Wednesday, May 13, 2015

New Craft Coalition and Crafty Llamas




Oh my where to begin! It's been awhile so maybe I'll start at the end. These are some drawings Renata is doing for New Craft Coalition coming this May 22 and 23, it's a carefully curated collection of craft, art, and design. We are a big fans of the coalition and excited to be chosen to be included, It's going to be a lot of fun!






But it's not all fun and games, we're also doing New Craft Coalition to do research for a new book series for Bloomsbury called Crafty Llama. Renata is illustrating a story I've written for her about a Llama who knits, of course, and decides to show her work at a craft fair. So it only made sense that we do a craft fair ourselves to get inspiration. Just over a week ago we also did Market Collective and Renata got some great character and story ideas from the wonderful people we met there.

Doing the drawings just for the fun of it has really reenergized Renata which is good because she has a lot of exciting work ahead of her before she can even start Crafty Llama.





As we are currently waiting patiently for Summer, Renata is trying to think about winter as she works on a lovely story called Waiting for Snow written by Marsha Diane Arnold. It's a return for Renata working again with The Quiet Book editor Kate O'Sullivan at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

At the same time she is also working on a super story written by Mac Barnett called Places To Be. This one has been a long time coming, but the wait has been worth it and the book is going to be a wonderfully inspiring place to be!

I thought I would update a story Renata just completed a few months ago called Dormouse Dreams written by Karma Wilson. I'm biased, of course, but each time I see the artwork on Renata's computer screen (see above) I'm blown away by the beauty of it, it's a winner.

And last but not least I want to mention This Way That Way written by Doreen Cronin which is coming out next month. Renata had a lot of fun with this book and it shows.


That's all for now, I'll be back soon with more on This Way, That Way.
Visit Renata on Twitter @RenataLiwska for more up to date happenings.