Read Every Day, Lead a Better Life Art Contest Winner!

“In just five days, more than 25,000 votes were cast in our Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. art contest, in which the public submitted their own interpretations of our global literacy campaign slogan, inspired by the 12 illustrators who did the same.”     Blogged by Morgan, one the  On Our Mind @ Scholastic bloggers.

Mine was the winning entry!!!

So a big thank you to Scholastic for the opportunity to be in a contest like this, with such a great message about reading, and to the other contestants. It was a pleasure to be in the company of such creative artists!

Thank you to all the people who voted… you guys are amazing!

Read Every Day! Lead a Better Life!

Read EveryDay… Lead a Better Life

My entry is one of the ten finalists! Go here to vote!
http://opinio.scholastic.com/opinio/s?s=5869

Thank you!

Aspiring artists were invited to interpret Scholastic’s global literacy campaign, Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life.

To enter the contest, participants were asked to illustrate their own vision of the message Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life., emphasizing the importance of reading in the lives of young people.

Scholastic will judge and post the top 10 submissions to the corporate blog, On Our Minds @Scholastic for public voting on Wednesday, June 8. Public voting will be open until 9am ET on Monday, June 13, 2011. The Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. Illustrators Contest winner will have his or her artwork featured on www.scholastic.com/readeveryday and win a deluxe set of signed posters created exclusively for Scholastic by the twelve children’s book authors and illustrators participating in the auction:

This is my entry… fingers crossed!

Houston SCBWI Conference 2011

So every year I write a little about the conference right after I’ve attended, but this year I seem to have procrastinated for lack of words..or photographs… or exhaustion maybe. I don’t know.

I won’t give you the line up or the deets of everyone’s talks. There are plenty of blogs that have already covered that. Besides, I don’t want to spoil it for you should you get the opportunity to hear the wonderful speakers that were there! http://www.scbwi-houston.org/calendar/2011-conference-the-art-of-book-craft/.  I will tell you though, how I felt at the conference.

I’ve been very busy this year with my first illustrated book,  I See Animals Sleeping coming out in June 2011, a completed book dummy and working to get my portfolio in order for the conference, So I felt tired and a little anxious. Isn’t there always a little anxiety when you show your portfolio? You  might as well be showing your heart… but there is was.   My quirky heart… I mean portfolio!

I had my portfolio review with Laurent Linn, who I must say,  is the nicest and most intuitive reviewer I’ve ever experienced.  He gave me ideas and directions and confirmed some things for me. I needed to hear what he had to say!

And you know what… I won the portfolio competition!  …. and now… my head is full of all kinds of ideas…. and some are … well kind of quirky!

Bad Santa

You better watch out… You don’t and you’ll cry
You better not doubt… I’m telling you why…
Santa Flaws is coming to town!

He smells like a fungus. He’s covered with lice.
He spits when he talks… and he’s not very nice.
Santa Flaws is coming to town!

He sneaks in while you’re sleeping
And eats up all the cake
He drinks the beer and kicks the dog
So beware for goodness sake!

You better watch out… You don’t and you’ll cry,
You better not doubt… I’m telling you why… Santa Flaws is coming to town!
by Roberta Baird

The side of the family that no one wants to talks about!