Jia Liu —Telling stories and drawing for kids
From Inner Mongolia to the United States, a young picture book author / illustrator based in Baltimore.
Written by: Cinyee Chiu
“Knowing you are coming, I prepared more.” The first thing we saw when entering the room was Jia’s homemade braised beef shank. “If I’m not an illustrator, I probably will become a chef.” Jia laughed.
We were classmates when studying in MICA Illustration Practice MFA. Unlike me, Jia knew what she wants from the very beginning: She wants to draw picture books. Before Jia came to MICA, she also studied picture book for her undergrad in China Central Academy of Fine Arts, in China. After she graduated from MICA, she quickly found an agent, and has already drawn picture books for 2–3 stories.
A lot of details in Jia’s room shows her passion of drawing for children, on the wall hangs the sample she made for kids in her workshop, on the coach lays pillows of characters she created for her thesis project. A cat named Kiki shows up once a while somewhere in the room. Jia started to have this cat when she moved in the house, as a cute solution for Baltimore’s mice and rats.
“Although my parents were not very well-educated, they regarded education very important. When they found me interested in drawing, they were happy to support me to study in the art school, even though it’s very expensive.” mentioned her parents, Jia felt very grateful. She comes from China, Ordos in Inner Mongolia, a city famous for sweaters and ghost city. Jia’s father owns a little BBQ restaurant, the family financial situation wasn’t so good, but still the parents were very willing to support their child to chase her dream. Compared with the ordinary Chinese family, I think Jia’s parents are rarely open-minded. And thanks to their support, Jia’s path to the illustrator career is pretty smooth. She barely bypassed the road, from high school to grad school, all the decisions she made lead her directly to illustration.
Jia likes children a lot. When study picture book in college, Jia also started to teach kids, mostly from 3 to 9 year old. Teaching experience is very precious for her. Spending time with kids not only gave her chance to understand them more, but inspired her for new story ideas. One of Jia’s thesis picture book I Don’t Need Friends was inspired by the time she spent with kids, presenting the phenomenon under China’s one child policy that without siblings, kids experience social difficulties in making friends. With such a great source for observing target readers, Jia was able to create stories that fit the market perfectly, which probably is one of the reasons why she could attract agent right after she graduated. Jia didn’t stop the connection with kids, she is now still teaching in Baltimore, serving in the weekly workshop in Walters Art Museum and Enoch Pratt Free Library, making some handmade projects with children, and gathering inspirations for her next book.
Except for the projects Jia did with kids, paper cut or paper sculptures can also be found in her works. Focusing on picture book, the most common characters appear under her brush are animals with lively poses and expressions, accompanied by vibrant colors. All of these are speaking in the right language to the picture book market.
It might not take too long to actually draw a picture book, but communicating with editors back and forth can be very time-consuming. From start to finish it can take six months to illustrate for a picture book. After receiving the story, Jia will first draw thumbnails for herself, and then develop sketches that will be used to communicate with the editor. She will arrange the sketches in a book format as well as displaying them on one page as the storyboard, that allows the editor to flip through the pages experiencing the reading fluency and also watch all the compositions at a glance. After the sketch is set, she will then work on the finals. Usually in this stage unless the author change the story, it’s rare to go back and modify the draft.
When talking about which part she enjoys the most, Jia said it’s the storyboard. Storyboard is the step when she transforms text into pictures, to do so she needs to figure out in which way the story can be told the best visually. After reading the story, she will do nothing but tasting it for some days, and when she picks up the pen again, sketches usually come out smoothly.
Like us, Jia’ morning is usually rather laid-back, probably just enough for a slow breakfast, and her night is usually more productive. Sometimes she wants to start the day earlier, she’ll struggle to wake up. About the time management, an important skill every freelancer should possess, Jia likes to print out her schedule and paste it on the wall. Compared with having a calendar app, this way the schedule will be always in her sight and pushes her while Jia is sitting in front of the desk.
If I don’t have much to do, I’ll take the chance to enjoy the like. There are some drawbacks being a freelancer, unstable in many aspects, but I can’t imagine doing a full-time, a 9 to 5 job. I don’t think I’ll like it.
Jia comments, which we totally agree.
Jia’s Favourite:
Animal: All but rats
Music: All but Heavy Metal
Food: Chinese food
Movie: The Graduate | Mike Nichols
Books: Ming Dynasty History book
http://jia-liu-t7ay.squarespace.com/
