Katie Risor

Katie Risor is an illustrator, author, and graphic novelist making books for kids. In 2021, her illustrations for Month of the Military Child won a Texas Advertising Award, and her debut author/illustrator early reader, Welcome to the Forest: The Harvest Party, was published in August 2025, the first in a four-part series. Katie grew up in Texas, but now lives in New Syracuse, York with her partner, three cats, and the groundhog who lives under the porch.

Why do you like to draw creatures?

A lot of ingredients went into my brain and came out as my creatures. The true inciting incident is when I got The Neverending Story from Blockbuster when I was about ten years old. I watched that movie, and Falcor’s been flying up in my brain ever since. Before that, Snuffleupagus was my favorite Sesame Street character and I’ve always loved fairies, dragons, gnomes and such. But Falcor was life-changing.

Specialties:

Advertising, Animals, Black & white, Board books, Book Covers, Branding, Character design, Concept art, Editorial, Fantasy, Graphic novel interior art, Humor, Illustration, Indie comics, Lettering, Middle Grade, Non-fiction, Packaging, Penciling, Picture books, Slice-of-life, Spot art, Storyboarding, Writing

Mediums:

Location:

Syracuse, New York

Art Process:

Every project, whether it’s a single illustration or an entire book, starts with an idea. Ideas can pop into my head anytime, but whenever I want to get a new idea I lie on the floor, close my eyes, and wait. Lying on the floor with properly inspiring music will usually give me something.

Next is brainstorming and iteration. For a whole book, this means sketching and storyboarding. For a single illustration this means doing iterative compositional sketches. I want to choose a composition that effectively delivers information to the viewer but is also pleasant, surprising, or delightful to look at, something that goes beyond the main idea.

The best illustrations I do always come from ideas I can see clearly in my head and for which I have a solid execution plan. However, I do like to leave room in the process for playing around. I think that’s why I like traditional media so much; no matter how much you know about the medium, you can’t be fully in control.

Visit Katie at:

www.katierisor.com
www.instagram.com/creekkidart
www.tiktok.com/@creekkidart

Available for School Visits:

I love teaching art workshops for kids of all ages, but especially youngsters. I showcase the design process and inspire kids to tap into their own creativity. I do demos on “what if” storytelling, comics, drawing fantasy creatures, and painting. And finally, I explain the book making process and what sort of jobs creative kids can go into.