Sketchbook pg 9
A little play in between projects from earlier this year. I got more, but I’m thinking of doing a new Art of Rob Sketchbook so I’m saving these.
More sketchbook pages:
Did you catch my sketchbook tour 5?
Blog
Inspiration board 48
Been almost a year since I shared one of these because times are challenging but here are some things giving me light. Top to bottom, left to right.
- Book: Armaveni is a graphic novel about Armenian genocide, history, etc by Nadine Takvorian
- Music: This jazz drummer rocks w/ a solid hip hop foundation. Listen to Makaya McCraven
- Book: This graphic novel tackles Chicago student resistance to book bans-Wake Now in The Fire
- Culture: This is a plaque from a well known Lowrider club in LA called “the Individuals”
- Distribution: A hip hop record store turned distributor. I wish there was a book distributor 4 kid lit like Fat Beats
- Podcast: Shawn from the R&B group Boys 2 Men has a dope podcast called On That Note
- Journalism: Newish but packing a punch abt unions, labor, economy, politics, etc is More Perfect Union
- Film: This is a great documentary about independent hip hop venues and scenes in 90s LA called Where We’re From
- Film: This is an older documentary about an attempted coup in Venezuela of then president Hugo Chavez
- Art: This artist has been consistently putting out radical and progressive work, check out Courtney Ahn
- Music: She has dropped her first LP in a decade, take a listen to this LP by Phill’s own Jill Scott
- Social Media: This Dad & educator is consistently sharing great info/views Fernando Deveras
- Music: This song had med dancing and singing along by Donaeo feat Omar, Lemar, & The House Gospel Choir
- Event: I attended this Bay Area event last year and really appreciated it. San Jose Day
- Music: This Nigerian UK singer songwriter is fantastic. listen to Ego Ella May
- Community: I have been inspired by more Black folks getting into the Tiny House world
Did you miss the previous inspiration board? Here it is, plus a few more
What’s this? This inspiration board is one of the ways I stay inspired and sane through all of life’s trials, and tribulations, work, etc. I’ve been making inspiration boards full of films, books, music, events, people, artists, movements, and more for over a decade. Do you have an inspiration board? Please share in the comments. Who am I? My name is Rob Liu-Trujillo and I’m an artist working in kid lit, public art, and other disciplines. Go to my website, or follow me on IG or YouTube. You can also cop my first art book here.
$5k Match – Social Justice Children’s Book Fair
Hey fam, my organization the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair got a $5k grant and will be fundraising over the next 30 days to match it dollar for dollar. If you’re unfamiliar with the fair I invite you to check out….
Our Website: Site, 2025 fair, 2025 Award winners,
Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube
Press: Oaklandside article, NBC News clip, Hard Knock (KPFA) Radio Interview
Here are some photos taken by photographer Mark Rea from the 2025 fair. Wanna see more? Check out this Facebook page or our website.
Short Mission: Bruh, make a kids book fair that champions social justice kid lit. Also, champion Bipoc, Queer, Immigrant, and Social Justice creators and kid focused orgs.
Longer Mission & Vision: Our mission is to promote social justice through the power of children’s books. We support independent children’s book creators to conceive, develop, distribute, and champion social justice-themed children’s books. We do this through our signature event, the annual Social Justice Children’s Book Fair, and other ongoing projects and initiatives.
We envision a world where children’s book creators have the ability to conceive, develop, distribute, and champion a diversity of social justice-centered stories that need to be told as they look to reach all children, families, teachers, librarians, and book lovers.
My Why: I believe there are some amazing stories about culture, class, race, gender, identity, politics, history, etc that need to be shared with a wider audience and I get to help facilitate that as one of many organizers of this fair. I believe in representation, being able to see yourself in literature early, and I believe in literacy for liberation and fun.
Accomplishments:
- 2 years of co-curating Youth Lit Day for Bay Area Book Festival
- Over 2k attendees
- Thousands of kids books donated to Bay Area students
- 1700 Social Media followers
- 400+ Stories
- 100+ Creators, authors, illustrators, publishers, etc
- 30+ Organizations
- 10 years this year!
- 8 Performers
7 years all volunteer, 2 years w/ small funding. Imagine what we could do with more. Wanna help us continue to grow this?
Art for Rethinking Schools Magazine
Ok, Its been over a decade since I worked for Rethinking Schools but I’m so happy to be back in the mix. In a day and age where books can be too long, and tik tok clips too short, and the internet filled with AI slop its nice to have a form of physical media that informs. About what you say? Read on….
Rethinking Schools MISSION and VISION:
Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization dedicated to sustaining and strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism. Our magazine, books, and other resources promote equity and racial justice in the classroom. We encourage grassroots efforts in our schools and communities to enhance the learning and well-being of our children and to build a broad democratic movement for social and environmental justice.
Our Zinn Education Project — coordinated with Teaching for Change — has more than 100,000 educators who have registered to access our “people’s history” materials.
Here’s a bit of process art to show my thinking when ingesting, sitting with, dissecting, and analyzing former principal Gilbert Juan Armenta’s piece about how school systems continuously target Black children by overly discipling them, singling them out, punishing them, and trying to track them into special education. I know this experience intimately after being suspended from my school for “talking” as a 3rd grader!!!!
The cool thing about this article and the magazine is that it talks about real issues that teachers, educators, and others are experiencing in the classroom. They talk about race, gender, identity, politics, class, racism, and how to address these issues in a way that is radical, sensitive to the age group, and respectful. This is what drew me to the magazine years ago. See my old piece here.
Here are some color directions for this piece.
Heres the final painting, done in ink and watercolor. Shout out to AD Nancy Zucker for the call!
Wanna get this magazine issue? COP Volume 40, Number 4 HERE.
Dig this? Check out
- Cover for 826 Valencia kids poetry anthology
- Cover for The Public Eye Magazine
- In depth books Rethinking Schools has published
- Art for In Dance Magazine
Wanna peak inside the magazine? See it a little bit here.
Book Cover – 826 Valencia + De Marillac Academy
Last Spring I began working with 826 Valencia to illustrate a book cover for the De Marillac Academy, a middle school in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. And I have a history with this organization as I read there when I was just beginning to work in kid lit and I took my son and his class on a field trip there over 12 years ago.
The thing I remember back then was that the folks who started the org had a sense of duty and wonder. Duty in that they were taking it seriously; the charge to encourage literacy and creative writing. And wonder, in that their organization was housed in a pirate ship! Imagine pirate jokes and 4th graders telling you that they are “published”.
And they still have that dedication as this book is one of several published anthologies of creative writing by middle school students. Here’s the synopsis:
“In these vibrant poems, students in grades 6-8th from De Marillac Academy explore their own potential and the comfort of the things they hold dear. They find refuge in the bounces of a basketball and uncover a quiet hero in a cherished eyelash curler. In these pages you’ll find heartfelt declarations of love to their beds and a tenderness towards the quiet world their headphones offer. Students imagine life through the delicate wings of a butterfly, the sharp mind of a beloved teacher, and even providing hope as a lawyer. No matter who holds the narrative today, in the future they are building, these students assert one thing is for sure, they’ll be the ones.
Here’s a bit of process art from the making of the cover.
Shout out to Amanda Boesen and Lucy Goseline-Ratliff who assisted me in narrowing down and refining the sketch until it was right.
You can see the line work here and the color directions. Ultimately it ended up being a combination of colors. The uniforms for the actual students are red and grey though so thats what we ended up using.
And heres the final cover illustration! My fav poem from the book was called “lies” and I loved all the pieces about their video games, favorite foods, etc.
About the organization that does this work and commissioned this art:
826 Valencia equips students with writing skills to create change.
We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting under-resourced students ages six to eighteen with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.
Our services are structured around the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with individualized attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
And with chapters in:
- Boston
- Chicago
- Washington DC
- Los Angeles
- Michigan
- Minneapolis
- New Orleans
- NYC
and the founding chapter San Francisco (Bay Areaaaaaa) they are taking the task to the next level.
Dig this? Check out this book cover I did for Robert Alexander’s book “He Hit Me First” OR the cover of Libros Solidarios written by Luz Yadira Herrera and Carla España.
Character 188 – Escape
Not much to report theme wise, just a loose character escaping something with her pet Ferret.
Dig this? Check out this Mama and daughter or my 2022-2024 Collage of Characters.
My Art on a Billboard! Somos Santuario!
Originally I created this illustration in collaboration with designer Jules Cowan, illustrator Micah Bizant, and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant back in 2025. Individually we have each created artwork in service of social justice movements, campaigns, and issues affecting real people. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant has been doing this work since 1982!!!! Read that again.
The attack on immigrant families specifically Latinos has been hard as fuck for decades, but no one was expecting a level quite like that of 2025 and 2026. So it is especially meaningful to have worked with all these folks and now this billboard collaboration is done with the help of another Bay Area organization called the Multicultural Institute. They help support the housing, rights, fair pay, and advocacy of immigrant workers in the Bay.
Here are the original posters by Micah, Jules, and I. See my original post here.
Dig this? Check out this work for the ACLU in a report that studies how central cal sherriffs collaborate w/ ICE.
Stuff I’ve Been Listening to 28- Cuts from Brazil
Ed Motta (Rio, Brazil) – 1978 2013
I can’t recall how I came across Ed Motta, but he is my favorite Soul singer from the country of Brazil! check out his work, he plays, sings, and writes.
What is this? This series is called “Stuff I’ve been listening to” and this is my place to share music that I listen to while I work, process, decompress, and live life. Some of it is new, some old. But I’m always listening. I share in the hopes that you will find something that inspires you. Please share with a fellow music lover. My name is Rob and I’m an artist and author from the Bay Area.
Bebel Gilberto (Rio, Brazil) – Ceu Distante Remix by DJ Spinna 2005
I was introduced to Bebel (daughter of Joao and Miucha) through my sons mom and later found this remix by one of my fav Brooklyn producers, DJ Spinna.
Djavan (Maceio, Brazil) – Nereci 1978
Love this song and cannot remember how I came across it but I thought the brother looked super fly ion his sandals, little did I know he is a legend.
Kevin O Chris (Rio, Brazil)- Tu Tá Na Gaiola 2018
I think I heard about Brazilian Funk through an article from Afro Punk about their multiple day parties and found this banger through that search. It slaps. The slang is thick tho if you don’t speak Brazilian Portuguese.
Marcos Valle (Rio, Brazil) – No Tem Nada Nao 1973
Found this through Madlib! He had a mix from Brazil and had so many great cuts on there, but this is the one that stuck out the most and I’ve played this song 100s of times. Marcos Valle is still collaborating w/ folks!
Zelia Barbosa ( Brazil) – Funeral do Lavrador 1968
This is a record my sons mother gave me almost 25 years ago. I immediately fell in love with this song though there are several with heart wrenching themes. Highly recommend it!
Matchola feat 2ZDINIZZ (Sao Paulo) – Pensando en mim 2026
Just came across this dude whos style page says “Boom Bap Melodic”. Interesting! I’m feeling it.
Lo Borges ( Belo Horizonte, Brazil) – Calibre 1972
I came across this track through producer musician Flwr Chyld. Love it!
Gal Costa (Salvador Bahia, Brazil) – Pontos de Luz 1970s
Came to this gem through the incredible Kaytranada who sampled it for “Lite Spots”.
Toquinho feat Jorge Ben (Sāo Paolo, Brazil) – Carolina Carol Bela 1970
Just heard this the other day on a video from IG with some young futbol players.
Jorge Ben (Rio, Brazil) – Oba La Vem Ela 1970
Man, this song. I was introduced to Jorge Ben through my sons mom. She was a huge fan and so I started to listen, internalize a few of the songs and this is one of my favorites.
For Brazilians, I know this is a bunch of old stuff sprinkled with a few current records. But, these are songs I love. There are some other artists I’ve listened to like Emicida, Anitta, Nego do Borel, and DJ Renan De Penha
DIG THE MUSIC? THERE’S MORE!
- Stuff I’ve been listening to 25: MORE SOUL
- Stuff I’ve been listening to 19: UK ARTISTS
- Stuff I’ve been listening to 23: MORE JAZZ
- Stuff I’ve been listening to 21: RAPS
- Stuff I’ve been listening to 18: HOUSE
Sticker art 4 Booker T Washington
Last year I began working with the Booker T Washington Community Service Center in San Francisco California. They are a century old organization offering tons of services and programming for the community in the Western Addition, Fillmore, the Richmond, and beyond. They offer summer camps, afterschool enrichment, free grocery and produce programs, groups for youth and elders, affordable housing, and more.
BTW Mission: Booker T. is a beacon of Black joy and self-determination. We uplift and serve our community, build intergenerational bonds, and work in solidarity with allied communities to reform and reimagine San Francisco.
Vision: All Black people are free to thrive in and shape SF to enable prosperity and belonging for everyone.
Here is some process art showing the originals thumbnail drawings I made, then redrawing them slightly more refined with grey tones to convey shape, tone, etc.
Here’s some color direction to give an idea of how I take an idea and share several color directions. I ended up using a combination of all of these color directions.
Here are the finals, drawn digitally. I tried to keep them loose and textured using photoshop and Astropad. I think the “lift while climbing” sticker is my favorite. Followed by Honor our Heritage.
Here’s a video of the actual stickers.
Dig this? Check out these stickers I designed for Convergence Magazine or Self Evident Podcast