Featured Illustrator

Starting in 2025 we'll dive deeper into the creative journeys and unique perspectives of our illustrators by asking them to answer expanded interview questions - just for you!

We would like to introduce Maya Trysil who lives on a small farm near Portland, Oregon. She has been a member of the Oregon SCBWI since 2023. When not chopping wood and carrying water, she is making artwork deeply inspired by the wild lands of the Pacific Northwest. We hope you enjoy her work as much as we do.

How did you get started in illustration?

The intricate dance between picture and story was revealed to me by preschoolers. As a fledgling art teacher I changed our approach on alternate weeks. At first we would focus on developing perceptual skills, seeing the world around us with an artist’s eye; learning the difference between a circle and a dot. The following week we pulled the curtains and huddled together around an imaginary campfire in a dark wood as I told them a story. I demonstrated how to activate their inner eye by rubbing their hands together, crossing fingers over their foreheads. Eyes closed, they called out the marvelous things they saw- shooting stars, a fluffy bunny, a tyrannosaurus coming over the hill. When I finally turned them loose to create their own art, they were wild with anticipation.   

I wrote what they told me on the back of each picture. What looked, at first glance, like a whirlwind of colorful scribbles was revealed to be “a lion in the kitchen who started a fire that was extinguished by my mother”. Once given the key, we could all follow the action. In another image, a butterfly flew through an exploding volcano, miraculously unharmed. (The night before, the girl’s mother had burned her arms while making applesauce and ended up in the ER.) Another artist drew red ants climbing up one side of a hill and black ants up the other to engage in battle on the summit. “But it’s all for nothing,” he explained, “as the silver bomb falling from the sky will kill them all!” Yet another child said, “The unicorn is pregnant. The babysitter will be coming soon.” The birthday boy, that day, drew the face of the sun. 

What is your background?

I was so struck by these continuing revelations that I went back to school to obtain a masters in art therapy. The children taught me that all art tells a story. And sometimes pictures reveal more than you might imagine- like our deepest hopes and worst fears, the mystical connection between all beings or how to express our love. One renowned art therapist believes that paintings are angels, appearing with a message or a lesson for the artist. 

After the dark chapters of the pandemic, I quit my art therapy practice to accept the challenges of my own artist’s journey. Everyday I call on the Muse to help me create art and tell my stories. Yet clearly, I’m still a beginner, an inspired fool sauntering cheerfully along the edge of the abyss. But as Martha Graham reminds us: There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. 

What is your preferred medium and method of working?

At present, I am drawn to atmospheric landscapes and birds, painting primarily in pastels.

What illustrators inspire you?  Why? 

As each of my friends has enhanced my life in a unique way, just so, many illustrators have been “my favorite”. I marvel at Barbara Helen Burger’s illuminated art in Grandfather Twilight; Helen Oxenbury’s ability to turn an ordinary child into an extraordinary adventurer in Bear Hunt; Anita Jeram of Guess How Much I Love You, who captures complex emotions with a dot and a squiggle. Other favorites are the Norwegian illustrator, Lisa Aisato, whose work radiates love and ordinary magic, capturing the special bond between child and elder and Freya Blackwood who broke my heart with her sensitive portrayal of a boy coping with the loss of his dog in Harry & Hopper.  And, of course, N.C. Wyeth, whose brilliant paintings in The Boy’s King Arthur, radiate high drama, the sun glinting on swords. 

What would be your dream project?

My dream project could happen this fall. I have applied for an artist residency in the remote Orkney Islands, off the coast of Scotland. There in the mist and windy rain, amidst untold archeological treasures, the ghosts of Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes, the Picts, the Norsemen and the Orcadians still dance and fish and fight. Once there, I hope to gather the colors of twilight, render the unexpected fall of light onto water and explore portals in the circles of standing stones- storied places I hold in my heart.

An excerpt from Benedicto by Edward Abbey, 

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view . . . where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.”

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