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Higgins Bond's Success Continues

Barbara Higgins Bond, of Nashville Tennessee, has been a successful freelance illustrator for nearly 40 years. Professionally known as Higgins Bond, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in advertising design. When she is not illustrating for clients, she is an adjunct faculty member at Nossi College of Art teaching illustration courses.

Higgins Bond’s most recent work, A Place for Turtles, introduces young readers to the ways human action
or inaction can affect turtle populations and opens kids’ minds to a wide range of environmental issues. A Place for Turtles has received seven different awards, including the most recent 2014 Green Earth Book Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Both awards recognize creators who call on young people to embrace environmental responsibility.

place for turtles

Higgins Bond has seen additional success and honors including the 2009 Ashley Bryan Award for outstanding contributions to children’s literature and earning the title of Artist-In-Residence at the University of North Carolina Charlotte’s Department of Africana Studies. In the last two decades, Higgins Bond was inducted in the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, received the Book Award of Excellence for her book When I was Little, and illustrated four stamps for the United Nations Postal Administration on Endangered Species. By the end of 2014, she will have illustrated forty books in total.

Higgins Bond is a member of the Society of Illustrators, and her clients include such notable names as The Smithsonian Institution, McGraw-Hill, Peachtree Publishers, the United States Postal Service, NBC, Hennessy Cognac, Anheuser-Busch, Frito-Lay and Columbia House.

Nossi College of Art is honored to have Higgins Bond apply her extensive experience to the classroom. She currently teaches Book Publishing I and II. In these courses she guides students as they create an illustrated 32-page book dummy and introduces them to all steps of the publishing process. Higgins Bond’s natural curiosity led her to make sketches at a young age. As a teacher, she emphasizes self-discipline in turning a student’s curiosity into a fully-developed book. “It takes research, detailed planning, and a strong will to make a convincing piece of work,” says Higgin Bond.

Calling on her own experience, she impresses upon students the high level of commitment involved in book illustration. Higgins Bond continues to pursue illustrating opportunities while encouraging young aspiring artists at Nossi College of Art and beyond; she is currently finishing illustrations for a textbook on bullying.

Visit her official website to learn more: http://www.higginsbond.com/index.html

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