I became a member of SCBWI in 2011 and continued for many years, then took a break and renewed my membership a few years ago. The most impactful thing I've learned is to keep practicing my craft because with that I continue to learn, grow, and improve.
The media I love to work in is watercolor and digitally. Of the two, digital is my preference because it is easy to travel with. In my process, I love doing research. Whatever the theme or topic, I will go through a deep dive of researching images. Although I don't usually use all of them, I feel they help shape my work. I like creating my sketches digitally. If I'm working in watercolor, I'll print out the sketch and transfer it to watercolor paper. I like doing quick value and color studies on my ipad and use it as a reference. Digitally, I like working in Procreate. I know the tricks to speed my work process, but I love coloring outside of my outlines and then going back and erasing to clean up the edges.
When I first started college, my first drawing professor told me I had an illustrative style to all of my work, so I feel like I've always been illustrating. Officially, I got into illustrating and illustration while I was teaching art. I began creating dolls out of socks, and was inspired by a field trip to an exhibit of vinyl toys. That sparked everything.
My original degree is a B.A in art education from CSULB, but I went back to school and completed my MFA in illustration from Academy of Art in 2022.
My dedicated art space in my apartment I share with my cats. It's their viewing table to look outside the window. But since I mostly work on my ipad, I sit on the couch or work anywhere.
I don't have a dream book. Illustrating any book would be a dream in itself. Currently, I'm building up my portfolio.I have been working on a story about my sock dolls, and another on three little witches who are picked on for being different.
I'm still starting out myself, but as for advice to new illustrators, I think the main thing is to just don't stop. Keep working and improving, meet up with other illustrators, join critique groups; build yourself a community to help support one another.
Currently, I don't have an agent. I haven't published any work yet, but I hope to one day.
You can connect with me on:
instagram: @mizzleadventures
website: www.roldanartstudio.com
Some interesting things you probably don’t know about me is that I hand sew dolls out of socks that I call Mizzles. I am a high school art teacher. I am a Unified Champion School liaison and oversee the Unified Sports program, which is a Special Olympics sponsored program where students with and without intellectual disabilities are equal teammates in sports, leadership, and promote inclusion through whole school engagement.