illustration friday: wrinkles


Fast sketch in the sketchbook. I'm getting closer and closer to this myself. Well, I'm still fairly young, but after finishing a triathlon sprint last Saturday, it's taken me longer than I remember to recover in my muscles and bones. Maybe if I keep wearing sunscreen I won't end up like this so soon though...right?
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Frogs


I sketched these during church on Sunday. Don't ask me why or what they are looking so dazed about. They just came out that way.
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Coming out Soon


So, I heard from the publisher that the new Annie McRae book ("There's Always a Way, Annie McRae!" will be out at the end of May or beginning of June. It was a tough book for me to do because as I've mentioned before, I had to revert to my old style of painting. I hid a boot in every picture and I put a lot of family names on books etc. I love doing that. Here's the opening spread.
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100 mile club


So every once in a while, illustrators need to get off their butts or put down that brush and exercise or you just become stiff, arthritic, flabby, fat and lazy...believe me. I got a nike ipod chip to connect into my nano and started to run. It took me a while, but finally I hit the 100 mile mark. I don't absolutely HATE running anymore but I still don't like it. It shouldn't take me so long to hit 100 next time though.
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Conference update

So, I think I've recovered from the conference craziness (finally). I was on the huge planning committee for it, designed the brochures and the website for it, got the main guest for it, and hosted the main guest for it. Between delayed/late flight pickups, hotel back and forth runs, coffee runs, medication runs, workshops, and lunches and dinners, I wore myself out. But it was all worth it. Illustrator, David Small and his author wife, Sarah Stewart, were the perfect keynote guests and I had a great time hosting them. We also brought in author Kirby Larson and editor Alexandra Penfold (from Simon and Schuster)and they were awesome too. I didn't get to attend as many sessions as I had hoped to but I still felt like it was the best conference EVER and that even the professionals attending learned a lot. But it was some of the end of the day bonding that was the best. A bunch of illustrators went out to dinner with David one night and had a great time learning from such a great artist. Here are some pictures...

I was able to coerce author Brandon Mull to come give the luncheon speech. He did a GREAT job and everyone was impressed. Here he is with illustrator, Will Terry, at our lunch table.


Here is the editor, Alexandra Penfold, during her keynote. She was a young, friendly, refreshing addition to the conference and shared great information with the attendees. I was also able to spend a day with her and 15 other professionals in the industry doing critiques. But most fun was the dinner afterward spent with friends and the editor and her husband who came with her to Utah so he could ski.


Here are Sarah and David signing some of the millions of books people bought during the conference.


Here are Sarah and I in our hats before dinner one night...she had to have a picture. She is a wonderful person and I'm so glad she came with David. I had a great time hosting them.


Here are David and I at the dinner with the illustrators.
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Sketching at the Forum

I'm finally done with the Forum on Children's Literature (until planning starts for next year...in like a month). It was an amazing experience this year...better than ever before. David Small and his wife Sarah Stewart were perfect keynote guests and everyone learned from them and enjoyed their presentations. I'll get more into that in another post. But quickly, I just wanted to post a few sketches/notes I drew up during the conference. The Asian figure is from a figure drawing session we held during the conference this year. I could only stay for 5-10 minutes in between my running around. It was enough to tell me I need/want to spend more time drawing figures from life. Watch for more posts about the conference soon.
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I'm a freelance illustrator working in the children's book industry. I love kids and raising my own 4 children. They are the inspiration and the passion behind all I do in art and in life. See my website at JulieOlsonbooks.com

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