Eastern PA Webinar: Picture Stories—Key Elements in Creating Narrative Art

HOST REGION: Eastern Pennsylvania

CONTACT: Kristen Strocchia [email protected]

COST: This is a FREE webinar made possible by a grant from SCBWI and the Authors Coalition of America.

CRITIQUES: available at an additional cost; scroll down for more information

RECORDING

The webinar will be recorded, and the recording will be available for one month following the event. Attendees will receive a link and a password by email about two days after the event.

REGISTRATION CONFIRMATIONS

Upon completion of payment, you will receive a payment confirmation by email. You will also find a registration confirmation on the website that will include event-specific details. Go to your Member Home and click on My Events under the black bar at the top of the page. All events you have registered will be displayed on this page. If there are additional meeting details (i.e. Zoom links for virtual events or materials required for the event), this information will be found under the green Meeting Info button.

REFUND POLICY

The 3 FREE webinars in this series are made possible by a grant from SCBWI and the Authors Coalition of America.

In this webinar, we will examine the key elements which help to create effective visual story telling. Picture books are a marriage of words and images, each having its role, supporting each other, but not talking over one another. Are your illustrations carrying their share of the weight? Together, we will examine sample images and learn to recognize opportunities to elevate illustration to advance the story. Participants are invited to submit an image for feedback from Patricia and fellow webinar peers during the seminar. We regret that there may not be time to provide feedback on all submissions, but we will try to include a variety of illustration styles as time allows.

First Looks deadline:

Please title your work Genre_Last name (ex. PB_Kreiser) , save as a jpeg or pdf, and email to Kristen at [email protected] no later than 11:59 PM ET on Sunday, May 24, 2026. 

ADDITIONAL COST:

• Premium Members: $60 USD
• Preview Plan: $65 USD

Feel free to take what you’ve learned from the webinar and to revise before the submission deadline.

For all submissions, please save your work as a PDF file (5 MB max).

• For PB dummies: (maximum 40 pages) It is recommended that a finished dummy for submission be formatted correctly for 32 or 40 pages, self ending or colored ends, and includes fairly detailed drawing to convey the story as well as 2 or 3 examples of finished art. However, for critique purposes your dummy can be evaluated in its current state, whether fully realized or not, perhaps you need help in the middle! Please note Work In Progress on the title page so that it is clearly an evaluation based on what is there so far.
• For Portfolios: Please send twelve portfolio-ready illustrations.
• For Related Images/Series of Images: Please send one set of 3 related or series of images from the same story.
• For Cover Art: Please send one set of 3 options for cover art for the same story.

⇒Multiple images should be in one pdf file. 

⇒Kindly compress your submission.

⇒Please SAVE YOUR FILE as Critique Faculty Last Name_Your Last Name_PORTFOLIO/TITLE OF PROJECT as a PDF or DOC or DOCx.   

Portfolio Example: Kreiser_Strocchia_PORTFOLIO

Dummy Example: Kreiser_Strocchia_PURPLE CARROTS

⇒Then send your file to Kristen at [email protected]. The subject should read: Webinar Faculty Last Name_Your Last Name_PORTFOLIO/TITLE OF PROJECT (same as saved file name).

Submission deadline: Sunday, June 14, 2026.

We anticipate critiques to be returned on or about Thursday, July 18, 2026.