Steady Stream

As I typed the title of this blog post, I was thinking about the large number of illustration projects I have going on at the moment. But now in hindsight, the title looks like this should be a post about visiting your Urologist. Well, lucky for you, this post will be about the former, not the latter.

I currently have five projects I'm working on, thanks to my lovely, hardworking and brilliant agents over at Bright.  I am very excited about all of them and my fingers are literally itching every day to get drawing and painting.

I feel so lucky to be able to steadily what I love...and make some money at it!

So, I've got four educational workbooks I'm doing, and soon I'll be starting a fun pop-up book for Top That! Publishing which will be a comical take on the old story of Billy Goats Gruff.  Will be super fun to work on!

Here's a little snippet from one of the early reader projects I recently finished about bats:

Los Angeles Summer Conference was...awesome!

Hi all,

Sticking my nose in this here blog to do a quick update. This past weekend, I attended the SCBWI's 40th Annual Summer Conference her in Los Angeles and had an absolute blast. I don't have much time for a long post detailing ALL of the great stuff I learned and was inspired by, but here are a few of the key things that happened and impacted me:

1. I got to hang out with ADULTS...you know, people that aren't one year old. Or four years old. And those adults were awesome!!! It was a like a weekend of "Author/Illustrator Housewives" mixed with "The (Kidlit) View" and "Dancing with the (Children's Publishing) Stars" all rolled into one! Here are just a FEW of the people I had fun giggling/dancing/talking shop with. Go check out their amazing art:

-Erin O'shea

-Kim Dwinell

-Jennifer Gray Olson

-Jessica Lanan

-Julia Collard

-Angela Matteson

-Kelly Light

-Casey Girard

-Diandra Mae

There are way more people that I should add to the list and there's a ton of people I really wanted to hang out with more, but never got a chance to. Sometimes, since there was a MILLION people there, a wave across a sea of people was all it could be.

2. Laurie Halse Anderson's breakout session flipped a switch in my brain when she said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Not taking the time to fulfill your dreams is teaching your children--especially your daughters--how NOT to fulfill their dreams." I never thought of it that way. She is awesome and I wish I could have a direct line to call her when I'm feeling sorry for myself or feeling "mom guilt" for time spent following my dreams. I'm seriously going to somehow hang that quote above my computer and maybe on the ceiling above my bed so I see it every morning when I wake up. I'm serious.

3. Oh, and there was this. Yes, I won an award! I was one of four picked for the "Mentorship Award". It was awesome and I'm, like, "whoa" and I'm ecstatic and even today, five days later, I'm still trying to sort through all the wonderful information and ideas that have been floating through my mind since meeting with our undeniably awesome mentors. Yes that was a total run on sentence, I know. But that's how it sounds and feels in my brain.

The big take away from the weekend is: Spending time on myself, my dreams and my craft will pay off in SO many ways not only for myself, but for my children. It is so important for all of us to nurture our God-given talents and to not stuff them away for a later date. This idea was a running theme throughout the weekend and it came up and punched me in the face quite a few times.

My main goal for next year? I need to work on not being such a chicken!!! There's no reason that I shouldn't just go up to that big art director waiting behind me in the Starbucks line (i.e. Laurent Linn) and say, "Hi! I'm Christina Forshay! An Illustrator!"

Maybe I should join Toastmasters or somethin'.

Okay, I'm rambling. Time to go!

SCBWI Summer Conference Time!

Hello everyone! I'm so excited the month of July is OVER! I just completed the busiest month of my life, creativity-wise. July was packed with many deadlines (six to be exact) but I made it through! Oh, make that SEVEN deadlines if you count my spiffy new business cards and postcards I squeezed in there!

August kicks off with a couple of lazy days and then...a weekend packed full of workshopping, schmoozing, brainstorming, socializing and fun! I'll be attending the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Summer Conference here in LA with like-minded people from all over the globe. Let's see if I still know how to interact with other adults, considering I've been holed up in this art cave and interacting only with the "Yo Gabba Gabba" set for so long. Seriously.

Anyhooo, one of the most exciting parts of this weekend will be getting to actually meet (in 3D) so many fabulous artists I have thus far only met on the interwebs: Angela Matteson, Diandra Mae and Kelly Light to name a few.

This year at the conference I'll be focusing on the writing aspects of the children's book world as my new goal is to write AND illustrate a picture book. I haven't done any writing since college and even then, it was nothing too entertaining--probably an expository essay on the differences between Mannerism and Rococo. In other words: boooooring. Unless you like that sort of thing, of course.

So, now, I'm off to tidy up my website and "veg out" on some RHoNY. If you don't know what "RHoNY" is, c'mon people...get a life!

This Little Piggy...

This little piggy just got me into the 40th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference for FREE! Back in February, I entered this little racing guy in a local Los Angeles SCBWI scholarship contest. I try to enter at least the local illustration contests because it helps to keep my foot in the door and it's a really good incentive to do some new work. The prompt for this contest was just one word: "cinnamon". It took me a few days to come up with what I thought was a good concept. I brainstormed in the shower, while driving to the grocery store, while IN the grocery store...everywhere. Finally, I came up with this:

I wish I could've spent quite a bit more time on it, but it did the job!

I'm just so excited that I get to attend all three days of the conference this summer! I didn't go last year because I had a tight deadline on a project I was working on (pssst....The Really Groovy Story of the Tortoise and the Hare). And I think I only attended one day of the conference the year before. So, I'm totally due for attending all three days. This time, I'll be able to split my time between the illustration sessions and the writing sessions. I've never sat in on any of the writing sessions before, so I'm really looking forward to working out those creative muscles. Can't wait!

Toodles!

REALLY Groovy!!!

It's springtime. Easter was yesterday. And that means bunnies. Or rabbits. Or hares. Or whatever you prefer to call the cute, furry, long-eared creatures which abound in the spring. It also means that Albert Whitman & Company's Spring Catalogue was recently released. And included in said catalogue is the picture book "The Really Groovy Story of the Tortoise and the Hare", illustrated by me!

Written by Kristyn Crow, it's a fun read-aloud story with tons of jumping and jiving rhyming. Taken from Albert Whitman & Company's website:

"Deep inside the city was a hip and happy hare.

He was zippy, sometimes lippy, takin' taxis everywhere.

Way out in the country was a tortoise calm and cool.

He was quite the mellow fellow chillin' out beside the pool.

Kids will love to move and groove with this dynamic duo as they hop and pop towards the finish line in this hip-hopping retelling of the classic tale."

It was such a blast to illustrate, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed illustrating it!

Get it now at Amazon!

Some Good News...

Hi Everyone!

A few posts ago (like back in November), I posted an illustration I did for the SCBWI-LA Illustrator's Day Contest. I actually ended up getting some accolades for it! It won the Professional's Choice Portfolio Award (as chosen by Abigail Simoun of Tricycle Press) and I tied with Wendy Grieb for the People's Choice Award. Awesome and validating, for sure!

The event was awesome as usual, with a ton of inspiring speakers including designer/art director Rich Deas, illustrator Brian Floca, illustrator Dan Santat, editor Abigail Simoun and agent Jennifer Rofe.

Kudos to Illustrator's Day Coordinator/Producer/Director and ILLUSTRATOR Ken Min for the great day!!! Looking forward to 2011's Illustrator's Day!

First Birthday Fun!

So the Little One will be celebrating her first birthday very, very soon! I really can't explain how fast this year has flown by. Twelve months flew by in a flash. I know--it sounds very cliche, but it's the dang truth!!!

Here are the invites I designed and printed up for the special occasion. Super fun stuff!

Here's the painting I did in Photoshop:

And here is a close-up of it after I printed it on my new handy-dandt Epson R1900. I used cheap-o Strathmore watercolor paper and they came out great! I love my new printer!

After printing them, I rounded the corners with a Martha Stewart paper punch, and voila! I also printed address and return labels, but I won't post those here because my fingers are tired as I'm typing with one hand and cradling a sleeping babe in the other at the moment.

There's so much left to do in preparation for the big day, and it's mostly crafty activities that big brother can help with. Signing off for now~

SCBWI--Illustrator's Day Entry

Hello everyone! Quick post here. This coming Saturday I'll be attending the SCBWI Los Angeles Illustrator's Day. Here's my entry for the contest based on the line: ""IT WAS NIGHT, AND THE RAIN FELL; AND FALLING, IT WAS RAIN, BUT, HAVING FALLEN, IT WAS..."

Had fun doing it, event though I procrastinated like no other!!!