portfolio reviewin'

This Tuesday I spent the day down at Maryland Institute College of Art reviewing senior portfolios in the Illustration department. It was an honor to be invited back to my old college to talk about children's publishing with those students who hope to make a career out of writing and illustrating books. And oh boy was the talent level strong. I was truly impressed by many of the portfolios I reviewed over the course of the day. That fantastic Illustration faculty must be doing something right :) Big thanks to Allan Comport, and the rest of the MICA Illustration gang for inviting me down —I had a wonderful time!

an award for Spunky!

   

Spunky Tells All was named an Honor Book for the Maryland Blue Crab Young Readers Award!!! My home state has good taste :-) Thanks, Maryland! You can check out the full list of winners here if you like: http://www.mdlib.org/divisions/csd/blue.asp

City Cat sketchbook doodles

JLG mail

I received a surprise package from my publisher over the weekend — the official selection letter for Happy Like Soccer from the Junior Library Guild, along with a JLG lapel pin and certificate with gold seal! Gold sure does make me happy :) Thanks to the Junior Library Guild for this wonderful honor. Really excited for Happy Like Soccer to be a part of their list~

Irish Blessing

                                      May the road rise up to meet you.
                                      May the wind always be at your back.
                                      May the sun shine warm upon your face,
                                      and rains fall soft upon your fields.
                                      And until we meet again,
                                      May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

                                             —Old Irish Blessing

too many cats

studies for CITY CAT

chat de ville

a tiny snippet from one of the Paris scenes in CITY CAT, written by Kate Banks

 Last month I started on the final art for my next picture book, CITY CAT, written by Kate Banks. My editor Frances over at FSG offered this lovely script to me waaaay back in the spring of 2009, knowing that we weren't going to get things going for a long while. It was so hard to keep this project on the back burner all this time. Location drawing is my absolute favorite thing, and I don't just get to research and capture one beautiful location for this book, but eight! The story takes the reader on a journey through Western Europe, as a cat follows a family on their holiday adventure. I'm in love with Kate's poetic text and selection of cities, and I am so grateful to Frances and Kate for pulling me in to this dream of a book project.

scenes from Le Ballon rouge, The Red Balloon

For the last week I have been drawing the gorgeous city of Paris, and the other day I decided to take a trip down memory lane and watch a movie I remember one of my teachers showing in elementary school: The Red Balloon. This film is magic and a must watch if you have never seen it. The above clips are proof.

Unfortunately I'm not able to go to Paris while working on this, but I did travel there in 2009 for a little inspiration and reference collecting. The above are a few sketches from my adventure. I fell in love with this city, and hope to visit again soon ♥

JLG selection

I just found out that my forthcoming book, HAPPY LIKE SOCCER, is a Junior Library Guild selection! The book comes out in May, but wont be available from JLG till September of this year. Very exciting! Thank you, JLG!

snow day in brooklyn!

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of you a very joyous 2012!  xo~Lauren

*image from my forthcoming book, The Reader, written by Amy Hest