Browse Entries:
All Posts

Friday Fan Art!

November 2, 2007

This week’s winner came from Silas. And I can’t tell you how touched I was by this one.

Captain Bassolf by Silas

You see, Silas has copied a drawing from a book I created when I was 12 called Gondwanaland. It was about an island inhabited by bizarre creatures that I made up, along with dragons and goblins. The book was written by a scientist and structured as a field guide. So in many ways, it was the seed for Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide.

Here is my drawing from the original book I made:

Captain Bassolf by Tony D, age 12

I recap all of this (along with my new take of Captain Bassolf) in the anthology Guys Write for Guys Read, edited by none other than Jon Scieszka. There are a lot of cool short stories in it from a variety of people as well as drawings from lots of my favorite artists…you should check it out.

Thanks Silas! You MADE MY WEEK!

PS-in the letter, Silas also drew Link from The Legend of Zelda and asked if I have ever drawn pictures from that world. As my brother can tell you, he and I are HUGE Zelda fans, and yes – we’ve done lots of doodles from Hyrule:)

Back to main news page

Never Abandon Imagination Tony DiTerlizzi: Never abandon imagination.

Imagination is a world of possibility that exists within each of us. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is our creative fingerprint that touches and influences the world around us. Imagination is essential to art and science; to innovation and prosperity. It gives us hope, calls us to action and leads to change.

Whether it’s fairies, dragons, robots or aliens, all of my children’s book characters are siblings born of my imagination – an imagination strengthened through years of encouragement from family, teachers and friends. While so many others abandoned it during their transition from childhood to adulthood, I fiercely held onto mine, hoping for a day when I could share it to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Innovators. World changers.

Imagination empowers us to envision and create a reality of what could be. We must hold it dear, foster it and never abandon it.