We recently connected with Stephanie Roth Sisson and have shared our conversation below.

Stephanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My introduction to the craft of illustration and story telling happened early in life- as it does for most of us. My chubby little fingers wrapped around a crayon when I was just over a year old making marks on paper. The joy of mark making! Eventually the marks become recognizable – now disembodied heads with legs coming out of them (something to do with how young kids’ cognition develop …these representations even have a name- “tadpoles”). Illustrating was a way of understanding the world, a way to self entertainment, a was to communicate , a way to say “here I am”, a way to be recognized…all of this from curiosity, the willingness to experiment and the pleasure of making making,

Those last three things- curiosity, the willingness to experiment and the pleasure of making have been key, then and now.

I don’t think that there are any ways to “speed up” the learning process. It really comes down to practice and focus. The biggest obstacles I think are our shrinking attention spans and our own limiting beliefs.

What I would say is that it’s essential to pay attention to what you like- what you find interesting. What do you like in other people’s work ? In your own? What is your taste? Your style/method? And then of course, stay open to experimenting and learning.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I write and illustrate to tell stories. My career began when my grandfather read to me from a big book of German fairytales he had that was missing illustrations. I soon remedied that.

In college I used to spend a lot of my time on the floor of the library that housed the children’s books section (which is not where the books for my major were). That’s when I discovered the work of Lisbeth Zwerger. So when I got my first official illustration projects I worked in watercolor like she did. Eventually through the years I added gauche and now I mostly use a mix with digital illustration .

When I started in this field of children’s books, what I had going for me is not knowing what I was doing. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to show up at the doorsteps of publishers with my very amateurish portfolio. Some art directors invited me in and saw some promise in my work. They gave advice. I followed it…I began getting small assignments from magazines and smaller publishers and it all went from there. I don’t think that process would work today. Today though, there are so many other venues that are available that simply didn’t exist then.

For many years I thought that I would “just” illustrate until, with the nudging of my then agent and the support of my critique group, I added author to my tool kit. My first written and illustrated book was STAR STUFF: Carl Sagan and the Mysteries of the Cosmos. It’s about one of my childhood heroes and it received 3 starred reviews and an Orbit Pictus Honor. In total, I have written and illustrated two books so far and illustrated well over 70.

I think what I bring to the table is curiosity, a passion to do a thing well and a willingness to learn. My work is known for being expressive, relatable and authentic. Human.

You can see my work at www.stephanitely.com

This year, I started and Etsy shop www.etsy.com/shop/StephanitelysSHOP.com to my offerings as well as a Substack https://stephanierothsisson.substack.com/p/endings-and-beginnings that chronicles a new chapter in my life.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In the past couple of years, A.I. has become part of our lives. Unfortunately, before it could integrated responsibly and appropriate guardrails put up, the creators of A.I. blatantly stole art. Because A.I. would have nothing to create from if it didn’t have source material, the makers of A.I. became thieves. They scraped the internet (and are still scraping it) and used/took/stole artist’s work- work that took a lifetime of training and craft development to create and much of it under copyright to feed their science project. No compensation or credit was offered and by the time that A.I. started doing parlor tricks and awing the world with its ability to assemble images, great damage had been done and is still being done to actual artists.

So, what society could do is to buy real art made by real human artists. I’ve had this discussion with many artists lately , that people overall are craving authenticity in their lives. Art is a human activity. Our species has been doing is for hundreds of thousand of years. It’s about meaning making, it’s about conveying things that are beyond words, it’s about emotion and connection….it’s about being human. It’s already tough to survive as an artist without being robbed by A.I. on top of it.

It’s important to support human artists.

I’m not anti-A.I. . I think it’s an incredible tool for things like developing medications, exploring scientific problems, synthesizing information, running thought experiment, brainstorming, testing ideas etc. But right now, as far as the arts go, it’s been a criminal and thief. It may sound overly dramatic, but it’s out there stealing souls. And that’s not okay.

What we can all do individually is to find art that moves us, that elicits emotion, that enhances our human experience that is made by humans and support that art. Buy it, share it, pay to go see it…

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is making things that have never been before that fill a need or make someone else feel or understand something. When I do a school visit, for example, and talk about my illustrations and stories and have a dialog with kids, I see them light up when they understand something new because of what I have created. And in turn, they often have insightful questions or observations to add…sometimes they will write to me later or send me art that they created. The best part of working in children’s literature is when a kid sees the possibilities for their own lives in the work I’m creating and sharing with them. That’s magic.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stephanitely.com
• Instagram: @stephanierothsisson

Image Credits

Stephanie Roth Sisson