A few thoughts on editing your portfolio

my portfolio for the SCBWI winter conference

The SCBWI LA conference is just a few days away and all of you are probably putting the finishing touches to your portfolios. There are already several great posts out there with wonderful information on how to put a great portfolio together. I wanted to post a few of the links to these insightful posts again and add a few thoughts that helped me especially in editing my portfolio for the conference in New York this winter, where I was honored to receive the portfolio prize.

First of all, the links:

 - Eliza Wheeler's post on her beautiful prize-winning portfolio, with a comparison of her 2010 and her 2011 portfolio

- Juana Martinez-Neal posted step-by-step information about her process of putting her winning portfolio together, and also shows her entire portfolio before and after.

- Molly Idle , another SCBWI portfolio winner, posted great information of her process here.

- And last but not least I want to recommend taking another look at the advice on putting together a portfolio in SCBWI’s THE BOOK.

Here are the things that stood out to me and that helped me improve my portfolio:

1. NUMBER / ONLY THE BEST:

In the SCBWI BOOK it says on putting your portfolio together:„submit only your best work, 10 to 15 pieces“. Scary? Yes. Especially if you want to cover all the subject matter that should be presented in a children’s book portfolio. And while that is important, I believe it is even more important to make sure that you show your very best work. 

But how to decide?

What worked for me in the end was sitting down with a blank sheet of paper and writing down the titles of the pieces I ABSOLUTELY HAD to show. You know, the ones that pop into your head right away. This got me started with an already well-sorted list, and after printing these pieces looking at them in sequence (see 3. FLOW) helped in refining the selection further.

putting together the list of illustrations I want to show...

2. SIZE:

Show the illustrations in the size they are meant to be printed. When printing your images, of course it is vital that the quality is good and the presentation is clean ( Juana posted a lot of great information about choosing and putting together a perfect portfolio presentation ). But something I hadn’t paid enough attention to before was size. This is something Yuko Shimizu said when she talked about putting a portfolio together: if the illustration is meant to be big, show it big.

... consider the size in which you want to show an illustration...

3. FLOW:

You should consider page turns, flow and consistency in your portfolio as much as you consider it in making a book dummy, because it shows how you will solve this issue in your books.

Molly Idle explains this very well in her post.

For my book, I laid out the pages I had printed on a big desk, and looked at them in sequence, taking pieces out, exchanging their place, until it felt right to me:

...lay out the pages of the portfolio like the story board for a book dummy. Consider flow and consistency...

Then, I put them into the book, and went through them again, checking how the page turns worked:

...put the pages together and look at how the page turns work...

Sometimes it makes sense to group your images or divide your portfolio into sections, like Eliza Wheeler did with her portfolio. Because I have a lot of work for MG and YA books, I ended up dividing my portfolio too,  into a color and a black and white section.

4. CONCENTRATION:

I also realized when putting this book together, that it took a lot of concentration to make choices and stick to them. After working on it for a while, I felt my resolve dwindling. I realized that for me it was best to work on this at the start of the day, when my mind was fresh and focused, and to take a break when I got stuck.  

5. NO-BRAINERS:

And then there are a few little things that I guess should be no-brainers but can get lost in between the big decisions:

-       your name and information should be on there, e.g. on the left side when you open the book, or you can start with a lovely introductory page like Molly Idle does.

...include your information at the beginning of the book...

-       A flap at the end of the book with cards or printed samples would be nice, so the interested art directors or agents can take away your information:

...and take away material at the end...

-       This is your book, you are introducing your work and yourself. Have fun and make it exactly what you want it to be!

... my portfolio and the case I made for it.

I hope this helps, and wish you all the greatest success in putting together your books!

~Andrea

_______________________

Andrea Offermann is an illustrator living and working in Hamburg, Germany. You can see her work at www.andreaoffermann.com. 

Portfolio vs. story

I am about to tell you something that may be incredibly controversial, particularly given the Portfolio Mentorship Award I received this past August at the 2018 SCBWI LA Summer Conference. If you have been struggling with your art, your portfolio, finding your voice, or just finding traction in the industry then I would like to hypothesize that the best thing you can do for your work is to forget about your portfolio.

Wait. What?!

Don’t get me wrong: the portfolio is incredibly important. It is your professional face, your body of work that showcases your skill as an artist. BUT. (There is always a but.) But if you are anything like me, you have worked many years on your artistic skills. But if you are anything like me, you started working on “improvements” to your portfolio for all the wrong reasons. But if you are anything like me, how long have you worked on your storytelling skills?

To expand on this let me expand on the lessons I've learned over the years. I am not someone who fell into children’s illustration overnight. I’ve known since college that I’ve wanted to illustrate children’s books. I graduated college in 2006. I got job as a graphic designer in 2007. I kept trying to improve my illustration. I started taking classes at the Animation Guild in Burbank.

Six YEARS later, I brought my first portfolio to the summer conference in 2013.

1. Are you working on your portfolio for the RIGHT reasons? 

During my first portfolio review I got useful feedback about varying the perspectives on my scenes, working on my colors, and adding sequential pieces with the same character. I sat next to Corinna Luyken before we both had our first portfolio reviews. We were both nervous wrecks. When she won a Portfolio Mentorship, I was so proud of her, but still I asked myself, “What made her work stronger than mine?” When I got home I made a list of all the things I needed to do to make my portfolio better, stronger, more:

• Dramatic Lighting
• High Angle Views
• Low Angle Views
• More perspective
• More depth
• More overlap
• Human Children (eek!)

I had a second portfolio review where I got feedback that has stuck with me: “Your art makes me say, ‘So what?’ I want it to make me say, ‘Now what?!’” I needed this information, but I wasn’t ready for this information.

Looking back, I can see clearly why I made no decisive improvements that following year: I was working towards the wrong goals for picture book illustration. There was no “STORY” or “CHARACTER” on this list.

2. Find the characters and stories that make you laugh and smile (or dare I say...that “spark joy”). Draw those. Then draw them some more. And some more.

In 2014, I took a night class at Art Center with Marla Frazee called Finding your Voice. I loved that class. But I struggled in that class. SO MUCH. I remember what I started working on for the first assignment: drawing a girl in overalls. I remember my character was not well received because she, well, had no character. She was bland. We were supposed to work on our own stories, but I didn’t know what I wanted to write about. I didn’t know what I could add to the world that would be interesting. I only have vague recollections of what I worked on in that class--the stories of the other students lingered in my memory more than my own story.

A year later, I sat in Adam Rex’s breakout session where he asked us to draw a gym teacher based on the animal figurines he was passing around. I drew the scariest, most aggressive tiger gym teacher I could in 5 minutes or less and, on a whim, I added a little, geeky pig with large glasses that he was picking on. I was very proud of my gym teacher. So proud that I showed it to Adam Rex when he walked around. His response to the gym teacher: meh. His response to my pig (paraphrased): that is an amazing character and so simply drawn! I stared at my pig. I thought about my pig. I started doodling my pig.

Then my friend Danielle Heitmuller asked me one single, incredibly important question: “What does your pig want more than anything?” I knew the answer immediately: video games. I also knew my pig’s bane: sports.

I could not stop thinking about my pig. When I went to meet my friends to draw at a coffee shop on Sundays, they would draw the other customers and I would draw my pig. Eventually, I had a binder full of pig drawings.  

At the start of 2016, I wrote for the first time. The first 250-word draft was one of the hardest things I ever did. Harder than drawing. But writing helped me figure out what my pig story wasn't (a picture book) and what it might be with a lot more work.

3. You only have so much time and energy. Make it count.

I found a portfolio mentor in 2015 and worked on my portfolio for a year in between other projects. I got more frustrated and less quality work. My portfolio was worse than before.  Working on a random portfolio piece that you have no emotional investment in take just as much time, storytelling, and brain power as creating an image for one of the stories you're working on and you only have a limited number of hours every week to sit at my desk and work. You still have to live life, pay the bills, eat healthy, exercise, and, importantly, relax. (I'm still working on that last one.)

4. Be vulnerable.

In my 2018 class with Marla, I started working on a new picture book dummy about a rocket ship. Halfway through the class, there was an event at work that blindsided me. I didn’t know how to react, but I knew my feelings were complicated. I put those raw feelings down on the page and created a completely different picture book dummy in one month. This story moved my class more than any of my other stories had previously. I tapped into something real and relatable--and a bit vulnerable.

5. Always try. You never know what might happen.

I went back to the rocket ship story and worked on it for 6 months, wanting it ready in time for the summer conference. 1 month before the conference I redrew the entire dummy because something wasn’t working on the story. 2 weeks before the conference I gave up on having the dummy at the conference because it still wasn’t right and focused on cleaning up individual images from the story. 2 days before the conference, I was frustrated and pulled all the images from the rocket story OUT of the portfolio. I still wasn’t happy with them.

I grabbed any images from my other stories that I thought were decent and pulled them together: my pig story, my panda and fish story, my emotionally vulnerable story, a ballerina story that grew out of trying to draw more children over the past year. And a few solitary pieces, including my twitter banner image. I thought my portfolio was a hot mess. I assembled my portfolio in my hotel room 2 nights before the portfolio showcase. I WRINKLED my portfolio one night before the portfolio showcase and panicked. I tried to iron the pages; it didn’t work. I assembled the one dummy I did bring the morning of the portfolio showcase. I turned it in and thought: Well, at least it’s stronger than last year’s portfolio.

Then somehow, I was chosen as one of the winners of the portfolio mentorship award. I was shocked, because I know I’m surrounded by people whose work is stronger and more cohesive than mine. But somehow my art--no, my stories and characters--resonated with the judges. If I hadn’t tried despite my perceived failures, I wouldn’t have won anything.

So let me revisit that controversial statement:

Forget about your portfolio...and follow your stories. They will lead you down unexpected paths, mirror your lives in unexpected ways, and take you further than you ever thought you could go.

P.S. My pig story is not done, but it will be one day. I love that little pig. 

_______

© Cole Montgomery 

Gail Buschman is a graphic designer and children's book creator who loves to travel and explore new places.

More about Gail at her website, instagram, twitter, and facebook.

Children's Book Portfolio: Flow

When creating a children's book portfolio there are three key elements to consider: format, content, and flow. This post is about flow. 

©Jen Betton

FLOW

Flow is the order in which the images are arranged – how you arrange your work showcases your storytelling ability, which is paramount in the children's book world. Treat your portfolio like a book! (While flow can also be applied to a website, the primary focus here is a physical portfolio.)

BEGINNING AND END:
It's good to start and end with an eye-catching piece, your very best work. Some people actually create a "title page" with an illustration and their contact information (Molly Idle does this!). After your intro, you want to arrange your work in a way that feels natural, leading from one to another as smoothly as possible. If you have series of images (and you should!!), then they naturally group together. After that, you can try different arrangements to connect images by composition, color, or content.

Examples: Each of these pairings involve two images which are not from the same series, but share a visual commonality.

©Jen Betton

These two pieces both have strong warm glow as well as human families.

© Jen Betton 

These two pieces have content similarity - a figure with hair blowing in the wind, as well as prominent blue tones. Even the composition has some similarities with the bottom weighting of the image. 

©Jen Betton

These two pieces share similar compositional elements - a curving form, single figure, with a white background. 

 © Jen Betton

These two pieces have color palette similarity, as well as the dots (of dandelions and fireflies) serving as a compositional similarity.

Example of a transition: The beginning and ending pieces in this sequence are each from a series. The two in the middle serve as a transition from the first series to the second. The first two images share a color palette and the outdoors, the middle two share a single child figure doing a similar action, and the last two images share a color palette and stars.

©Jen Betton

Here is a possible layout of an entire portfolio. Many other arrangements would also work. It starts with a single image, moves to a kid series, three additional single images, then an animal series, a single image to transition to a third series, and then a final, single closing image.

©Jen Betton

SECTIONS:
If you have two separate, consistent styles you will want to create separate sections for them (they don't have to have a physical divider, but don't intermingle the images). You might have a section for your middlegrade vs. picture book work, or your black and white vs. your color images. Eliza Wheeler and Maple Lam both separate their portfolios into "light" and "dark" sections for the more colorful, lighthearted work, and the more monochrome, moodier work.

There are zillions of ways to arrange any given set of images, but taking a little time to lay it out carefully can really add cohesiveness to your portfolio! Flow is important enough that I will remove images that I'd otherwise include in my portfolio if they don't seem to fit into the flow.

For more info on portfolios:

Portfolio Prep:

Portfolio Tips from SCBWI Mentorship Winners - SCBWI Insight
Creating a Children's Book Portfolio - by Jen Betton

Past Portfolio Winners: 

Editing Your Portfolio - by Andrea Offermann (winner of the 2013 SCBWI portfolio showcase)

Mentee vs Grand Prize Winner Portfolio - by Juana Martinez-Neal (winner of the 2012 SCBWI portfolio showcase)
Portfolio Comparison - by Eliza Wheeler (winner of the 2011 SCBWI portfolio showcase)

More Conference Tips:
For First Time Attendees - by Debbie Ohi 
The Portfolio Showcase - by Debbie Ohi 

After the Conference: 
What next? - by Jen Betton

P.S. The storytelling aspect is one reason why I don't use process work in my portfolio – it can disrupt the story. It is a great thing to include on your website, but since art directors mostly care about the finished image I do not include it in my physical book.

....................................

Jen Betton wrote and illustrated HEDGEHOG NEEDS A HUG (Penguin-Putnam) and illustrated TWILIGHT CHANT by Holly Thompson (Clarion-HMH).
You can find more of her work here:
www.jenbetton.com
www.facebook.com/jenbettonillustration
@jenbetton

SCBWI Conference Tips!

Your bags are packed, your portfolio perfect (you might just fiddle with the order one more time), your business cards in hand.... all that's left to do is go, right? After attending both the LA and NYC conferences several times, here are a few things I've found helpful!

Be brave! Talk to people around you, be friendly! You never know who you might meet! At my first conference, when I didn't know a soul, I met dynamite illustrator Richard Jesse Watson this way. The folks who attend SCBWI tend to be almost universally friendly and welcoming. I've met some of my very best buddies at these conferences.

Awesome illustration buddies and fellow mentees Maple Lam and Lisa Anchin (and me).

Always have a backup portfolio and dummy: even if it is just on your phone. You never know who might be interested in seeing it and you don't want to have to say "well, if you go to the portfolio showcase..." (and you should definitely put your work in the portfolio showcase!)

Have your business card stashed in the front of your conference badge: it fits right under your name, and if you have an image on it, then not only can people can pick you out as an illustrator, but they will connect your name with your work (it is really exciting when someone looks at your card and says, 'hey, I know your stuff!').

Bring LOTS of business cards and postcards – especially if you are in the portfolio showcase. It really stinks when you run out and then someone you really want to connect with asks for your card!

Be on time! The portfolio showcase is only open to general conference-goers for about an hour, so be on time if you want to see all the books (plus they announce the awards at the beginning). The keynotes often run overtime, but the workshops will still start as scheduled! It is also easier to say hello to the speaker before the talk – afterwards they will be mobbed!

Do it all!!! Sign up for a critique, put your book in the portfolio show, and go to the social events. Often the optional elements of the conference are my favorite parts.

Get some rest. The conference is exhausting! While you want to take advantage of everything you can, it's ok to take a break and recharge a bit. Also, you can meet some pretty amazing illustration folks out on the pool deck (just sayin'). Also, bring a sweater – sometimes those rooms are coooooold!

Do homework prior to networking: look at the faculty bios and decide who you want to meet. Look them up on twitter so you know what they look like and you can walk up to them in the hall. Read their tweets and books so you have something to talk about. Go to their workshops! Look up the twitter hashtag for the conference (#la17scbwi this year) and join in the conversation.

Be receptive to feedback: whenever someone spends the time to review your work, take notes, listen, and don't be defensive. Send thank you notes to anyone who critiqued you: As well as just being a nice way to show your appreciation, most people don't do this, so it helps you stand out. It is also a chance to show another image to them. One year I got a personal letter back from an art director (decorated with cute stickers!) responding to my thank you note.

After the conference, follow up: look up folks you connected with on facebook or twitter, or send a postcard. I find it helpful to write a tidbit of info on a person's business card or postcard when I get it, which makes it easier for me to relate the name to the conversation we had (which can be important if you pick up 50+ business cards over the weekend).

For more info on:

Portfolio Prep:
Portfolio Tips from SCBWI Mentorship Winners - SCBWI Insight
Editing Your Portfolio - by Andrea Offermann (winner of the 2013 SCBWI portfolio showcase)
Mentee vs Grand Prize Winner Portfolio - by Juana Martinez-Neal (winner of the 2012 SCBWI portfolio showcase)
Portfolio Comparison - by Eliza Wheeler (winner of the 2011 SCBWI portfolio showcase)
Creating a Children's Book Portfolio - by Jen Betton

More Conference Tips:
For First Time Attendees - by Debbie Ohi 
The Portfolio Showcase - by Debbie Ohi 

After the Conference: 
What next? - by Jen Betton

I encourage everyone to go to both their regional and national SCBWI conferences! I'm so sad I won't make it to the LA conference this year, but hope to see you there next year!
..........................................
Jen Betton wrote and illustrated HEDGEHOG NEEDS A HUG (Penguin-Putnam) coming in summer 2018, and illustrated TWILIGHT CHANT by Holly Thompson (Clarion-HMH) coming spring 2018.
You can find her here:
www.jenbetton.com
www.facebook.com/jenbettonillustration
@jenbetton