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  • Salla Savolainen:Finland Illustrator

I do have to get to know the characters and everything that happens in the text really thoroughly (and I don't mean only the actual events). I draw an enormous amount of sketches before the characters start to work out and take shape. At that point, it is also easy for me to identify with them, which is very important to me.

Salla Savolainen

Born in 1962, and raised in the town of Luumäki, Finland, Salla Savolainen graduated with a degree in Art Education from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She illustrated textbooks and nonfiction throughout the 1990s before she began to illustrate children's fiction. Her most recent textbook illustration was for an ABC and reading instruction book for first graders.

In 2000, Savolainen wrote and illustrated her first picture book, Kirpputorikoira Napo (Napo, My Flea Market Dog). She has now written and illustrated three of her own books, as well as many books by other authors.

Although Savolainen's favored technique is using watercolor and pen, she also utilizes woodcuts and gouaches. Her illustrations are playful and humorous employing bright colors, while also highly realistic in style. All the details of daily life, be it a busy city street or a bedroom full of books, are conveyed with care. She uses a variety of perspective shifts, as well as a delicate contrast of light and shadow, lending her work a child-like quality.

Reviewer Tytti Tuunanen observed that Savolainen employed all these skills in her award-winning illustrations for Pikku Xing (Little Xing): "Savolainen outlines her characters clearly and fills the picture surface with countless details and parallel events. The bustling life of a family with young children and the chaos of this new situation (of foreign adoption) are shown through motion and small details. The China of the illustrations is fascinating to look at. The full-bodied, broken red-green color scheme gets paler and changes to bluish when they arrive in the new country of Finland … Definite assets of Savolainen's illustrations are the courageous changes of composition and angle of view … The human characters are reduced and characterized with a few deft strokes. Communication between the characters and the reader is delightful."

Salla Savolainen has won a number of prizes and honorable mentions, including receiving the Rudolf Koivu Prize. She lives and works in Karkkila, Southern Finland.

Selected Bibliography

Vesta-Linnéa ochmonstermamman (Vesta-Linnea and the Monster Mum) By Tove Appelgren (2001) Helskinki: Söderströms.
Pikku Xing (Little Xing) By Leena Virtanen (2004) Helsinki: Tammi Publishers.
Mennään jo kotiin (Let's Go Home Now) By Riina Katajavuori) (2007) Helsinki: Tammi Publishers.
Salaperäistä, tuliperäistä (Enigmatic, Volcanic) By Hannu Hirvonen (2005) Helsinki: Tammi Publishers.
Pigen, Der Huskede Det Hele (The Girl Who Remembered Everything) By Kim Fupz Aakeson (2009) Helsinki: Carlsen. [End Page 19]
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