Julia Flock

1. Can you tell us a bit about your illustration background- when did you first realize you loved to draw, and how has your journey evolved from those early days to where you are now?

I don’t remember a time before I knew my calling was in the arts—I have been painting for as long as I have been walking. When I was a toddler, I would sit in my highchair with my finger paints for hours on end, and I suppose that never really stopped. But like so many other creative kids, I was told that art in and of itself would not be a sustainable career. For the longest time, I thought I would be an art teacher, but my years as co-president of my high school’s art club showed me I was meant for a different path. When a friend asked me to illustrate a picture book for a competition during my sophomore year, a new dream was sparked in me. I wrote and illustrated my first self-published children’s book during my senior year of high school, putting the extra time afforded to me by the pandemic to good use. A career in picture books has been my ultimate goal ever since. 

This May I graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design summa cum laude with a Bachlors of Fine Arts in Illustration, as well as minors in Writing, Book Arts, and Fine Art. Attending MIAD was the most amazing experience; my art has improved in ways I never dreamed it could. Being surrounded by so many other artists for so long, I think it is just about impossible not to grow. I found new interests while I was there as well; I explored my childhood love of pop-up books, delved into the world of oil painting, and gained hands-on knowledge about Golden Age Illustration methods in the print lab. I learned about the picture book field and met peers who are entering it with me. I currently have something around six picture books in the works, and am actively pitching two of them as I look for representation. I am absolutely bursting with knowledge, and I am so excited to put it all to use! 

2. Were there any books or artists that have had a big impact on your creative journey and have inspired the kind of stories you want to tell?

The shelves of my childhood home are stuffed full of Usborne books, and have been for as long as I can remember. Many of my favorites were illustrated by Alan Marks, who was a big influence as I first began to play with watercolor. The books I loved most as a child, though, were the ones about princesses who went on adventures and got messy. Princess Polly and the Pony by Davidson Zanna and illusrated by Dave Hill and The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko are two I remember reading again and again, and certainly have inspired many ideas for me. 

Golden Age illustrators like Arthur Rackham and other European illustrators such as Beatrix Potter are also extremely influential in my work. Currently, some of my biggest inspirations in the world of picture books are Breezy Brookshire, Qin Leng, and Elise Hurst. One of my favorite recent picture books is A Little More Beautiful, written by Sarah Mackenzie and illustrated by Breezy Brookshire, and it is filled with just the sort of light I want to put into the world. The story is about making the world more beautiful, about caring for and noticing each other, and above all, about a garden. Another book that has been very influential for me recently is The Little Things: a Story About Acts of Kindness, written by Christian Trimmer and illustrated by Kaylani Juanita. There is so much diversity in the characters, not just in terms of background, but also in the unique personalities visible in each individual. I aspire to create characters that feel that real, the kind that might make a child see them and think “It’s me!” 

3. How do you typically begin and explore a new illustration or a story idea? 

The initial spark for a story is almost never something I pursue intentionally. Ideas are everywhere, appearing when my younger brother says something to make me laugh, or an old news article captures my imagination, or the song of a bird in the woods steals my breath. I keep a list with key words to remember those ideas, and when I start a project, I pick something to expand upon. I will often flesh out my concept by talking to my 12-year-old brother, who has been part of my target audience more recently than I have been, and who always brings a different perspective. How much research I do, and where my research comes from, is determined by what the story is. Whenever possible, I prefer to do my research in person—talking to people, taking pictures, and occasionally building models. When working on my own stories, I prefer to move right to the illustration sketches after working out the story beats. When I start with the words, I am often tempted to use too many. But really, all of these aspects, the research, early sketches, and manuscript, all happen at once, with each step altering the needs of the others. 

4. What mediums or tools do you love working with right now and why?

All my work is created tradtionally, with most of my illustration work done in ink and watercolor. My detailed linework is drawn with an old-fashioned dip pen and inkwell. In college, my professors encouraged us to experiment with dip pens, and I quickly fell in love with the ways they respond to pressure and the capacity for expression they have. Burnt umber Daler-Rowney FW acrylic ink is my favorite! I find brown ink doesn’t dull my work in the same way that black can, and it adds a hint of vintage aesthetic. I love this particular brand because it is not affected when I paint overtop of it with watercolor. 

I actually used to hate watercolor, the way it resists all control. My senior year of high school I discovered aqua brushes and the possibilities of tube watercolors (as opposed to cakes), which allowed me to gain the control I had been missing. When I started incorporating ink into my work I would start with the watercolor in the same way I used to do, but I found the highly rendered color was competing too much. Towards the end of my second year of college I switched the order around and started with ink, allowing that to carry the detail so that I could slowly release my tight grip on the control I had worked so hard to gain. I have gone back to using a regular brush and bowl of water now, along with Winsor & Newton tube watercolors. It is when I let the watercolor do what it naturally wants to do—flowing outside the lines, blobbing and running into other colors—that its spontaneity can bring my illustrations to life. Nothing else can quite replicate it. 

5. Is there a dream project, either personal or professional that you would love to create someday?

I have countless projects in my mind I hope to bring to life! One of my favorites at the moment would be a sort of collection of flower lore; there are so many stories that center on specific flowers, taking the form of folk tales, poetry, and ballads throughout history. Someday I would love to dive into some deep research to gather as many of these stories as I can, and reinterpret them as a collection of children’s stories. For me, any project that includes drawing flowers is a dream project!