Kawaii Illustrations of Laura Tallardy Application Developer by Rohan Patrick
Fig. 1 Laura Tallardy, (b. 1983) Sophie the Zillionaire, 2011, digital, Scholastic, Inc., book cover.
Laura Tallardy (b. 1983) (Fig. 2) is an American children’s book Illustrator and Apps developer (Fig. 3). Where Ms. Tallardy grew up there were lots of woods and places outdoors to play in and explore. She still dreams about the woods behind her house all the time. The occupations of her parents include her dad as an engineer and computer Fig. 2 Photographer unknown, Laura Tallardy, (b. 1983), 2012, morgangaynin.com.
programmer (he taught her how to program when she was a kid), and her mom who is from a line of artists (her mother taught at the
Maryland Institute College of Art). In the lineup of three children, Ms. Tallardy is the youngest. She graduated from Schalick High School in New Jersey in 2001 (while in high school she also took art classes at a nearby community college). In 2005 she graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA in Illustration under the program direction of Murray Tinkelman (b. 1933), and in 2007 she took drawing classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Ms. Tallardy lives in romantic Greenpoint, Brooklyn with her husband Cory and their puppy, Potatoes. She has illustrated many books for tweens and
Fig. 3 Laura Tallardy, Princess Fashion Show, 2012, Digital apps, lauratallardy.com.
children, including Scholastic’s Sophie Series by Lara Bergen (Fig. 4) and Friend2Friend Series by Devra Speregen, Nancy Rue’s Lily Series from Zonderkidz, The Girl’s Body Book by Kelli Dunham from Applesauce Press, and four pop-up picture books by Elizabeth Goodwin from School Specialty Publishing. Her first app, Mermaid Fashion Show, (Fig. 5) was released on the App Store on June 1, 2012. She also contributes award-winning illustrations to teen and tween Page 2 of 7
magazines, home and beauty products, websites and blogs. Ms. Tallardy is represented by Morgan Gaynin Inc., (Fig. 6) a premiere agency representing select international illustrators. Ms. Tallardy spends her time crashing computers, daydreaming, playing the ukulele and watching old sci-fi movies when she really should be painting. She also enjoys zooming around town on her pink Vespa (Fig. 7)! Fig. 4 Laura Tallardy, Sophie the Sweetheart, 2011, digital, Scholastic, Inc., book cover.
When asked, “why do you do what you do?” Ms Tallardy replied, “I love technology and I love illustration, and making
apps is an amazing venue to explore both of those in addition to other fun media skills (making videos, sourcing music and making sound effects, marketing, writing articles, etc).” Her work processes includes the mapping out of the project in a notebook. She then figure out what art assets she needs to create, then comes with the
Fig. 5 Laura Tallardy, (b. 1983), Mermaid Fashion Show, 2012, digital apps, lauratallardy.com.
drawings in her sketchbook, scanning them in the computer and sending them to her iPad. Ms Tallardys’ work includes both traditional and digital media. She paints her illustrations in the Brushes app, sends them back to the computer, touches them up in Photoshop and preps them up to be app-ready. She puts
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everything in the app, goes back and does all the art assets she forgot, does more touching up, then the art ready to be sent out to the world. Ms. Tallardy has seen her illustration practice change over time. Her subject matter and style has evolved over the past seven years. “I’ve tried out many different methods of painting and styles over the years. I’ve shifted from illustrating tween books (mostly domestic and school settings), to more fantasy settings (mermaids, fairies, princesses, etc). I’ve also switched from doing mostly magazines to mostly books to mostly apps,” Ms. Tallardy explains. Ms Tallardy mostly identifies with the cutesy stuff. She likes a lot of the kawaii (cute) stuff coming out of the Japanese culture. She also mentioned that she is sometimes drawn to spooky, atmospheric images, probably just to give her eyes a break from the cuteness. Since
Fig. 6 Artist unknown, Morgan Gaynin Inc., 2012, a premiere agency representing select international illustrators, web site, morgangaynin.com
her graduation from Syracuse University, Ms. Tallardy has worked in other areas. She has worked as an IT tech support person for an illustration agency for a few years and has freelanced in graphic design and web design. You would probably not find Ms. Tallardy in a regular job as she prefers a freelance setup. Her artistic outlook on life is finding little ways to be creative here and there, and arranging things to her preference, whether its paint, pixels, or other things. Ms. Tallardy thinks it a difficult question for her to forecast her artistic outlook.
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Ms. Tallardy did a portfolio review where someone called her work “all very same.” She was shocked at the time and disagreed. A year or two later, she did another portfolio review with someone else, and could admits what the first reviewer was talking about. What she needed was some distance from the work. Ms Tallardy explains, “I’m still pretty same-y, but at least I can see it now and I’m okay with it.” Her role as an artist in society is to reflect what’s happening. Ms. Tallardy does not dislike much about the art world. She thinks it’s fun! She also thinks that the art world has split into enough fragments that there’s a niche for everyone. “I suppose I don’t like that so much of it is in Chelsea (NYC), it takes forever to get to from my place,” She said. She loves the Brooklyn art world and in “Aww” of her own work. She dislikes that her work doesn’t always measure up to what’s in her mind. She explains that, “I’m getting better over time, so I try not to beat myself up over it and just keep practicing and painting.” Her whimsical, illustrations for tweens and children include, bright and fun candy-colors aesthetics. Ms. Tallardy has many accomplishments in the field of illustration. Her first app made it to #4 in the iPad Kids Games list for the U.S.A., which is huge. “I was amazed and very proud my little app made it that far,” explained Ms. Tallardy. She also has managed to build up her app business to be profitable. App development is a super competitive market and is easy to go upside down, with your apps costing more than they’re earning. Ms. Tallardy is youthful, fresh and fun, she is smart and savvy along with being active and enthusiastic about illustration. She has taken her IT talent and transferred it over to her love of storytelling. If Ms. Tallardy had superpowers her powers would include being a lucid dreamer, she thinks it is “cool,” in that you know you are dreaming and when you stop to Page 5 of 7
question reality, you realize you are in a dream. The definition of lucid dreaming may be as simple as Ms. Tallardys’ illustrations, but there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding it. Her dream project/assignment includes a very complex app she would like to work on. She explains; “this is a civilization management game, it would be very involved, it would take months to finish (it is on my list though).” Ms. Tallardy said, “that’s the great thing about making apps though, if you can come up with a dream project that the market has a need for, you can just go ahead and make it. “All of my apps,” she said, “are dream projects.” She has no art direction, no editing, no compromising; you can pretty much do whatever you’d like. She finds it difficult to compare herself to others Fig. 7 Photographer Unknown, Laura Tallardy’s pink Vespa, 2012, vespalexington.com
artistically.
Ms Tallardy went on to say that, “everyone’s doing something different for their own reasons.” Her best piece of advice is from Roger De Muth (b. 1955), her senior illustration professor, “Be a flatliner. Don’t become too excited or too sad by a response from someone. Try to take things in a less excitable way. That way, when something good/or bad happens, you’re not too bent out of shape.” She also quoted Freddy Mercury (b. 1946 – 1991),” Don’t try so hard.” “It’s a good song, too,” she explains. For her next venture, Ms Tallardy is racing the clock to get one more dress-up app in before the year ends (the App Store shuts down in a few weeks for the holidays). After that she Page 6 of 7
has another puzzle app collaboration planned. She is very excited about that, and then, of course, she’ll probably end up doing 20 more dress-up apps in 2013. “They are so fun,” she said.
Resources/References: http://www.morgangayninkids.com/tallardy/ http://www.morgangaynin.com/pages/about.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_A5bL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCcNhpbqSAo16TMo
Total word count: 1, 459
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