A Whirlwind Month of Creativity

I've been quiet here because I've had an amazingly busy few weeks. A quick recap:

Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program Concluding Conference

I went to the concluding conference of the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program in Virginia City, Nevada, last weekend, where my six month mentorship program concluded with a huge bang. We met with our mentors, reconnected with friends, and had an art and conversation filled weekend. A few photos:

The five women illustrators in the program (we had one guy, Steve Roe, who was the photographer) with David Diaz (Sidne Teske, Heidi Woodward Sheffield, Lori Ann Levy-Holm, Kary Lee, and me):

A portfolio review session:

We met an awesome artist in residence, Karen Hampton, who showed us her solar printing technique:

Lori Ann held a workshop on a painting technique. Mentors David Diaz and Jim Averbeck hard at work:

In town, there was a museum of Mark Twain's print shop where he worked as an editor of the local paper for two years:

Norfolk Academy Art Show

My kids' school runs an annual spring art show for two weeks that includes over a hundred local artists. The great news is that my two penguin paintings sold!

 

Field Day Book Sale

On Saturday, the school had its annual Field Day, that includes sports, games, theater, talent shows, bazaars, the art show, and more.

I run the used book sale which is my favorite two week period of the year, because I get to indulge my inner bookseller/ librarian/ book lover. We sort hundreds of donated books and arrange them in a pop up book store. With the help of many volunteers, it takes two weeks to set up, 6 hours to run, and 2-3 hours to break down.

The bonus? Each year I buy a box of amazing books.

Stage 1 (Sorting): Getting boxes of books and sorting them into categories. This is Day 1 or 2.

Day 4-5 (Each of the piles on the table is a category, like self help, cookbooks, humor, etc).

Stage 2 (All Set Up: Field Day):

Stage 3 Breakdown (All the unsold books are boxed up and donated to The Up Center, a local nonprofit that provides services for low-income people and people in need. They run a used bookstore that trains and hires very low-income people).

So now I have some time to sleep, recover, and get back to my regularly scheduled life.



If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:

• Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program: An Illustrator's and Writer's Dream (report on first conference)
• My Favorite Thing: Finding Great Books (2013 Field Day sale)
• The Joy (& Stories) of Used Books (2012 sale)