Tabita Valsecchi is the winner of our “Design the New Welcome Screen Contest“, and it is my pleasure to have her sharing a bit of her experience with us.
Kwiksher’s questions are in bold, to facilitate the reading. Feel free to send more questions to Tabita via comments below. I am sure she will appreciate. Enjoy!
Tell us a little bit about you. Where are you based, for how long are you writing and illustrating – in sum, what is your “story”?
I live in Italy and art has always been part of me. I draw since I was child.
I graduate as a teacher of Art Institute of Applied Art, and continued my studies at the Academy of Arts of Brera in Milan. I am primarily a painter, but the art has various forms and I ‘m getting closer to the world of illustration. I always loved to write and I like to capture that ‘ something extra ‘ that sometimes simply with eyes, you can’t catch .
You can see my art-work on my website: www.tabitavalsecchi.weebly.com
When did you decide to enter the storybook app market?
This is a new idea that I carry on since the last months, deepening my studies on new technologies for the arts. The book market has always powered the imagination of generations of children: I always loved to write and wished to illustrate.
Now the new possibility about interactive books is a new exciting way for imagine this world and going beyond the ordinary. So I started to practice with several programs and searching for a specialized one.
Tabita’s original concept for the contest.
How did you find Kwik?
I was looking for a program that would allow me to approach this world without to know anything about programming, which was an obstacle, because it involves to knowing specifics computer languages hard to use. Searching on the web I found Kwik and knowing that it was associated with the versatile Photoshop I liked it even more.
You won the “Design the New Welcome Screen” contest. What is the idea behind the image you created?
I thought about what Kwik could means for people. When you start a project, you are full of charge, like a runner! I had this image in my mind, thinking about Kwik’s concept: I imagined an artist, only armed with brushes and pencils (his simple tools) that after painted the logo is ready to start running and working with it, having new possibilities.
Can you share your design/production process? How does it work?
Speaking about digital and interactive works, I start with a concept, idea or a story to tell (because the meaning is always very important).
I imagine the possible interactions since the begin of the project, then I make sketches, I recreate them digitally, creating several layers, coloring and work on it until finish. For children’s book, I love to use a simple end enjoyable style to look at, something funny.
For my painting work, I instead do everything manually and I love the realism, always searching for sensations, that we can’t usually see with our eyes but just feel. With art, you can do this too. I like, in my portraits, going further that just to describe the people’s physiognomy, and show them deep inside through colors.
Are you planning something new? Anything you can share now?
A future full of new possibilities. During this year I will graduate in Educational Multimedia Art’s specialized degree. As a project to associate with my dissertation’s topic, I will do an interactive book for children. I hope you all can soon read it… Also read all the books that I already have in my mind!