The Silver Lining

Swish! Swoosh! Swish!

Do you see a girl sliding down that sparkling slope? It's the very talented, Sarah Dillard! Isn't she cute in her lavender blue ski suit? Almost as cute as her Robert's Snow snowflake (Sorry, Sarah, but bunnies are the ultimate in super-cuteness!)

I'm very excited to introduce you to one of my favorite illustrators, Sarah Dillard! She is the illustrator of a cyber friend, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen's book, Tightrope Poppy. When I chose Sarah to highlight, little did I know that she not only loves winter and very regularly skis, shovel's snow, and loves building snowmen, but she has a very real and touching connection to the Robert's Snow for Cancer Cure mission. She had recently lost her father to cancer when Grace Lin sent out the call for illustrators on the Rhode Island School of Design alumni list back in 2004. Sarah knew she had to participate. "I don't think there is anyone who hasn't been personally touched by cancer in some way," she says, "but when it is someone young with their life still ahead of them, it seems especially unfair." 

She has participated in Robert's Snow ever since that first year in 2004. This year, she was inspired by the twinkling snow outside her door. "I love winter," she explains, "but sometimes I just get caught up in complaining about the cold, the ice, and the shoveling. Still, I can never look at falling snow without feeling a child-like joy. My snowflake depicts a rabbit shoveling snow on one side and on the other the same rabbit is looking up at the snow, smiling. I think that we can approach just about any difficult situation in two ways:  either complaining about it, or moving forward and looking for joy. I've been so impressed with Grace's ability to do the latter and I wanted to show that in my snowflake."

Here is her joy-filling snowflake entitled, "Snowstorm":



Growing up in Harvard, Massachusetts, Sarah always knew she wanted to be a children's illustrator, but it took her a while to achieve her dream. "I spent a lot of years dancing around the edges before just throwing myself into it and making it my career." She majored in art at Wheaton college and received her masters in Art Education at Rhode island School of Design. Even with all that training, she learned that in order to succeed, she had to draw every day and learn how to express herself in her own way. "No one can really teach you that." She spends her time drawing cute little mice, but that's where the love stops. "I can't stand to see them in my house!" Eek! Me either, Sarah!

Her first published book was entitled, Blossom Tales: Flower Stories of Many Folk by Patricia Hruby Powell. "I began working on it while my father was sick. He passed away before it was published but I was so happy that he was able to see the sketches for it." Since then she's illustrated for over twenty companies, including Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin, Reader's Digest, and Sterling Publishing. She's very excited to announce that she is working on a new picture book that will be her first to write as well as illustrate. Look for it in the spring of 2009!


I'll leave you with some words she shared with me about what it means to her to participate in the Robert Snow Foundation: "It is so wonderful to be a part of something with so many other illustrators. We are all making a small contribution, but together we've been able to create something significant." 

You can do something significant as well. Please go to the auction site, bookmark it, and plan to bid on Sarah's snowflake or any of the other beautiful pieces of snowflake art. Bidding starts November 19th.

And check out the other blogs featuring snowflakes today (including lj friend,

cynthialord

Julie Fromme Fortenberry at Your Neighborhood Librarian

John Hassett at cynthialord's Journal

Abigail Marble at Please Come Flying