A year ago, my first picture book was acquired by Doubleday for Young Readers. And while it would seem that this miracle would have opened my floodgates and would have called forth every book that might ever lie deep within myself, the opposite was actually true. Regardless of what I tried to write, a voice…
Category: Jacki Kellum Picture Books
6 Tips to Help You Get Ready for Your Picture Book Manuscript to Be Discovered on Twitter through PBPitch
Almost a year ago, I pitched several manuscripts through PBpitch, and although my overall success was minimal that day, I landed a once-in-a-lifetime contract offer from Doubleday for Young Readers, which is a division of Penguin Random House, and it was for a manuscript that I almost didn’t pitch at all. I knew that the…
Wacom Cintiq 16 – Pushing My Traditional Watercolor Illustrations to Another Level
Boy with Curls Jacki Kellum Traditional Watercolor Sketch Painted in 2018 I have always liked the wispy, fresh and almost tentative look of watercolor, but I originally trained as an oil painter. In fact, I trained as an abstract expressionist. When I began writing picture books, I switched to watercolor. At that time, traditional watercolor…
Super Turkey – Jacki Kellum Digital Illustration – The Evolution of a Character
Super Turkey – Jacki Kellum Digital Illustration Created in Procreate on iPad Pro with Apple Pencil August 16, 2020 If you would have asked me about my art and my illustration routine 3 weeks ago, I would have said nothing about digital illustration. Well, that is not exactly true. I would have said that I…
Learning to Use My Cintiq 16 – Which Is Better, Procreate or Wacom Cintiq 16?
Mrs. Cow Down Home – Jacki Kellum Illustration Created with the App Procreate on an Ipad Pro About two weeks ago, I decided to make some radical changes to my illustrating routine, and I began teaching myself how to create digitally. I began my journey with my iPad Pro and the app Procreate. At the…
At the Age of 70, I Decided to Give Digital Art a Whirl – Comparing 6 of My First Illustrations in Procreate and Painted Traditionally
When I was studying art in college, my painting teachers were altogether suspicious of illustration. They did not consider it true art, and they believed that Walt Disney was a charlatan. But things have radically changed since then. That was fifty years ago. Forty years ago, when I was teaching art in a plush private…
How I Painted a Tree on My Ipad Pro with the App Procreate and Apple Pencil – Using the Bardot Brush Set Gouache Paintbox
A few years ago, I painted an illustration of a ladybug in watercolor–the traditional way. Ladybug Lou Hollers Yoo-Hoo! – Jacki Kellum Watercolor Illustration When I studied art in college, there was no such thing as an Ipad or a painting app like Procreate. Years later, I have decided to pursue getting some of my…
The Rooster, Who We Have Always Counted Upon to Wake Up the Sun, as Symbol
Last night, I was watching an old movie, and Robert de Niro, as one of the stars, held an egg in his hand and said: “You know, some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul, did you know that?” – Angel Heart I immediately thought about a picture book that I admire, First the…
Miss Maple’s Seeds Are Being Born in My New Front Front Yard
Tomorrow, I’ll begin moving to my new, 125-year-old house in the Ozark Mountains. Yesterday, I was wandering around in my new front yard, and I paused for a moment beside the huge, old tree, where the daffodils are blooming, I knelt low, and I couldn’t help but notice that my big, old tree has a…
Learning to Paint and to Write by Intuition
When I am painting and when I am writing, I consider it a great day when something within myself takes over and essentially completes my project for me. This gentle urging is intuition. It is the spark that helped Michelangelo release his sculptures from a piece of rock, and it is my writer’s voice and…