Website/social media: http://kgrachow.com/
I also use my Facebook page for promoting my work which can be found at Keith Grachow and also have an On A Planet Named Up In The Sky page for me and my mom’s children’s book series. You can also find my comic book work at http://www.kikamikacomics.com/
Tell me a little about yourself: I’m a professional illustrator that does comic books, children’s books, and illustration work for companies. I also teach workshops for kids and adults on Visual Storytelling.
How long have you been drawing? Since as long as I could hold a pencil.
How did you get into illustrating? My parents owned an advertising agency when I was a kid, and when I turned thirteen they let me draw a cover for a tv guide like magazine they put out. It was terribly amateurish, but super cool to see my art in print for the first time. I’d always been drawing, but that was my first taste of commercial work, so I think that idea stuck in my head when I went to university. In school I studied fine arts with a concentration in graphic design, so I took jobs related to that in college and after I graduated. I did some spot illustration and concept art as well as toy package design but it wasn’t really making me happy.
What I really always wanted to do was comic book illustration, so about 10 years ago, I went back to school to focus on illustrating for comic books. I’m so glad I did, because it’s been really gratifying to create stories with my mom and other writers and to do illustrations for families and friends. And to make a living at it!
What is your favorite book you have worked on? Whatever I’m usually working on becomes my favourite book most of the time, however if I had to choose, it’s probably my latest Up-In-The-Sky book Above A Planet Named Up-In-The-Sky. I think me and my mom knocked that one out into space (pun intended)!
What illustrators do you like? I was classically trained in fine arts, so I always loved the paintings of the renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, but illustrators really came into their own during the golden age of commercial art in the early parts of the 20th century and that’s where I’d begin to choose the ones I like. So artists like Mucha, NC Wyeth, Norman Rockwell really inspired me. There were also classic comic strip artists I liked such as Alex Raymond, Austin Briggs, Hal Foster and classic comic book artists like Joe Kubert, Wally Wood, Jack Kirby, and John Buscema to name a few. Modern artists like Mike Mignola Bill Sienkiewicz, Lee Weeks, Dan Panosian and many many others are also in this list. There are just too many to count!