About CBIG  In 1982, the Children's Book Illustrator's Guild of Minnesota (CBIG) was formed as a resource and support group for artists working in the children's book illustration and literature fields. We love children's books. They're fun. Everything is possible in children's books: animals can talk, we can flap our arms and fly to different galaxies, vacuum cleaners can come alive and water can run uphill. We're exposed to mysteries and riddles, adventures and discoveries, and our imagination is our only limit. Our job (and joy) as illustrators is to share our private visions of these worlds, using media such as pen-and-ink, watercolor, gouache or a computer to record the pictures we see in our heads as we read the words. Due to the nature of our work, most artists typically spend a lot of time by themselves. Our monthly meetings give CBIG members a chance to get out of the studio and interact with other people in the same field. Our members range in experience from just starting out to having several published books to their credit. We discuss and share information on everything related to illustrating and writing children's books. We can get feedback, advice, bounce ideas off of each other, and learn new things about the business of art. We talk about new books, classic favorites, the nuts and bolts of getting published, art techniques, styles, plot development and prepress production, just to name just a few topics. Besides our monthly meetings, we regularly schedule extracurricular activities such as a tour of the Children's Museum in St. Paul, seminars on creating book dummies, lectures by editors, authors and illustrators, field trips to places such as children's bookstores, art schools, galleries, as well as opportunities to meet with other artists and sketch in outdoor areas. We introduce our members to organizations like the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the Resource and Counseling Center for the Arts; books and magazines such as Once Upon a Time, The Bologna Annual and Uri Schulevitz's Writing with Pictures.