Full Circle Literary is excited to welcome author-illustrator
Meenal Patel to our family!
|
|
Full Circle Literary is excited to welcome Meenal Patel to our family!
Meenal Patel creates her beautiful work from her home studio in Saint Paul, MN. She spent much of her childhood in Minnesota. After attending University of Minnesota for graphic design, she worked for a decade at a design agency before moving into full-time illustration. Her background in design honed her artistic talent, nurtured her interest in collaboration, gave her an eye for typography and print production, and gave her on-point project management skills publishers love.
Today, her focus is illustration. You may recognize her surface pattern work, her editorial illustrations, or her books, to name a few!
|
|
Meenal’s first book illustration experience was a self-published book inspired by her niece that was warmly supported on Kickstarter. Her niece’s reaction struck her, leading her to commit herself further to helping children see themselves reflected in the images and stories around them. She also independently released PRIYA DREAMS OF MARIGOLDS & MASALA, which received a starred Kirkus Review, a South Asia Book Award, and was featured in a Carle Museum Exhibit. |
|
While Meenal’s work often features South Asians and South Asian American culture, she is most passionate about portraying them in the context of everyday lives and experiences. Her latest project does just this: she will be illustrating IN THIS FAMILY by Shelly Anand (Simon & Schuster) about a bicultural family’s traditions that relates quite well to her own Indian-American midwestern upbringing!
|
|
Although the results are highly detailed, Meenal’s process begins with a simple sketch- pencil and paper! She then develops her work with the appropriate mix of traditional mediums (a mix of acrylic gouache, colored pencil, graphite, crayon) and, where appropriate, digital. She loves to incorporate textured paper, and plays with color to develop custom palettes for her projects. |
|
She says, “Making art is a place for me to feel fully. It’s the moment when I can look inward, untangle my experiences, sometimes find joy, and then push that feeling outward in the form of making something. I hope the experiences and joy that I infuse in my art will result in connection, belonging, and delight for someone else.” |
|
Her work often highlights themes of everyday wonder and joy, solace in quiet moments, women and girls, multigenerational relationships, first generation experiences and third culture, family and chosen family, Community and belonging, and patterns, patterns, patterns!
She says “I love patterns and creating them. I take inspiration from textiles as well as textures found on plants and in nature. You’ll find patterns layered into much of my art, because I love how they contribute to storytelling with cues about tone, emotion, culture or setting. ”
|
|
While she develops her next author-illustrator works, Meenal is most interested in contributing to picture books, board books and book covers.
- Ideal book topics for her include:
- Nature and the outdoors
- Arts/creativity
- Food and how it inspires togetherness
- Lesser known artists in history
- Social justice
- Babies!
- Sisters, sibling relationships
- How our senses can ignite memories
- Mindfulness
- Imaginary worlds, silly stories
- Celebrating multi-faceted identities!!!!
When she’s not working, you can find Meenal exploring the outdoors with her husband and dog, from hiking to camping, and she will never turn down an opportunity to be near the water! She is a committed baker, home chef, and crafter, and loves to host and treat others, especially her nieces and nephews, to her creations. When she’s not creating in some form, you’ll find her exploring a local farmer’s market or satisfying her sweet tooth with a prescribed dose of ice cream!
|
|
Meenal’s lead agent is Lilly Ghahremani in our San Diego office, who can be reached at lilly@fullcircleliterary.com or 858.824.9269 ext. 4
|
|
We look forward to creating with you! |
|
About Full Circle Literary
Full Circle Literary is a literary agency representing children's books from toddler to teen, and creative nonfiction for all ages. We work with both award-winning veteran and debut writers and artists and our team has a knack for discovering and developing new and diverse talent. For more information about all of our Full Circle Literary illustrators, please visit our website and follow us on Instagram/Twitter @fullcirclelit.
|
|
Full Circle Literary
3268 Governor Drive
San Diego CA 92122
Copyright 2022 Full Circle Literary. Copyright artwork 2022 by Meenal Patel.
All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
