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Friday Fan Art

July 12, 2013

This week’s Friday Fan Art comes from a wonderful local bookstore called The Odyssey Bookshop, located in South Hadley, Massachusets.  To help celebrate The Spiderwick Chronicles’ 10-year anniversary, the staff held a nationwide contest asking Spiderwick fans from near and far to submit a drawing of their favorite character from the series.

The first prize winner won a signed set of the Spiderwick books.  The second place winner received a copy of Holly Black’s newest book, Doll Bones. When my friends from Odyssey shared the entries with me I was blown away by the quality of the submissions. Portraits of fantastic fey, the Grace children, and (of course) the star villain were submitted. All were executed with great talent and skill. Here are the winners and some of my favorite honorable mentions:

Mulgarath

First prize went to Brenden from Beloit, Wisconson for his awesome rendition of Mulgarath.  I love his attention to detail – look at all those teeth!

Griffin

Second place sits with the talented Hannah all the way from Canaro, Canada.  Great Griffin, Hannah!

Mallory

This beautiful Mallory drawing belongs to the talented Haley.  Nice work rendering the title typography by hand!

Wood Elf

Lastly, Meghan from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania designed this peaceful Wood Elf.  I really like how you’ve included a head detail as well.  I often do this when trying to capture just the right expression for a character.

I am always impressed by the fan art that arrives here in the studio.  It’s the ultimate compliment to know that my work inspires aspiring artists to create masterpieces of their own. Congratulations to all the winners and to the folks at the Odyssey for supporting the arts.

Keep drawing, keep dreaming.

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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.