Elena Arevalo Melville
Elena is an award winning Latin American author, illustrator, mapmaker and potter.
Her UK debut picture book Umbrella, was the inaugural Winner of the Society of Authors’ Queens Knickers Award, endorsed by Amnesty International UK and selected by Empathy Lab, nominated for a Kate Greenaway Medal, and UKLA Book Awards. It is also part of the White Raven collection in Munich. Her books have been widely published internationally.
She enjoys running workshops in festivals, museums, exhibitions and other events both in the UK and abroad both for children and adults. Play is very integral to her creative process.
She is drawn to themes of community and belonging, friendship and imagination, loss and redemption. Her main aesthetic obsessions are colour, emotion and mark making. The sensuality of making something by hand informs the love she has for form in clay which in turn informs light and volume for her flat work. Body awareness through her dancing feeds into the choreography of composition and pace in her books.
Her clients include Scallywag Press (London), Donzelli Editore (Roma),The Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), Matadero Madrid, (Spain), Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination.
She lives in Cambridge with her family, a cat and hundreds of pots.
Website www.elenaarevalomelville.com
Instagram @elenaarevalomelville
Twitter @sketch_booking
Facebook Elena Arévalo Melville-Illustration