Valdez, Alaska, January 20, 2022:A new traveling exhibit at the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive explores the colorful and intriguing process of illustrating children’s books. The exhibit, ILLUSTRATING ALASKA: Artists Making Children’s Books, is curated by Sarah Asper-Smith and it highlights the process of four different Alaskan artists, each with their own perspectives on creating illustrations for a children’s book.
Jim Fowler, a Juneau-based plein air (outdoor) landscape painter, starts with sketches then paints his illustrations in acrylic after storyboarding the images.
Evon Zerbetz of Ketchikan prefers carving tools to pencils, and carves into linoleum to create linocuts. After carving the image she links the plates then prints her work by hand.
Michaela Goade, whose Tlingit name is Sheit.een, grew up in Juneau and now lives in Sitka. She sketches and paints in watercolor, then adds digital finishing touches.
Mitch Watley of Juneau creates illustrations in his studio, up a flight of 100 stairs, sketching first in pencil then digitally coloring in those sketches on his computer.
These four artists come alive in the exhibit via video, answering questions, sometimes posed by kids, (How do you do that? How long does it take? How do artists deal with drawing the same animals over and over again?). And the videos offer a look into the artists’ studios. In addition, visitors can create their own sketches while enjoying the exhibit. (View samples of these artists’ work on Page 2 of this release).
ILLUSTRATING ALASKA: Artists Making Children’s Books
On display in the Egan Commons
Friday, January 28 – March 20, 2022.
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Opening Celebration
January 28th from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at the Valdez Museum
Illustrating Alaska presented by ExhibitAK and the Alaska State Museum; funded in part by CVEA Community Foundation, Alaska State Council on the Arts, and the Valdez Museum.
For More Information Contact:
Executive Director Patricia Relay
Tel. 907-835-2764, Email: prelay@valdezmuseum.org
For an enlarged view of the pictures below, click on one and press play.