When you first meet Serena, you can’t help but recognise that something ‘extra’ about her. Her bubbly personality and friendly demeanour shined with enthusiasm and our students loved her genuine and infectious passion for her craft. During her residency, Serena shared her ideas and inspiration for her story books. In her workshops, she used prompts to inspire the girls, who worked in groups to develop characters with weird and wonderful personalities. From a surfing ‘Pepper Boy’, to a pencil and eraser who fell in love, our students gained great insight about the process of illustrating books and creating characters.
A bit about the artist... Growing up in Melbourne, Serena was often found with her head in a book, climbing trees, making mud patties or watching cartoons. She indulged her growing mind with colours, characters and stories in the books she read and drawings she created. Little did she know her favourite cartoons would one day have her working for Walt Disney Studios and illustrating picture books later in her creative life.
Serena is an International book illustrator with over fifty titles published in Australia and overseas ranging from board books to picture books and junior novels.
Prior to dabbling in the world of picture books and creative office jobs, Serena spent six years working for Walt Disney Animation in Sydney with a group of talented artist on sequels to The Lion King, Peter Pan Return to Neverland, Lady and the Tramp and Jungle Book. Disney offered an intense 3-month training period as an entry level In-betweener and is where Serena gained most of her skills.
She works both traditionally and digitally, though prefers using traditional methods when illustrating her books with pencil, ink and watercolours.