Category: Carina Povarchik

Introducing Sylvia Liu of KidLit411

1/21/2019

Welcome, Sylvia!

Hi Dionna! Thanks for having me!

KidLit411 is such a wonderful resource for those trying to master the skill of writing for children! Do share how it came into being.

Five years ago, my critique partner, Elaine Kiely Kearns, had an idea to create a resource website for writers, to share articles on children’s writing and illustrating. I joined her effort and we created the website KidLit411.

Since then, your website has been named a best website for writers many times over! Congrats on that! Why do you think that is?

KidLit411 contains over thirty pages of writing and illustrating topics, from contests and awards to writing tips and agent submissions and many more. The pages include sixty to one hundred articles on each topic. We also interview at least one author or illustrator each week, featuring their recent books or work. Subscribers get a weekly update of all the new articles added to the website, about a dozen a week.

Since we began, we’ve featured over three hundred authors and illustrators in our Author and Illustrator Spotlights. Our website gets twenty-five thousand to thirty-five-thousand page-views a month!

The best part of KidLit411 is the community of authors and illustrators we’ve connected with, both online and in real life. We run an active Facebook group of over 6,300 children’s writers and illustrators and two companion pages where people can find critique partners, the KidLit411 Manuscript Swap and the KidLit411 Portfolio Critique Swap. Every day, people ask and answer questions in our group on all sorts of topics, from self-publishing to querying to mentor texts and more.

www.KidLit411.com

Despite being a writer and illustrator yourself, why do you continue to spend your time keeping KidLit411 up and running?

Personally, running KidLit411 is very gratifying. Elaine and I work great together and have a system to keep the interviews and links coming every week. Although it does take work, I feel so connected to the kidlit community. A side benefit is that we’ve created a platform that helps our own author careers. While promoting other authors and illustrators, we develop great relationships and friendships with those who in turn help us when our books come out.

Why do you think KidLit411 has such a continued following?

We try to keep our community engaged. Most years, we run a multi-day book "birthday" bash giveaway, where we give away books, editor critiques, agent query passes, and writing and illustrating courses. This year we ran a contest for illustrators to help design our website banner and Facebook group cover photo. The top two winners got cash prizes, and the top ten are having their banners featured on our website over the course of the year.

We always welcome kidlit peeps to join our Facebook group or follow our website and get connected. We can be reached at kidlit411 (at) kidlit411 (dot) com. Your blog readers are welcome to join us!

Thanks so much for the invitation, Sylvia, and for stopping by! It's been an honor hosting you!

The pleasure is all mine!

Sylvia Liu creates stuff, mostly for kids. She's inspired by aliens, robots, bunnies, cephalopods, and more. Her love for writing and art began while she was growing up in Venezuela. While working at her first career in environmental law at the U.S. Department of Justice and the non-profit group Oceana, she loved protecting the oceans. And now she loves writing and illustrating for kids just as much. Her 2016 picture book, A Morning with Grandpa, illustrated by Christina Forshay, was a Lee & Low New Voices Award Winner! She also writes speculative middle-grade fiction, and is represented by Jennifer March Soloway at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Find Sylvia blogging at Sylvia Liu Land, and her amazing resource--listed by industry professionals like Writer's Digest, Feedspot, and Freewrite as one of the best websites for writers, consecutively for several years--at KidLit411.

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Introducing Argentinian Kidlit Illustrator: Carina Povarchik

2/13/2017

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Carina Povarchik

All Images used by permission of artist (C) Carina Povarchik

Why do you love creating illustrations with children in mind?

Children know how to play. Everything is possible for them. Everything has the power to amaze them. I love their minds, their ability to fly. What is there not to enjoy and love about making their little hearts sing?

What type of children's books would you like to illustrate?

I’m really new to the book-illustrating business, but I do love the creative process of taking a story and making it fly, using my art to add magic to it. There’s so much drama in our lives, and so it brings me joy to be able to add happiness to the world through my art. I love happy and shiny.

Describe your process.

First, I do an observational study of whatever I’m going to draw—animals, bugs, plants. I capture the detail, the structure, what makes them what they are. That is my sketching stage. Then, I add to the sketching process by finding my way, my style when drawing them. Once I have decided how I’ll draw them, I begin the first stage of the artwork, the painting stage. At this point, I use a very loose expression of the animal’s shape and colour. Next, I add the contours. The inking stage is usually the last step. Finally, I do a last check-up, inspecting the piece for all the fine details.

Of course, in the case of illustrating a book, I will have to do extra sketches and put on paper my ideas for every scene. I’ll have to express through my art the core message of the book. It will be a wonderful process where I will need to get in touch with the author’s feelings and thoughts for that particular scene, and then see what I can add to that.

What stylistic choices do you make in order to instill so much joy and fun into your illustrations?

I love impressionism, the use of colour and expressing the core of things without needing to create perfect contours. I love lines. Lines add strength and structure. While loose lines make us feel relaxed somehow. I love naivety too, and I try to infuse a naive sense of perspective into the space and volume of the piece. I love the happiness I find in colours. I love happy. Mostly, I try to create something that instills part of my soul into whatever I’m creating.

Tell me about yourself. Have you always loved drawing?

Yes! Since I was a little girl, I loved to craft, to paint, to draw and create all kind of things. When I was five, I invented a stamping process for myself. I made tons of landscapes with trees using ink. I even sold them! I made clay sculptures and sold them, too. I held weekly drawing contests with my best friend and we had a lot of fun selecting a theme for it and choosing the winners. My friend and I took the drawings to a professional art teacher, my mom’s friend, and she critiqued the drawings. She was lovely and taught us a lot during those two years of contests.

What was your path toward being a professional illustrator?

I graduated college with a degree in computer science. I moved to a small town, apart from my parents, and started working as a computer-programming teacher at the local university. In the meantime, my dad sent me a surprise gift—a small drawing tablet. I loved it. It was like starting my creative process all over again! Many years later, after developing my own digital style, I got in touch with my current mentor and art teacher, Carlos Palacios. I’ve been his student for four years now. He has been teaching me how to draw portraits and academic drawing, using paper and pencil--old-school stuff. The learning process has been fun and hard work, a rewarding experience.

How has living in Argentina influenced your artistic style?

Hmmm. I’m not sure it has influenced me at all. I supposed there must be an influence, as I am Argentinian, but I can’t tell you exactly what it could possibly be! I am online a lot. Like a lot. I’m always admiring amazing artists and illustrators. And I’m always taking online courses.

Have you been able to quit your day job in order to illustrate full-time?

Not yet. I am still teaching about computers at the local university. But I do sell my handicrafts, hand-painted journals, and art locally. On my online store, I sell hand-crafted miniatures and prints of my work on bags, mugs, shower curtains, pillows, clocks... I’d love to one day have a big art studio where I can work all day long, but right now, when my day-job is done, I go home and make my crafts, or paint, or go to my computer and do what I love—create art.

Carina Povarchik is a fine artist, sculptor, and children's illustrator, born and living in Argentina. Her artistic focus is on children illustration and tiny-scale sculpting. She can be found on Twitter @by_catru. Her work may be purchased on her Etsy Store and at Kess In House. Carina is represented by Storm Literary Agency.

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Introducing Sylvia Liu of KidLit411

Introducing Argentinian Kidlit Illustrator: Carina Povarchik

Carina Povarchik

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