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Emily Asaro, illustrator tips, illustrators, portfolio tips, portfolios, SCBWI members, watercolor
In SCBWI-L.A.’s latest Twitter Banner Contest, illustrators were asked to submit their most creative response to our prompt: FLIGHTS OF FANCY. The winning contestant’s artwork is featured on the Los Angeles Region SCBWI Twitter profile until the next contest, with a feature article published here on Kite Tales.
We’re excited to announce Emily Asaro as our winner! Emily is an illustrator who grew up in a small beach town in southern New Jersey. She has spent most of her life by the sea and currently calls the West coast home. She has won the SCBWI-L.A. Illustrator’s Day 2019 Portfolio contest and the Illustration Mentorship contest and shows her work at galleries all over Southern California.
Read on to learn more about Emily, her tips and tools, and what inspires her work.
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My first day at school in America was a doozy. My family immigrated from Holland when I was eleven years old. I was shy, and didn’t speak English, and I needed to use the restroom. The entire class got involved, guessing what I tried to tell the teacher. Out of desperation, I made a drawing of a kid on the toilet, which to my dismay, the teacher shared with the class, before taking me to the restroom.
When you are new to an industry, you have to find ways to promote yourself and get your work out there. I am not naturally inclined to self-promotion, so I decided to start a personal project that I could create and share quickly – something that was tangible, allowing people to interact with my art. To keep myself on track, I knew that I would have to enjoy the process and not have a demanding schedule. I decided a monthly calendar image would be just right for my goals.
I love learning new things, and have spent the last year creating and experimenting drawing digitally. I got an iPad Pro and threw myself into all the apps and tools. I find that the 
Ellen Jin Over is an art director, visual development artist, and illustrator. She’s also our featured artist in this quarter’s Illustrator Gallery! Her work has appeared on televisions all over the world for the last 20 years. Spirit Riding Free, now on Netflix, is her latest project. Before that, she was art director on Disney’s Tinkerbell movies for nine years.
Sarah Parker-Lee: How did you choose to use Photoshop over other programs?
By Emily Asaro
Picture books are like little paper theaters inviting us to take a journey. When we provide a believable sense of space, we invite our readers to step into that world.
Meet SCBWI member and illustrator Lauren Gallegos in this quarter’s “Illustrator’s Gallery.” Read on to hear Lauren’s story and see some of her amazing illustrations!
In one of my early illustration classes in college, a professor gave us a quiz to see if we were more cut out for being an in-house illustrator or a freelance illustrator. The test placed me VERY much in the camp of in-house illustrator based on my personality and working style. I was pretty discouraged by this. I was still new to the illustration world (I started out in Graphic Design), but was already on my way down the path of wanting to become a children’s book illustrator. In my mind, that could only mean that I had to do freelance. So what did I do? I set out to prove that quiz wrong! No one was going to put me in a box and tell me what I was destined to be! 
SCBWI member Anne Berry is an illustrator living and working in Huntington Beach, California. She’s been doodling ever since she found paper and pencil, and could get her cats to sit long enough for a portrait. At the 2015 SCBWI Summer Conference, she won the SCBWI Mentorship Program award and the Portfolio Honor Award. Read on for her valuable tips about perfecting your own portfolio and to check out her awesome illustrations!
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