Ken W. Min ~ Illustrator

The Day is Done (UPDATED)

yesterday illustrator's day (see previous post), an event i helped coordinate, came...and went.

it turned out to be a lot of fun and i was really happy with how everything played out. and if you know me, i'm my own harshest critic, so there's always something to bug me, even if it's some small detail that no one else would really pick up, but i can't say there was anything glaring yesterday...well, o.k. i wince every time i think about how i too quickly turned off the lights in the auditorium on brian floca's slide presentation. should have done it one light switch at a time, drop the lights gradually. sorry brian.

so i hope that everyone who attended came away with some good info, a touch of inspiration and a smile.

i also want to thank my tag team partner, milla, for co-conceiving the day with me and to my "volunteer army" for all their best efforts behind the scenes.

tho, i think the best part for me was getting to meet and know such bright, creative folks in the children's publishing world. my hat's off to brian floca, jen rofé, rich deas, abigail samoun and the irascible dan santat.

maybe we can all do it again sometime.

 

(* UPDATE- we've got pictures! if you would like to see some of the pictures from the day, you can visit the flickr site of friend rita who shot the pictures at this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhcrayon/sets/72157625453108190/

 

 

SCBWI-LA Illustrator's Day 2010

i suppose i could have written about this sooner, considering it takes place this saturday, but well, ha ha.

illustrator's day is coming. this is an event that i co-organized and i think we have a pretty spiffy line-up. we have author/illustrator/ dan santat, tricycle press editor abigail samoun, sr. creative director at macmillan rich deas, author/illustrator brian floca and literary agent jennifer rofé (accent on the 'e')

my partner and i have been plotting, planning, moving huge boulders and making back room deals to get this event put together and, frankly, i can't wait to see it unfold. i think we've got a little something for everyone. interested in how a picture book is conceived? you'll find out here from brian floca. want a mix of craft and industry talk plus what an editor thinks when acquiring a book? abigail samoun will tell all. what goes into cover designing? listen to rich deas. you've got a book to promote? jennifer rofé will tell you how (and she'll clean your fridge. what do i mean by that? come to illustrator's day and i'll tell you. :)

i don't know what dan santat is planning. he keeps saying he'll get around to preparing his talk. one of these days. that's why i've developed an ulcer and a nervous tick.

i think the curiousity of what dan is presenting- that alone is worth the price of admission. 

plus we'll have raffle give-aways, books for sale, contest prizes, and a secret something that we won't spoil here.

find all the details below:

http://www.scbwisocal.org/events/la_illustrators_day.html

 

so come on out and see what all is going on. it will be a blast!

Look Out!

   

Mission Viejo Reader Festival

yesterday i went to the mission viejo reader festival. i lent a hand to my friends at studio 5 who had a booth and were there drawing pictures for the kids. since one of their main cogs is bob singer, character designer at hanna barbera, much of the requests i fielded were for drawings of scooby doo, yogi bear and tom & jerry. but little did i know that  i would be the receipient of some cool artwork.

this self portrait drawing is by a girl named savannah.

as you can see, she has yellow/blonde hair and large bright eyes. we made a trade of pictures. i'm not sure who got the better of this deal. (i think i did) it was also her birthday this weekend. i think she turned 4. happy birthday to you savannah!

this drawing is by a girl who i reckon is around 11 or 12. at the bottom of the page she left me her web address. she has her own website!!! how crazy and how freaking cool is that?!? if you want to see more of her work, go here: http://puzzle-tan.deviantart.com/

it was a fun afternoon drawing pictures for kids. it's for this audience that i do what i do. seeing their shiny, happy faces, makes it all feel worthwhile.

just, please, no requests for drawings of scooby doo for a while. every time i blink my eyes, i see his after image in my mind. :)

 

826LA Charity Art Auction ~ WK 2

the 826LA charity art auction rolls on into week 2 and my piece goes up on the auction block. you know you want to support a good cause and pick it up. look at it, it's got a toad and a robot duking it out across a city skyline. it's got action. it's got adventure.

it's got romance. look in the window of the building on the left and go down the hall where you'll find a 70 year old man stuck in an elevator with a 68 year old woman. at this moment, they realize they were neighbors as kids until one moved away. but they never forgot one another and now, in a moment of serendipity, they meet for the first time in 61 years. buy this piece for their love story.

or look around at all the art that is up for sale. there's lots of good stuff here. check out that piece by bob boyle. it may be my favorite one here. or look at the works of erin kono or catia chien or scott magoon. lots of good stuff, people, from lots of talented folks.

so run, don't walk, to the ebay link here and support 826LA:

http://shop.ebay.com/dsantat75/m.html?_nkw&_armrs=1&_from&_ipg&_trksid=p3686

for more info about 826LA  and the auction website see here:

http://theeyewitnessreports.com/EYEWITNESS_REPORTS/JUNE_1,_2010.html

826LA Charity Art Auction

 

a friend is putting on a charity art auction to benefit a very worthy cause- 826LA. here is what they are about:

826LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Our services are structured around our understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

when asked to pitch in, i was more than happy to contribute art for the auction. in fact, it was a blast to do my rendition of characters from the book OH NO! (OR HOW MY SCIENCE PROJECT DESTROYED THE WORLD)

that's the theme of the auction. 30 artists portray scenes from the book or moments inspired by the action. it's that simple and that fun.

the auction will be held in 2 parts beginning august 23- 27 and then august 30- september 3 across Ebay.

here are the details. just follow the links:

the auction website: http://theeyewitnessreports.com/EYEWITNESS_REPORTS/JUNE_1,_2010.html

the video trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5orTOKFxFyw

a gallery show will take place of all the pieces at gallery nucleus on august 14 so you can see them up close and personal:

http://www.gallerynucleus.com/gallery/exhibition/259

if you're in the LA area, i plan on being there and maybe, just maybe, i'll be wearing my fake mustache! that's worth the price of admission right there! :)

btw, here's my piece:

 so everybody, get the word out there. pass along these links or this blog post and lets support a worthwhile cause!!

The Bet that Paid Off! (UPDATED)

finished up the SCBWI summer conference over the weekend and i definitely had a blast. lots of good speakers. lots of great workshops and to me, the best thing of all, was hanging with a lot of wonderful people.

but the one thing i wanted to specifically follow up on was the bet i made with one tammi sauer. ms. sauer hails from oklahoma and i, of course, live in LA so we made a friendly basketball sports wager on the outcome of the LA lakers/OKC thunder match up. if the lakers lost, i would pony up original art. if the thunder lost, i get an advanced, signed copy of tammi's new book. but best of all, loser has to wear a t-shirt of the winning ball club during one day at the SCBWI summer children's book conference.

guess who won?

yup, tammi is sporting the purple and gold of the NBA champion lakers.

and here's my booty from the bet.

 

with it's rather curious dedication

tammi was an incredibly good sport and to show you all that i'm not the cad you might think i am for making possibly one-sided bets, i presented her with some art based on her most recent book "chicken dance" (illustrated by my buddy dan santat)

so, please, a round of applause for tammi sauer and go out there and read her books. they are terrific.

visit tammi's website at:

http://www.tammisauer.com/Home_Page.html

'mostly monsterly' comes out august 31st in fine book stores near you. get a copy!

(UPDATED) i would be remiss if i didn't mention the very cool, sweet swag that tammi brought out for me from OKC. i have to imagine i'm the only person in LA driving around with this particular car flag.

 

on another note, i noticed there was this rather curious mustachio'd gentleman wandering about the conference flirting with all the ladies. i think his name is something like enrique suave (accent on the 'e') and apparently he is something of a lothario at large. beware ladies, beware!

(and one rather disgruntled dan santat who was not amused. OH NO, not at all)

Hot, Hot Roti ~ Fini?

so the plan was to occasionally share some art as i worked on the book. that didn't work out the way i wanted. i just kind of kept my head down and barreled along. when i looked up, i was on the last spread. at this stage, all the interior art is complete with just the cover to conceive and execute. so, for the moment, i'm feeling pretty good. here are some more spreads.

   

   

 

Hot, Hot Roti ~ Rolling along...

as i mentioned in the last post- when was that? 2 months ago? oops...i've been working on a picture book. i'm having a pretty good time with it and i did get permission to post pictures, so i'll roll out what i can as i go.

thought it would be interesting to see the process of a particular layout. it's genesis to completion.

here's my initial "thumbnail" rough draft first impression for the spread. aneel, the main character, is meditating in a headstand with incense smoke wafting in the air. he is recalling stories told to him by his grandparents of their early life in india which is hinted at in elements in the smoke. i went with a close up here knowing that in the next spread i would show the grandfather in a headstand later. by going close up here, i could see his sweet expression and also focus in on the swaying palm trees and rice fields represented in the incense smoke. the black boxes were my first impression of where the text would be placed.

here i did a more refined rough that eventually went to the art director and editor to view as part of my initial package of layouts for their perusal. i wanted to refine some proportions as well as include some details only hinted at in my personal thumbnails.

the art director and editor came back to me wanting to actually see aneel in his headstand which i understood. so to do so, i needed to open up the composition to show his full height which meant showing more of the room. i submitted this layout to them, but i knew in my head that i was not quite satisfied with this spread...

...so i came back to them with this. different perspective. dutch angle. (an angle that is slightly tilted from a straight horizon) this composition, to me, had more life to it. it also showed aneel larger in frame and we see more of the village scene in the incense smoke. at this point, i was starting to clarify my character design and putting him in different positions. i was feeling things were coming together now.

but there were still a few more tweaks. knowing that the grandparents play a part in the initial storytelling, they suggested having the grandparents in the scene. my thought was that the image might get crowded and the grandparents show up on the next page, so we went with family portraits up on the wall. we have one of the family unit and another of the grandparents. the subtle suggestion is that the grandparents weren't there initially, but came to live with them later on. 

final image. (almost) the last suggestion was to try and highlight the grandparents so i made the frame around them in a darker shade. with more contrast so that it would pop more than the other family portrait. there was some last minute debate on whether the grandparents would be living among rice fields or sugar cane fields. this was dependent on which part of the country they were to be set. as of this post, it was undecided, so the village scene in the incense smoke has not been drawn in.

as of this writing, i'm getting close to finishing. which is why the lack of posts. i'll try better if i can lift my head up and away from my drawing board long enough and hope to have more images scanned soon. (a wink and a nod to my friend who offered to help me with that :)

"Hot, Hot Roti" from Lee & Low Books

Egads! - it's 2010!

when did it become 2010? actually, that's all just hyperbole. i say that only because it's been that long since i last wrote a blog post. terrible! i know. but there is a reason for it. i've been working on my 1st picture book called "Hot Hot Roti for Dada-Ji" (written by fiza) to be published by Lee & Low. it's a story about a grandfather who bonds with his grandson over a type of indian flat bread called roti. for the grandfather, roti is empowering; enabling him to do great feats like wrestle a water buffalo or twirl elephants like ragdolls. (it reminds me of how popeye takes to spinach) of course granddad might be telling some rather tall tales. maybe :)

i'm very hyped and excited to be working on this.

anyways, that's what i've been up to. hopefully, i can post sketches and pictures along the way (as permissible) but here's a preliminary color study.