Jaime Zollars
Love Life Images
Jaime Zollars paints pictures of imaginary people and places far away. She has created illustrations for children’s books, magazines, newspapers, and ad campaigns. Her clients include United Airlines, The American Red Cross, Scholastic, Clarion Books, Tricycle Press, and the L.A. Weekly. She also creates paintings for galleries, including Copro Nason and Gallery Nucleus.
Jaime’s art has been recognized by a bunch of great publications and societies, including Taschen’s Illustration Now, American Illustration, Communication Arts, 3×3, Spectrum, Curvy Australia, Design Taxi, XFuns Taipei, DPI Taiwan, BBC’s Culture Shock, Small Magazine, the SI-LA, and the SCBWI.
Jaime lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, and also enjoys teaching talented future illustrators at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
What’s your favorite line from a book?
“Stand back,” said the Elephant, “I’m going to sneeze!” (from the book with the same title)
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
Lane Smith, Peter Sis, and Shaun Tan
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I saw an issue of Print magazine when I was in high school, and it showed spreads from The Stinky Cheese Man. I immediately realized that children’s books could be a pretty cool forum for new and exciting work. This made me want to specifically work in children’s books, but I’ve always drawn and knew I’d make pictures for a living.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
I’d say you need to enter the market with the confidence that you will succeed. You need to market yourself this way and believe it. While you are waiting for work, join art groups like the SCBWI or Society of illustrators and be an active participant and leader.