Winning the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase

No, I didn’t win the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase.

I do, however, feel really good about what I submitted this year. It’s the best I have done so far.

Winning the Portfolio Showcase is on my bucket list, along with winning the Caldecott Medal. Unlike the Caldecott Medal, I do not have to be published to win the Portfolio Showcase.

You can see the winners of the SCBWI Winter 2022 Portfolio Showcase here until March 31st.

Last year, my Big Goal was to have an Exhibit with a lot of images by the fall of 2021. I also planned on exploring my alien people and do a deep dive on them. I really achieved that goal. It gave me the portfolio that I submitted for the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase in January.

This year, my goal is all about illustration, style, and story. I’m not sure if I will even have an exhibit in the fall.

I’ve been asking myself: If I were the last person on earth, what art would I make for me? What art do I like to create? What art do I like to look at?

One activity that I think will help me is to take all the children’s books off the shelf that I like and analyze what I like about them. Take all the artwork I have made so far and gather together my favorite ones and ask, “What do I like about them?”

I think this will help guide me as I try to figure out where to go from here. I’m not sure if I’ll have something amazing to show at the end of this year. I may just be exploring and experimenting again and again. I’m sure it is going to get confusing before I find clarity. If I can embrace this ugly period, I believe I can find the process, the beauty, the style that is me.

Beyond that, I took a few minutes yesterday and analyzed the types of things I need in my portfolio to win the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase. I took one winning portfolio to analyze: Brizida Magro.

While you could only submit 3 images for the Virtual Portfolio Showcase, they did link to your website and there, like most everyone else, I had 12 to 16 additional Portfolio pieces.

These are some of the notes I made as I analyzed Brizida’s Portfolio:

16 solid portfolio images of people doing things.

Lots of different types of kids and people doing lots of different things in different settings.

Diversity is important. I counted how many of each nationality and animals Brizida included in her portfolio. One image had 15 figures in it. The main character in that one is African. The other people mostly look African, but I’m not sure if she meant them all to be African.

Here’s the tally:

African: 4 Main Characters — 18 total characters

White: 5 Main Characters — 6 total characters

Asian: 1

Hispanic: 2 Main Characters — 4 total characters

Animals: 4 Main Characters — 22 total characters

I love making these kinds of lists. It gives me a check list of things that I need to make sure I include. A pattern for success.

The SCBWI Portfolio Showcase is available every six months. If I chose, I could double down and produce more artwork for the summer Portfolio Showcase in August.