“My name is Kayla, I am here today to talk about my art and illustrations.

“I like focusing on children’s book illustration. I like drawing animals and kids, all that fun stuff.

“Illustration was a fit for me because I really like stories. I liked combining illustrations with stories, and illustrating a specific scene, and telling a story through pictures. I knew illustration was what I would focus on.

“When I was in high school, I liked drawing people and never knew what my focus was. I just knew that I liked drawing people. When I went to college in New York City, at the School of Visual Arts, I found that children’s books really spoke to me. I liked the innocence and the nostalgia. It’s just a happy time. I’m not into making really dark art, that tries to send a message, or political anything…I really like the innocence of children’s books.

“My goal is to publish a children’s book; get published in book form. Right now, I’m working for an awesome company that I love, FarFaria. I’m illustrating children’s books, and short children’s stories. I’m mainly focusing on non-fiction animal stories. That’s awesome and wonderful, and I love it, and it’s published on an iPad. But my real goal is to have some sort of tangible book. That’s my dream.

“FarFaria is my dream job right now. When I was in elementary school and we had to do class projects and book reports and presentations on animals, I would choose an animal, research it, and do a little story on it with illustrations, and do my book report. That’s exactly what I do now. They give me an animal or I choose an animal, I research it, I write a story about it, and then I illustrate it.

“I met my now-fiancé, Peter, at school when we both went to the School of Visual Arts. He was studying illustration as well, and we just really clicked. It’s great to have someone who truly understands me and my passions and goals in life. We really share that. It’s nice to bounce ideas off of each other. He makes super cute children’s book illustrations too. I think that he was also in the same position as I was: knowing that we wanted to make art, but not knowing exactly how to do it as a career. Once he found out that I was studying children’s book illustration, he was like, “Yeah, actually, I really feel that connection too,” and wanted to pursue that.

“I would say he is more carefree and whimsical than I am. I like more cutesy, realistic things. He’s definitely willing to go crazy and get a little weird.

“My biggest challenge as an artist is justifying that I need to make money for doing something that I would do for fun. I feel like it’s just something I have to do; I have to make stuff. Then it’s weird asking for money for it. I don’t make a beautiful piece—or work really hard on a children’s book that I feel great about—I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it because I love it and I want to share it with people. But then, I have to stay alive and eat, so I have to ask for money. It just kind of taints it, so that’s always been a battle. But it’s my life. I put my heart into that.

“My advice to aspiring artists would be: take pleasure in the small achievements. Because there’s a lot of rejection, and a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t become an artist and try and to make money on it, and a lot of reasons why life is going to tell you, “No, that’s the wrong thing to do. Go back to school. Study business and get a real job.” But if you take joy in the tiny victories, like posting work on Facebook and having someone that you admire, some artist you admire, like it…that’s a step. That’s encouragement. Listen to that.” •