Tomie dePaola Award

From Tomie dePaola:
"It seems as though we had more entries than ever this year for the black and white competition. But before I announce the winner, I want to say a few things about black and white. On the whole it is much harder than full color, which some of you may have experienced. Especially when the illustrations were more tonal than line drawing. There is a tendency for the images to get overly dark and muddy, rather than rich.
 
When I was studying at Pratt in the fifties, one of my most exciting instructors assigned us the task of copying a Daumier black wash drawing. The lesson has never been forgotten. We learned to build up the dark tones slowly therefor making them richer. Just a word of advice. I found this to be a general problem with many of the entries.
 
A few other problems I encountered in some entries included not black and white (black and white means no color); portraying human characters as "cutesy" animals (this is not appropriate for the age group of these books); and finally, a lack of respect for the historical time period in which the story takes place. That said, on to the pieces I really liked.

The winner: Congratulations to Sandra Ure Griffin. Her black and white portrait of Jodi and Flag is heartwarming. Her style is her own. The menacing bear is a great touch, and her technique works brilliantly for me. I kept on coming back to this illustration over and over again.


 
For these other artists I'd like to recognize, there is no order of preference:
 
Brent Beck: A very strong, unusual depiction of Tom and Becky in the cave. I wondered how the rest of the story would have been illustrated.

 
The next four artists all worked in a more traditional but very outstanding way:
 
Anni Matsick: Her characterization of Tom and Peter the cat was great. Her drawing was superb, she can be very proud.

 
Bradley Cooper: Billy gave a new twist to the fence painting, sneaking in Tom's name. His composition with Tom in the foreground was a nice point of view.

 
Stephen Ingram: His illustration from the Yearling was heartbreaking. I can't imagine the reader not tearing up.


 
Sarah Dvojack: Her illustration of Jo in her garret reminded me of Elizabeth Zwerger's work but still had a great point of view. The viewer looks down on Jo and her scattered manuscript. One caveat; what's with the sweater on the rat?! I poured through the book and there is no mention of Jo knitting a sweater for Scrabble, sorry!



Alice Ratterree: The cut out silhouette stood out. I liked that she secretly added a pair of scissors on one side and a profile of Mark Twain on the other. Unfortunately, as good as this illustration was, I have seen silhouette images before by some well-known illustrators.



 
And lastly, I'd like to commend Andrea K. Lawson. Even though she relied on a background color, which softened her line drawing, when I saw it in just black and white, I was still charmed by it. She has a very unique style and I wish good luck to her.



I'd like to personally thank Sarah Baker for helping to make the logistics of the award go so smoothly. Thank you to everybody for trying and please try again."

From the SCBWI office:
Congratulations to Sandra Ure Griffin, who will be attending the 2013 Winter Conference in New York, where she will recieve her award. And congratulations to all the runners up as well as everyone who entered the contest. We had over 300 submissions this year! Applicants had the option to submit their art to our unofficial online gallery, so check out all the amazing talent here: http://scbwicontest.blogspot.com/  Enjoy! Thanks so much to Tomie dePaola for taking the time and effort to carefully judge this award, and to everyone who created artwork and applied.


Information about the award:

The Tomie dePaola Illustrator Award, is given annually to an illustrator of promise chosen by Tomie himself. The award consists full tuition, transportation and accommodations to the New York Winter Conference held in Manhattan. The winning piece of art will be featured at the annual winter conference in New York.

Tomie generously financed this award until 2011 when the SCBWI chose to fund it as a permanent award in recognition of Tomie’s outstanding contribution to the SCBWI, and especially to our illustrator members. Tomie has been a long time member of the Board of Advisors (he is now emeritus), was instrumental in changing the name of the original organization to include illustrators, founded the Illustrator’s Committee of the SCBWI board which produces events especially for illustrators, taught the first master class at an SCBWI conference, and is featured on the DVD Master Class produced and distributed by the SCBWI. He has made a singularly important contribution to the growth and mission of the SCBWI.

The Tomie dePaola Award competition is open to all SCBWI members. Each entrant is to produce one illustration, any size, any medium, that is based on a prompt supplied by Tomie. Entries are due no later than December 14. Final art must be electronically submitted as a single PDF and Tomie will announce the winner on January 9, 2013. The winner will receive the award at the New York Conference held at the end of January each year at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan.

Tomie says that he wants to see an image, a style, a vision, that he’s never seen before. Good luck to all illustrators. We’re sending you inspiration for this prestigious and generous award.

Click here for the 2013 Tomie dePaola Award Guidelines

Click here for the 2012 Winners

Click here for the 2011 Winners