Renata is on Twitter

Renata has grown quite a shine for twitter and is currently sketching at local coffee shops in the Brooklyn area and twittering away her time there. She quite likes twitter so if you want to hear from her direct (phonetic spelling errors and all!) follower her here: https://twitter.com/RenataLiwska

Once Upon a Sketchbook #1

As we near the December release of Once Upon a Memory written by Nina Laden, I thought I would gift a little peak of one of the drawings from the book (I will post more drawings as we near the release date). Renata has received a couple of gifts herself in the last few weeks. Her editor sent her the printed book which was pretty exciting. The other gift was a starred review from Kirkus for Once Upon a Memory! Connie included a Pantone card which was a bit of fun, Renata had wanted to be very careful with the colors so she got the Pantone swatch guide and specified the background colors - although I think they used white in the end.

SCBWI WWA Annual Conference for Writing and Illustrating for Children / April 13, 2014

Thanks to everyone who stopped by for the Kids Lit talk at ACAD, it seemed like the audience had a fun time I know the speakers did! The talk got Renata thinking about what she will present when she will be a keynote speaker at the SCBWI WWA Annual Conference for Writing and Illustrating for Children. The event happens on April 13, 2014 and will be in Seattle, which is the home of Nina Laden who wrote Renata's next book - Once Upon A Memory. It is not for a while but that will give her time to put together something extra special for the event.

http://chinookupdate.blogspot.ca/2013/10/conference-sneak-preview.html

The Quiet Book Padded Board Book

I don't think we mentioned previously that The Quiet Book has been recently released as a padded board book. It's a cutely appropriate format I would say.

How Kids Book Are Made

Renata will be a part of a children's book illustration panel open to the public at the Alberta College of Art along with fellow alumni including Kim Smith, Jacqui Lee, Jacqueline Hudon Verrelli, Jessica Philips, Lincoln Agnew, and Joy Ang. Janine Vangool will also be on the panel talking about the children's book issue of UPPERCASE magazine.

How Kids Books Are Made

Thursday Oct 17 from 3-5 pm

at ACAD 1407 14 Ave NW, Calgary

Renata doodled this idea for the poster and I computerized it.

Colorful World

As Renata rushes to upload the final artwork for her book due this week, I thought it would be fun to take a leisurely stroll through one of her favorite books to read as a child - Colorful World or in Polish Kolorowy Świat.

This book came up last week during a discussion on reading books as a child. The truth is Renata (and myself as well) mostly looked at the pictures - and we still do! But for Renata this book was an exception. She can remember hauling out the book daily to read, and it was a really big book for a child to carry. She would sit on the floor of her bedroom with this big book on her little lap and escape into the colorful world of it's words.

Each chapter relates to a season and begins with a lovely illustration of a tree for that season. As we looked over the book, being careful not to further damage it's tattered binding, Renata has a memory and story for each image. Sometimes the images frightened her, others delighted, and some she couldn't figure out until now.

Kolorowy Świat was published in 1968 and features short stories from multiple authors. It was illustrated by Hanna Krajnik, Danuta Imielska-Gebethner, Zdislaw Witwicki, and Hanna Czajkowska.

This is Renata's favorite story from the book. It's titled Psie Smutki or Dog Blues written by Jan Brzechwa. It's a very short story about a sad little puppy sitting by a river.