Sketch Battle
Live drawing competition between professional children’s book illustrators
Content Creation | Sponsorship Sourcing | Peer-to-Peer Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Video Production | Emceeing
“One of my favorite moments from the conference. Christina made the event an awesome, quirky, experience.”
— Anonymous Event Evaluation
The Challenge
Directors of the New England conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writer and Illustrators (SCBWI) sought ideas for new programming for their annual event. They weren’t attracting the collaborations from diverse faculty that they needed to entice and excite children’s illustrators, and approached Christina for something new that could engage their membership following a packed conference day of events.
The Approach
Christina brought her sense of humor, killer ideas, and emceeing skills to the forefront and created Sketch Battle, a funny, light-hearted, and highly interactive event where audience members volunteered to go head-to-head in epic artistic competition. In each round, a kidlit illustration prompt was selected at random, two artists battled it out on paper, and the audience picked the winner. Great prizes, free artwork, and an awesome battle for supremacy ensued.
The Results
The live competition was the first of its kind and one of the New England SCBWI’s highest rated programs in its debut. Christina’s cheeky kidlit-themed video accompaniments energized the rounds, and every contestant walked away with a prize. She independently raised over $600 in prizes of children’s books, art, writing supplies, and literacy-themed apparel from generous donors. The event has gone on to become an annual favorite.
Contestants included award-winning illustrator Hazel Mitchell.
Contestant Jennifer Morris took no prisoners.