Crystal Kite, Communication Arts, Librarians, etc

I would like to share some recent good news. First off we had a wonderful time at the Alberta Librarian Association Conference in Jasper, Renata was so pleased by the feedback she received from the librarians who attended her talk - she's convinced that librarians are the most friendly people ever!  We also had some time to enjoy the beautiful mountain park and make some wildlife pictures.

Some exciting news is that Nina Laden's and Renata's book, Once Upon a Memory, has been selected as the western region Crystal Kite Award winner for 2014! Visit Nina's blog HERE to hear more. Once Upon a Memory has also been recently chosen for A Bank Street College Children's Book Committee Best Book of 2014 Selection.

Also just on the new stands is Communications Arts 2014 Illustration Annual which as you can see below includes Once Upon a Memory. Yeah!

BOOM!

Boom Snot Twitty published by Viking, written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Renata Liwska is officially released this week. It's about three unlikely friends, who have three different ways of being in the world. Boom the bear is good to go, Snot the snail is happy wherever she is, and Twitty the bird feels best safe at home. Renata's reasons for choosing to illustrate Boom Snot Twitty is the same reasons as all her other books. The story made her smile and she had ideas for drawings right away.

Here is a little process for one of the pages from the book:

SCBWI Conference Yellow Stickies Recap

Renata had a fun and educational time at the SCBWI West Washington's Writing and Illustrating for Children Conference. It was her first large scale conference and she was excited and a bit nervous to meet all the attendees and fellow faculty. It started off with a master class where we introduced Renata's method of making picture books with a focus on her creative process - which involved lots of yellow sticky notes. We also had some fun with silhouettes with a game we call Swapadoodle. After that I interviewed Renata for her keynote in casual talk format, we discussed her thoughts on where ideas come from. Finally we ended with a sketchbook breakout session where attendees had a chance to look at her sketchbooks in person.

Thanks to all the organizers and attendees and good luck with your own picture book endeavors!

 

Boom, Snot, Twitty

This week Renata received an advanced copy of Boom, Snot, Twitty! It is written by Doreen Cronin and is being published in May by Viking.

And Renata is already working on the sequel...

SCBWI Western Washington's Master Class April 12-13

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to learn from one of children’s books most acclaimed illustrators. Renata will be teaching a master class at SCBWI Western Washington’s Annual Conference, April 12–13, and there a still a few spots open in this limited-seating event.

How do you do good picture book illustrations? Well for Renata it was pretty straight forward actually - she practiced really hard! Drawing every day and painting every night, or vice versa, until she got good at making picture book illustrations. Which was nice for her, but actually it wasn’t quite enough to get that first opportunity to illustrate a picture book. She needed something more, she needed to learn to do great picture books! And that is what her master class is about, how to bring your work up that extra step. The good news is it’s not a big step, but it is a subtle and tricky one. Happily the best way to learn it is by doing! 

Renata's master class will be a fun hands on exploration of her creative book making process based on some of the proven entertaining and educational stuff we do at our studio randmcollective.com

Go here for more info:
http://chinookupdate.blogspot.ca/2014/03/conference-spots-still-available-for.html

Interview with Renata

See and hear Renata talk about her illustration for Goodnight Songs. I am pretty happy about this interview, Renata did an excellent job!