KidLit Superstars Isol & Milan Pavlović Created a Video Where They Illustrate Together in Real Time

If you love picture books, and especially if you love drawing, this video, created by Groundwood Books with legendary children's writers/illustrators Isol and Milan Pavlović, will seem a bit like magic. 

Buenos Aires-based Isol and Toronto-based Pavlović not only chat together about the power of illustration, their careers, and their favourite writers and illustrators, but actually draw together on a shared screen using tablet tech called Magma Studio, creating original illustrations on the screen in real time. 

During their discussion, Pavlović reflects on the power of picture books and their ability to communicate with young readers, saying "drawings are a universal language" before asking Isol how she was first drawn to picture books as a medium. She reflects on her early career, chuckling as she remembers a publisher describing her illustrations as "a little bit psychotic." 

Both Isol and Pavlović have new books out with Groundwood as well: Sonata for Fish and Boy is a wordless picture book by Pavlović; Isol's new picture book Impossible is translated into English by Elisa Amado. 

This delightful video is a totally unique interview between two icons that functions as a kind of illustrator jam session, and it also shows how creative publishers have gotten using technological innovations to create new types of literary content during the pandemic.