Junior Carlevato designing illustrations for second book of her career

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Amanda Carlevato

Junior Amanda Carlevato is providing illustrations for The Perfect Cup by her grandmother Penelope Carlevato.

Emily Simmons, News Editor

Creating illustrations for a published book is a dream that many artists aspire to accomplish. For Bearden junior and National Art Honor Society member Amanda Carlevato, that dream is a reality.

In middle school, Carlevato was approached with the chance to illustrate a book for her grandmother and author Penelope Carlevato. The book which was titled First Class Etiquette was published and now, for the second time, Carlevato is working on illustrating another book for her grandmother, titled The Perfect Cup which will also be published soon.

“Art has always been a passion of mine ever since I was little and being able to use my artistic ability for other people brings me deep joy,” Carlevato said. “It helps me express myself through ways I couldn’t with words.”

For The Perfect Cup, Carlevato is creating the chapter header illustrations based on specific guidelines set out for her. To create these headers Carlevato is using India Ink, an art medium that is dark black similar to watercolor, and spent most of the summer sketching out the illustrations.

Although art is a passion of Carlevato’s, illustrating has presented challenges for her as an artist.

“The most challenging part about illustrating is having to cater to other people’s preferences and being unable to have the artistic freedom that I prefer and am used to having,” Carlevato said.

Despite the challenges, Carlevato has made a lot of progress on the illustrations and enjoys the experience and opportunity she has been presented with at a young age.

“Being published at such a young age, not once but twice, is truly an exciting experience,” Carlevato said. “Any artist wanting to do illustrations needs to not only practice but adjust to focusing on what the client is wanting rather than what the artist themselves may want.”

Carlevato and her grandmother are aiming to be finished with the book by December and hope to publish around May 2018.

“A lot of artists don’t get an opportunity like this even once, especially at a young age and I hope to explore not only illustration as a potential career but other forms of art as well,” Carlevato said. “Art truly is a passion of mine.”