Meet Our Judges: 3x3 Picture Book Show

Joining Creative Director Sheila Smallwood and Art Director Fernando Ambrosi we have the distinguished illustrators Israeli Rutu Modan and Rafael Lopez from Mexico.

Rutu Modan was named our 2017 3x3 Educator of the Year and is perhaps familiar to many as a comics wunderkind, one of the few established comics artists in the world. She moves easily between comics, editorial illustration and children’s books.

She is the co-founder of the Israeli Actus Comics Group (1995-2010). Together with fellow artist Yirmi Pinkus the Actus Group won worldwide recognition and was crowned by ID Magazine as one of the most influential design groups.

She has received multiple awards for her children’s books from the Israel Museum, along with the Eisner award for best children’s book and a recent one for her graphic novel The Property. The Property won the Special Jury Prize in the International Comics Festival in Angouleme, France and the first prize for best book of the year in Lucca Comics & Games Festival, Italy. Modan’s comic and children’s books have been translated into 15 languages.

In addition to her illustration work she is an associate professor at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Together with Yirmi she established the Noah Library, an independent publishing house specializing in comics for young children.

What Rutu will be looking for: “I consider illustration an art form more (anyway, not less) than a commercial art. As one, I believe it should contain some aspect of surprise. This x factor, is sometime hard to identify, but you feel it immediately when you see it.”

www.heflinreps.com/illustrators/artist/rutu-modan

Rafael López is an internationally recognized illustrator and artist. In 2017 he was awarded the Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators Original Art show for his work on Bravo! Poems about Amazing Hispanics. A children’s book illustrator, he won the 2016 Pura Belpré medal from the American Library Association for his illustrations for Drum Dream Girl and the 2010 Pura Belpré medal for Book Fiesta. In 2012, he was selected by the Library of Congress to create the National Book Festival poster. The illustrations created by López bring diverse characters to children’s books and he is driven to produce and promote books that reflect and honor the lives of all young people. He is the recipient of the 2017 Tomás Rivera Children’s Book Award, three Pura Belpré honors and two Américas Book Awards.

He is a founder of the Urban Art Trail movement in San Diego’s East Village creating a series of large-scale murals that brought the community together. His murals can be found in urban areas, at children’s hospitals, public schools, under freeways and at farmer’s markets around the country. López’s community work with murals is the subject of the children’s book Maybe Something Beautiful, How Art Transformed a Neighborhood.

López was commissioned to create seven United States Postal Stamps including the Latin Music Legend Series. His stamps have been featured on the cover of the commemorative stamp yearbook and exhibited at the Smithsonian. In 2008 and 2012 he was asked to create official posters for the Obama/Biden campaign to win the pivotal Latino vote.

What Rafael will be looking for: “When judging work I look for freshness, an emotional twist, a strong unique voice, vision or viewpoint. I’m drawn to conceptual solutions not literal representations and ideas that make you think. I connect to the touch of the hand and images born in the mind’s eye and heart. I want to be engaged by something fearless and uninhibited that furthers the craft of illustration.”

www.rafaellopez.com

3x3 International Illustration Annual Show No.15

The 3x3 International Illustration Awards Show is open to all illustrators in all countries. There is a separate jury for each of our three shows: Professional, Student and Picture Book. For full details download our Call for Entries pdf, to enter go to our homepage.

Deadline: March 23, 2018
Clockwise from top left: Sheila Smallwood, Fernando Ambrosi, Aljoscha Blau, Rutu Modan and Rafael López