Happy Birthday Jessica!

It was a Thursday, Valerie Schuman was here freelancing on Creative Quarterly and at the end of the day we all gathered--much to Jessica's surprise--to wish her a happy birthday. Finding the cake was the tough part, seems this part of Brooklyn doesn't believe in cakes as much as they do in cupcakes but none the less we found a delicious chocolate mouse cake. The egg-shaped cake (after all it was close to Easter) was dotted with candles and arrived lit in the living room as we gathered around to sing "happy birthday". A few Aperol spritzers later, the party livened up quite a bit, lots of laughs, a few more bites of cake and then time to wrap it up for the day. Jessica headed off for her two week vacation and we headed back to work. Oh, and there was another birthday this month, Sarah Munt! Happy birthday to both, and many, many more. Our show coordinator and production assistant gets back to work on Monday. Pictured left to right, Jessica Quinones, Sarah Munt and Valerie Schuman.

3x3 Student Show Winners Announced

Out of nearly 1,000 entries the judge's narrowed the entries down to just 45 winners. There were another 40 that just fell shy of being in the show. Judging was tough, pieces were graded on a 4-point system, 4 being best. Just to get into the show the majority of judges had to give the entry a 3 or 4; to be a medal winner a majority of the judges had to give the piece a 4 and to be awarded Best of Show more than a majority had to give the piece no less than 4 points. A complete list of the winners is online but here are this year's medalists:

Best of Show
David Jien, Art Center College of Design

Gold
Sonja Danowski, Georg-Simon-Ohm University, Nuremberg
Sophia Martineck, The Berlin University of the Arts

Silver
Mark Smith, University of Plymouth
David Jien, Art Center College of Design
Jonathan Bartlett, School of Visual Arts

Bronze
Tobias Tigner, State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart
Adam Hancher, University of the West of England
Yeji Yun, Kingston University

Distinguished Merit
Jungyeon Roh, School of Visual Arts
Kaity Hill, Ontario College of Art & Design

Congratulations to all the winners for making this a truly international show.

This year's judges included illustrators/educators Alexandra Kardinar, Germany; Gary Embury, United Kingdom; Clemente Botelho, Canada and Martha Rich, John Hendrix, Nora Krug of the US. Rounding out the judges is artist rep Pat Lindgren, Lindgren & Smith.

Fernanda Cohen Invites Hively to Speak to SVA Class

It was the beginning of a rainy Monday morning as a trudged off to meet Fernanda Cohen's class at the School of Visual Arts. Much too early for me, but then I had agreed to come and Fernanda had promised a super large cup of coffee so off I went. The classroom was on East 21st on the seventh floor and I arrived much earlier than I'm noted for. Expecting Fernanda to be right on time I purposefully made sure I was early. But due to unexpected train traffic Fernanda was late but before I had a chance to doze off there she was--perky but a bit frazzled bearing an extra-large cup of coffee. After taking care of briefing her students on the next assignment--a very detailed explanation for each student--I was impressed. She then turned the floor over to me and I spoke a bit about our tiny magazine empire, answered a few questions about the state and future of illustration and then we begin the critique of the current assignment. A very ambitious one I might add. Each student presented their interpretation of either a cityscape or amusement park, you can see the scale in the photo above. I was impressed by many of these pieces especially given that this is a sophomore class. To be sure there were some very weak pieces but the strong pieces showed a high level of skill, not only in the drawing but also the concept. Each student was introduced, gave a brief description of their project and then it was turned over to their fellow students for comments and suggestions. Then I was asked to critique the work, followed by an even more thorough critique by Fernanda. I was very impressed at the level of her criticisms and suggestions, she gave careful attention to every detail, making sure the student understood the strength and weakness to each piece. Time flew and before I knew the three hour class was over, just proves time flies when you're having a good time.

Good News from CA

We just heard that our Issue 11 cover done by one of our featured artists, Martin Haake, has been accepted in this year's Communication Arts Illustration Annual. The original cover incorporates the issue's number, the number eleven and was commissioned just for this issue. Those of you who are familiar with this German artist can spot his work a mile away and if you missed the issue, not only does it show some of his latest work but also shows off his spacious studio in Berlin. Unfortunately, the issue is off the newsstands but you can buy a copy on our web site if you're interested. Congratulations Martin for such a delicious cover!