Meet the illustrator Dubravka Kolanović from Croatia

I believe that to become a good artist you need to have something you want to share with other people, ideas and feelings that you need to know how to express. 

The technique is something that  you could learn and obtain with hard work, 

the rest speaks about your inner world. 

Image source: Poster Lounge

About Dubravka Kolanovic : I was born in 1973 in Zagreb ,Croatia. I studied at Savannah College of Art and Design in the USA and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, where I got my degree as a painting major. Since then I have devoted myself to children's book illustration. I live and work in Zadar on the coast of Croatia with my husband, our two sons and a dog. We love trips in nature and long walks by the sea. Every year I devote some of my free time volunteering with Earthwatch. Helping scientific researchers in the Amazon rainforest, on an island off the Australian Great Barrier Reef, in the African Savanna or on the Galápagos Islands are precious experiences that have taught me the importance of protecting our environment for our future generations. I am also an illustrator of UNICEF cards and posters, and my biggest dream is a peaceful and happy childhood for every child in the world. (From Child's Play)

Dubravka has illustrated 200 books and those that have been translated are available in fifteen languages (you can see a full list of these in her HCAA dossier see link below). Here is an interview with Dubravka. You can see some art/posters by Dubravka here. I do wish I could read Croatian because one of her newest books sounds wonderful - Čarolija zagrljaja (The Magic of a Hug).

Dubravka admires the work of: Yuri Norstein, Angela Muss, Laura Cornell, Shomei Yoh, Taro Gomi, Stefan Zavrel, Josef Wilkon, John Burmingham, Ian Falconer (Olivia), Marc Boutavant, Selina Young, Tony Ross, Ludwig Bemelmans (Madeline) and Georg Hallensleben.

Over the next few days, following my post yesterday about illustrations and illustrators, I am going to focus on some of the 2022 illustrators nominated for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. There are 32 illustrators who have been nominated. IBBY International have been sharing the books from each of them over the past few months on their Facebook page.  In this edition of Bookbird (Volume 59, issue 4, 2021) you can read about each of the 2022 nominees. If you want to know more about Dubravka here is her Hans Christian Andersen Award dossier - the final pages showcase some of her scrumptious art. 

Here are some books illustrated by Dubravka Kolanovic: