Siski Kalla – Designer

I love to paint children and animals (often with a little humour too!), giving scenes beautiful colours, atmospheric light and shade – I have so much fun bringing stories to life visually! Children's books can be joyful, inspiring, healing, funny, thought-provoking, entertaining, calming... and I love them all. When a story and the characters resonate with me it makes the entire process seem like fun and I enjoy spending time in their 'world'. I especially enjoy illustrating quirky, sweet or funny characters, and I love illustrating animal characters too. Giving them personality is the best part!

Please no AI when requesting a quote, even ‘just to give me an idea’ purposes. To me this feels like showing me stolen property and then asking me to use it as a guide. It doesn’t sit right with me. I hope you understand.

I've illustrated more than 30 children's books for both traditional publishers and self-publishing authors/publishers, writing and illustrating my own book Gertie is Not ALL Dogs with Clavis Publishing, working on the gorgeous series Hop Lola Hop by Kathy Urban, creating magical imagery for I Love You This Much! for Wonderbly Publishing, and sweet, tender illustrations for I Don't Like Birthday Parties for Trigger Publishing, among others. I really enjoy the collaborative nature of creating children's books and do everything I can to make the process as enjoyable for the author/publisher too. I want you, the client, to feel as though you're getting a lovely present each time an image lands in your inbox! To feel the heart, soul and joy I put into all the art for your story. That's the goal.

Character is key when I am creating art for children's books and I try to illustrate the story while allowing the art to create a narrative too. I use bright colours and especially light and shade to create atmospheric scenes and evoke emotions. When viewers look at my art I want them to be transported to another place, and to wish they could be inside one of my paintings. My passions are nature, animals, children, food and travel.