Polina Gortman
Polina Gortman is a children’s book illustrator living and working just a little bit to the East from Seattle, Washington. She was raised on the banks of the river Yenisey in Siberia by her grandmother, and spent her childhood exploring taiga, feeding burdock leaves to cows, eating blueberries by the handful and making up stories about precarious adventures of toys lost in a vegetable garden.
As a young girl Polina spent hours poring over illustrations in kids’ magazines and story books. In 2007 she graduated from Siberian Federal University with a degree in Intercultural Communication and Japanese to Russian translation, but love of creating and storytelling led her back to a drawing board in 2014. When creating illustrations and developing characters, Polina draws inspiration from sketching people, wildlife and everyday playground shenanigans.
She enjoys working on bringing to life kind stories with big heart, and advocating for environmental issues, animals and science in her artwork. When not in her studio Polina enjoys picking apart stalagmites of picture books that grow in random locations at her house, playing board games with her family and exploring evergreen trails of Pacific Northwest.
Follow For Updates: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Artwork
