Illustrator Spotlight: Olivia Aserr

© Olivia Aserr

 June 18, 2021

We are excited to feature illustrator Olivia Aserr and her forthcoming picture book, HOW TO MAKE A FRIEND, written by Stephen W. Martin (Clarion Books), coming out on July 27. Enter to win a copy!

Tell us about yourself and how you came to illustrate for children.

 

I came into children’s books from the animation industry where I’ve been working for the past seven years. I’ve always loved stories for children in any medium and moving into children’s books has let me grow and explore all sorts of new things artistically. 

© Olivia Aserr

 

Congrats on both your recent debut picture book Astronaut Training (by Aneta Cruz, Boyds Mills Press, March 2021), and your upcoming book How to Make a Friend! How did you approach these illustration projects? 

 

I approach the stories I work on with a lot of focus in making the right visuals to represent the stories being told. For Astronaut Training, the playfulness of the main character and the way the story switched between her dreams and her daily adventures made me want to weave them together - so the Big world reflects her turtle’s tank in her bedroom and the Small world resembles a board game seen on her floor. It made sense to me that a little girl’s dreams would subconsciously pull from what she sees and enjoys the most. 

For How To Make A Friend, the tone immediately made me think of those cheeky 1960’s animated how-tos so I pitched the idea to have the story switch between a literal manual, filled with cute and charming ideas, and the real world, where our inventor creates a terrifying huge and dangerous robot. I love weaving those elements into the style and approach of the illustrations. 

 

You're both a children's illustrator as well as background painter for Disney Do the two fields influence each other in your work?

 

Definitely. Any show I’m working on tends to bleed into my work a bit, but it goes the other way too since I mostly get hired for shows pretty close to my own style. 

© Olivia Aserr

 

What projects are you working on now?

 

I’m working on a new show at Disney called The Ghost and Molly McGee and a new book about a little girl who loves swimming and mermaids. 

 

What is your preferred illustration medium/process?

 

I tend to be very loose and scribbly with my sketches because I discover a lot about the illustrations in the painting phase. I like working with shapes and texture and color and carving out the illustration from those. 

© Olivia Aserr

 

What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators?

 

Don’t look at what people are creating right now. There’s no point because they were looking at people who were looking at watered down versions of the originals. Reference and master studies are amazing, but do it from the dead artists and the truest source of those artistic styles you love. And don’t ignore your backgrounds! 

© Olivia Aserr

 

What is one thing most people don't know about you?

 

I’m not sure about “most” people but my free time is mostly spent traveling for swing dancing and I recently started seeing historical costumes for fun. 

 

Where can people find you online?

 

I have an Instagram @oliviaaserrillustration and a Twitter @oliviaaserr as well as my website http://oliviaaserr.com

 

 

Olivia Aserr is author-illustrator and a visual development artist who specializes in background painting at Disney Television Animation and other animation studios. Olivia is passionate about telling stories that are fantastical and diverse. When she’s not drawing, Olivia swing dances all over Los Angeles and the rest of the world, and loves to bake and hike with her dog, Bonnibel. 

 

 

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