you get to make stuff!

MO & PEGGY: What grade did you figure out you were pretty good at this stuff?

BRYAN: That’s actually a very good, and very hard question. It’s only in the past few years that I’ve started to begin to think maybe sometimes I’m good at this stuff. I know it was in 4^th grade that I really figured out how much I love doing this stuff though. And when I figured out that I could draw things that made people laugh, or made me feel like I was going on an adventure, or creating a new world, I knew I wanted to always be an artist.

MO: Is your studio messy? What kind of things do you use to make your illustrations (cause it looks like you use all sorts of things)?

BRYAN: My studio is very very messy. But I think that is partly because I am a very messy person. I have some artist friends who are really good and are really really neat. But for me, my art creating area looks like a creative bomb exploded and cartoon characters on scraps of paper are blown all over the room. I do almost all of my drawing with Sharpie pens. But then I usually color all my illustrations on the computer. However I like to create lots of textures to use when I’m coloring. I will scan almost anything into the computer for my illustrations.

For instance, if you look here, you can see what I mean!  http://www.breadwig.com/2008/03/20/fef/

MO: DO you like jokes? What is your favourite?

BRYAN: I do like jokes. And I love funny cartoons, like Peanuts, B.C., and Tumbleweeds.  Hmmmm, my favorite joke, let’s see. Here’s two of my favorites that kind of go together:

What happens when you run in front of a car? You get tired.

What happens when you run behind a car? You get exhausted.

PEGGY: Did you have one special teacher that nurtured your talent (in elementary school) - and what would you tell them today? 

BRYAN: To be honest, the teacher in elementary school who influenced me the most and inspired me the most was my advanced reading teacher Mr. Morton. He had us reading some amazing books, like Watership Down. Actually that book is still my favorite to this day. He challenged us with the best of the best stories. The coolest thing about him though was that he loved the stories he was having us read, and that came out in his teaching every day. His enthusiasm and respect for the stories was infectious and I feel indebted to him still.

PEGGY: If you had a parallel life and could be anything else - what would your OTHER dream job be?

BRYAN: Oooooooo, this is a great question! I wish I was a guitar player like Michael Hedges, who invented new ways to play the guitar for many of the songs he wrote. http://youtu.be/XECSOlD06jc

Thank you so much Bryan!

If you would like to see more of Bryan's awesome work - please visit the links below. I would also HIGHLY recommend checking out this absurd food site KOOKY COOKERY.

LINKS:

portfolio site: http://www.bryanballinger.com 

art blog which is updated more regularly: http://www.breadwig.com 

Bryan also has a beautiful photography website (this guy is MULTI-TALENTED) :http://www.breadwig.com/photography.

digital love and a zippered mouth...

Part of the reason my posts have been so few and far between is, well, I have been working on a new direction. A new way of living - for me, my kids and my work. It's been remarkably busy as I cross off all the to-do's and should do's, as well as being back at school (online) and working full time AND freelancing... and I still can say nothing just yet.

BUT, wheels are turning. Items are getting checked off all over the place, and life as we currently know it in our household will be changing for the better very soon (hopefully). That's all I'm going to say - cause I can keep secrets when I need to.

I've also been exploring the tablet and working digitally - and I am STILL loving it.  Pictured first is a rough of my son for a dummy I am working on - the rest - explained below - all digital.

IN that spirit, I present some characters that will appear in the Loyalist College Serious Summer FUn Camps brochure - the BEST part of my job, and the one I look forward to every year... I get pretty much free reign and to have fun within the corporate/educational context... so I introduce Platypus and Penguin... and the RAT. A SLIGHTLY graphic listing of courses for the kids this summer (seen above).

Nominations for Tooter!

It is award season - and Tooter's Stinky Wish - by Brian Cretney and Illustrated by yours truly and published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside, has gotten some fantastic recognition this past month:

Shining Willow Award Nomination
Honours for the 2012 Storytelling World Resource Award

That's it for now... more good news is coming soon.


 

My baby girl is TWO.

In a whirlwind of rainbows, toboggans and ladybugs, our little Z got her birthday wish... lots of handmade, thoughtful, beautiful gifts – to celebrate a very amazing little girl. A girl who adores her big brother, her papa and her mommy more than anything in the world. A girl who can jump (higher) than most boys twice her age, who is fearless and funny. A little girl who makes funny jokes and gives giant hugs. A little girl who can count to 10 and sing the alphabet as she walks around carrying her baby on her back while stomping in her sparkly shoes. A little girl who insists she is turning four and that her birthday is still coming up. A little girl we love so very much - who is full of magic and potential and who is - Just Plain AWESOME. Z, you are one rockin little bean - Happy Birthday.