I’m at the ALA Annual Conference in Philadelphia PA. This is the big event of the year for picture books, with publishers displaying new and upcoming books to eager librarians. It’s my first time attending, and I haven’t yet met very many people in this field, so I’ve been really excited to get to put a face to the names of some of those I worked with at Simon & Schuster, especially my editor Celia Lee. She and my art director Lizzy Bromley put a lot of trust in me trying out a new technique I was developing to incorporate beadwork into my paintings, and were very patient when that turned out to need significantly more time than I originally anticipated.

I’m so new to this event and this crowd of people that it’s hard not to feel as shy as I was as a student at my first Comicon or workshop again. But having established a presence in concept art and then fantasy art worlds, I can feel quite a bit more relaxed. I’ve done this before, and I know to be patient and just take each step as it comes.

Today I presented about my illustrations for “All the Stars in the Sky” at Simon & Schuster’s Original Art Luncheon.

I got to set up a table with some of the original art from the book, including the cover (which I framed with glass on both sides so that the stitching can be seen on the back) and a couple of the interior spreads.

I also showed my test patches from the first experiments with mounting cotton muslin to the back of watercolor paper, so attendees could touch some beads. Also on the table were my sketchbook with all the original page sketches, and some of my tighter drawings done on Duralar, which I taped to the back of the watercolor paper and used a lightbox to guide the final lines in colored pencil, before mounting and stretching it.

My presentation and display went over wonderfully! The librarians in attendance were captivated by the beadwork and loved getting to see and hear about the process of sewing the beads into the art. And the other artists presenting (there were 5: Jashar Awan, Drew Beckmeyer, Chuck Groenink, Bea Jackson, and John Parra) had wonderful books and stories!

In the evening I attended the Caldecott/Newberry/Legacy Banquet, where honorees and winners of the Caldecott and Newberry awards gave speeches. I love a reason to dress up, and to see everyone in their finery.

I was happy to see another Native artist, Rebecca Lee Kunz, winning the Caldecott!

She wore a dress she made herself, a nod to tradition with a ribbon skirt with applique birds. I wish I had thought to take a picture of her dress, but I did get to ask her about it.

And the Newberry award winner was Erin Entrada Kelly, who I did not get to meet but her acceptance speech was uproariously funny in places and heartbreaking in others.

It’s been so exciting and inspiring to be here, and so cool to get to meet some more authors and illustrators. I’m just starting out in this field, and it’s so different from other types of illustration I’ve done. The long process of creating the art for the book preceded a long production time for printing, and the book will finally hit shelves in January. It’s available for preorder here or through your favorite bookstore. And as of yesterday I finally have a printed and bound copy!

This year the book was not yet out. By next year my sketches for the next book, for Candlewick this time, will be finished and I’ll be on into production of some of the final art. Maybe I will get to attend again and see some now-familiar faces. I certainly loved getting to finally meet my editor Celia Lee in person, as well as a bunch of other wonderful people from Simon and Schuster. It was an incredible weekend!