Lost Weekend With David Diaz (Part 2): More Highlights & Why I Will Always Be A Mentee At Heart - by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Continued from Part 1 of my Lost Weekend report...

Juana Martinez-Neal (who won the overall SCBWI-LA Portfolio
Showcase earlier this year) talks to us about her process.

Just like last year, one of my personal highlights of Lost Weekend was seeing how others work.

Jen Betton gives a demo of her process.

It's one reason I LOVED the Illustrators' Intensive at the 2011 SCBWI Summer Conference, where we got to watch pros like David Small, Paul Zelinsky, Marla Frazee, Richard Jesse Watson, Kadir Nelson, Denise Fleming & Jerry Pinkney doing hands-on demonstrations of how they work.

Karyn Raz talks about her process.

It was so funny to hear so many of us at Lost Weekend say before our demos, "Oh, my process isn't going to be that interesting." Other people's process is always more fascinating than our own. :-)

I still experience imposter syndrome sometimes, mainly because I never went to art school and also have little experience with non-digital art materials. I also know there are some pro artists out there who look down on those who draw digitally.

I give a demo of how I draw (using a travel-size Intuos tablet).
Thanks to Jessica Lanan for the photo!

One of things I love about our Mentee group (and I'm talking about all the Mentees, not just the Mentees from my own year) is that everyone is open and interested in different techniques, different approaches.

Maple Lam gives a demo of how she works.

What I found during Lost Weekend: that it didn't matter whether some of us worked digitally, some non-digitally, or with a mix of both -- I learned something new or found inspiration in every single Mentee's demo/talk. Even seasoned pro David Diaz said he had learned some new things. :-)

Jessica Lanan gives a demo of her process one evening by the fireplace.

I was chosen for the SCBWI Illustrator Mentorship Program in 2010. Back then, I was total newbie in terms of professional illustration. Since then, I've been learning more about the craft and industry through working on I'M BORED (written by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by yours truly, published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) as well as from other illustrators.

Lisa Anchin gives a demo of her process.

I know I still have SO much to learn. Which brings me to the title of Part 1 of my Lost Weekend report, where I call myself a "veteran Mentee."

Brian Won gives a demo of how he works.

I will always be a Mentee at heart, no matter how many books I publish in the future, because:

1) I always want to be learning, to be experimenting and stepping outside of my creative comfort zone. 

2) I love being part of the mini-community created as a result of the SCBWI Illustration Mentorship Program, with the opportunities (both official and unofficial) to get to know and learn from other illustrators.

Portfolio display on Saturday night, during the party. I forgot to
bring mine, but enjoyed browsing everyone else's.

Another highlight: seeing Jen Rofé and Rubin Pfeffer again.

Jen, who is a literary agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency, was the one who nominated my YA novel for the Sue Alexander "Most Promising For Publication" Award last year. Although it didn't win, Jen's encouragement reminded NOT to forget about my dream of having my middle grade and YA novels published someday. I love Jen's enthusiasm and energy.

Eliza Wheeler & her agent,  Jen Rofé

Plus Jen signed Eliza on as a client after she and Eliza had a chance to chat at last year's Lost Weekend...so it was great to see this come full circle when she and Eliza chatted about some of Eliza's current projects during the Saturday night party.

Brian Won, Rubin Pfeffer, David Diaz and Christina Forshay.

As for Rubin Pfeffer...well, I adore Rubin. I remember being so intimidated by him just before our first meeting in 2010, when he was one of our Mentors. But then I saw him with an iPad (they were brand new back then) at the table as I approached for my consultation, and I knew it was going to be okay. We shared our iPadgeek excitement, and Rubin gave me some excellent career advice.

Andrea Offermann talks about her process.

So many more highlights, but I've already been rambling on too long. In case you missed it, do read Part 1 of my Lost Weekend report.

You can also read what other attendees have posted about the event:

Lisa Anchin (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend
Jen Betton (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend 2012: A Kidlit Hobnob
Maple Lam (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend 2012
Jessica Lanan (Class of 2011) - Lost (and Found) Weekend

Alice Ratteree gives a demo of her process.

Huge thanks to David Diaz for his generosity in sharing his knowledge, his time and his home. It was a wonderful event that none of us will ever forget.

David Diaz gives us a demo of his process.

LOST WEEKEND ATTENDEES 2012:

TOP ROW (L to R): Brian Won, Arree Chung, Lisa Anchin, Jessica Lanan, Karyn Raz, Jen Betton, Erin O'Shea, Lorraine, Bonnie Adamson, David Diaz, Alice Tillotson Ratterree, Andrea Zuill, Heidi Sheffield

 BOTTOM ROW (L to R): Eliza Wheeler, Christina Forshay, Maple Lam, Andrea Offermann, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Juana Martinez-Neal

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Debbie Ridpath Ohi illustrated I'M BORED, a new picture book written by Michael Ian Black and published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (just found out that the book was picked as a Notable Children's Book Of 2012 by The New York Times Sunday Book Review, yay!). She is currently writing and illustrating more books for S&S, and tweets from @inkyelbows. Her blog about writing & illustrating for young people: Inkygirl.com.

Lost Weekend With David Diaz (Part 1): A Retrospective From A Veteran Mentee - by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Part 1 - Part 2

As Jen Betton mentioned last week, Caldecott-winning children's book illustrator David Diaz was kind enough to host another Lost Weekend this year.

According to David, the idea for Lost Weekend began at the 2011 SCBWI convention when Eliza Wheeler, Kimberly Gee and I joked to David about wanting to snoop through his art studio. I still think it was Eliza & Kimberly's fault; I don't think I would have the nerve (and HAHA, it's my blog post, so E and K can't defend themselves). Anyway, David decided to take us seriously and suggested a Lost Weekend at his place.

Erin O'Shea shows us her process during Lost Weekend.

Last year, David hosted the very first Lost Weekend; you can read my post about it. We attendees were relieved when David announced that he was going to have another in 2012 because it meant that he must have enjoyed himself. Or at least not scared off by all the Mentees invading his house!



Please note that this is not an officially sanctioned SCBWI event, but an invite-only gathering generously hosted by David Diaz. After posting my report last year, I had people asking how they could sign up for this year.

Juana Martinez-Neal, me and Andrea Offermann on a morning walk

The best way to get invited, as far as I know: enter your portfolio in the SCBWI Summer Conference Portfolio Showcase and get picked for the Mentorship Program. Even then, however, it's up to David.



Last year, David invited the 2010 and 2011 SCBWI-LA Mentees (you can find out about the SCBWI Illustrator Mentorship Program here) as well as a couple of his own Mentees. This year, he expanded the invite list to include one of the 2009 Mentees, the new 2012 Mentees and a few others.




I have to admit I was a bit nervous. After all, the first Lost Weekend was such a magical, special event. How could a second event live up to expectations? And how would having twice as many attendees affect the intimacy of the first? And more importantly, would David still make those heavenly POPOVERS?



I needn't have worried.

Yes, this year's Lost Weekend was different from last year's. But that would be true even if exactly the same group had gotten together. Each Lost Weekend is the sum of its attendees and the moments they create together.



We all love SCBWI conventions -- it's how most of us met, through the SCBWI Illustration Mentorship Program. At Lost Weekend, however, there were many more quiet spaces and opportunities for in-depth conversation and getting to know each other.



David supervised all the cooking and did much of it himself, enlisting the rest of us to help chop, stir, clean up etc. There was plenty to eat, and it was all excellent. We had most of our meals at David's house, including breakfast:



I love David's house...it's so full of light and art and fascinating discoveries. Like this baby's head cup:



And the unique decorations on this kitchen statuary:



And of course, David's amazing paintings! I brought a copy of one of David's books for him to sign:



One of my highlights: hearing Rubin Pfeffer talk about what happened when Smoky Nights (illustrated by David, text by Eve Bunting, published by Harcourt) won the Caldecott.



I had no idea that Rubin was the Art Director for that book! Rubin is now a partner at East West Literary Agency.



Another highlight: on our long beach walk (we had to work off all those calories), it was fun to see the ebb and flow of conversation change as the small groups split off, joined other groups, split off again.



Continued in Part 2 of my Lost Weekend report....

Meanwhile, other attendees have also posted about Lost Weekend:

Lisa Anchin (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend

Jen Betton (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend 2012: A Kidlit Hobnob

Maple Lam (Class of 2012) - Lost Weekend 2012

Jessica Lanan (Class of 2011) - Lost (and Found) Weekend

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Debbie Ridpath Ohi illustrated I'M BORED, a new picture book written by Michael Ian Black and published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. She is currently writing and illustrating more books for S&S, and tweets from @inkyelbows. Her blog about writing & illustrating for young people: Inkygirl.com.

Lost Weekend 2012: A Kidlit Hobnob! - by Jen Betton

Hi everyone!

I've just returned from the Lost Weekend – a non-official event that SCBWI Mentor David Diaz hosts out of amazing generosity! This event is for the Kidlit artists – those chosen each year for the SCBWI Mentorship Program (you can read my earlier post about it here). David opens up his home for all of us to come and stay in Carlsbad, CA and talk art, meet agents and ask questions, show our process, ask David questions and basically enjoy the community of other illustrators, all while eating an incredible amount of incredible food!

Day 1: Friday

We all arrive, eat a sumptuous dinner, and David answers questions while we sit in front of the fire eating clementines and chocolate. This was the norm all weekend – everyone basks in the warmth of the fire while discussing illustration and eating all the wonderful food David prepared.

Day 2: Saturday

We have bacon-pancakes for breakfast (2 in 1 amazingness), popovers, and more Q & A from David, answering questions like "How do you keep your sketch fresh when you're redrawing it so many times" and "do you ever get bored and what do you do about it?" and "what was the most difficult assignment you've ever had?"

Debbie Ohi shares her thoughts on using social media, and we all scribble down her wisdom furiously! (Seriously, did you know she has 6 blogs? And I'm not sure how many Twitter accounts? She organizes it all beautifully, and I am in awe!)

In the afternoon Rubin Pfeffer from East West Literary Agency and Jen Rofé from Andrea Brown Literary Agency kindly answer all our questions about agents! It was sooo wonderful to have both of their perspectives and experience to draw from! Rubin also shares with us the backstory on working on Smoky Night with David, and winning the Caldecott Medal.

We also demo our process for the others, showing how we create our finished pieces. I was a little nervous, trying to keep it short, explain thoroughly, and not get any paint on David's table! The demos continue through Sunday, and we were all fascinated by each other's techniques; there was lots of note taking and questions!

Maple Lam 

Maple's lightbox technique 

Eliza Wheeler

Move away from the fire for demos? No way!

That evening there is more food, and a get-together of local friends and SCBWI peeps David knows.  A bunch of us camp out in the living room sleepover style, with the fireplace and Lily the wonderdog to keep us warm!

Portfolios

Lily warms her spot.

Day 3: Sunday

More amazing food, I start losing track of all the amazing stuff we've had but breakfast includes fresh popovers, which we consume piping hot with jam and honey. More demos, talking, and a trip to the beach! It is gloriously sunny and perfect, a great California getaway after it snowed this past week in Boston!

The sand shimmers gold with mica!

David brings out a sample of his promo piece for Me, Frida, and we talk about promotion. We get an assignment: create a promo that you can produce 100 pieces of for $500, averaging $5 per piece. The results of that assignment will be posted here. David also demos a couple of his own techniques for creating pieces, which was amazing. I always love the magic of understanding what went into a piece. The day goes so quickly, and people begin to leave.

David Diaz demo

Day 4: Monday

A few of us are left Monday morning (we got more popovers than anyone!), and we hike around the lagoon and talk about the SCBWI conferences, and when we all want to get together again – the consensus is very soon! Lisa, Maple and I hang out for the rest of the afternoon, walking around Balboa Park before saying goodbye. We're all excited to see one another in February for the conference, and I have lots of art to do!! I came away with so many ideas and plans! Everyone is so wonderful and talented, and I can't wait to hang out with them all again!

Me, Lisa and Maple

Lost Weekend Attendees: 

Mentees of 2009: 

Erin O'Shea

Mentees of 2010:

Andrea Offermann, Debbie Ohi, Eliza Wheeler

Mentees of 2011:

Christina Forshay, Jessica Lanan, Juana Martinez-Neal, Andrea Zuill

Mentees of 2012:

Lisa Anchin, Maple Lam, Karyn Raz, Brian Won and me.

Others invited by David:

Bonnie Adamson, Arree Chung, Alice Ratterree, Heidi Woodward Sheffield

Originally posted at www.jenbetton.blogspot.com

Jen Betton is a children's book illustrator and 2012 Kidlit artist! You can see her work at www.jenbetton.com