This holiday season, we have been celebrating and sharing modern traditions. We had the pleasure of collaborating with Salli Swindell and Nate Padavick, a brother/sister design and illustration team known as Studio SSS. Sally and Nate shared a cranberry sauce recipe from their website, They Draw & Cook and we were hooked! Salli and Nate also have another amazing website, They Draw & Travel, home to the largest online collection of illustrated recipes and maps by artists from around the world. They kindly offered to share their two travel inspired books with Tea, Make Map Art by Nate Padavick and Salli Swindell and their first published book, MAAAPS by Aunyarat Watanbe.
Salli and Nate’s book, Make Map Art, came about after they attended a stationary show in New York where they met an editor at Chronicle Books. Their love for travel and storytelling mixed with their wonderful illustrations creates a great informative activity book for kids and adults alike. “The book is designed as a project portfolio kit to help anyone who is interested in exploring mapmaking.” says Salli. “Included in the portfolio is a guide book with ideas, definitions, prompts and examples along with templates and pages of icons. There are all kinds of different maps to make, everything from mapping your favorite city to creating a map of your mind!” Make Map Art is a great interactive book. Let your little citizens explore and create their own maps — even share them on the They Draw & Travel site!
For Salli and Nate’s first publishing venture, they collaborated with Aunyarat Watanbe – a freelance illustrated based in Tokyo who is inspired by food and adventurous travels. Together, they made the book, Maaaps – a wonderful collaboration project created with hopes that children would enjoy and learn about beautiful places in the world. Throughout the book, little readers can even create their own imaginary cities or worlds and make up fun stories. “Playing in the Maaaps world, I hope children will stretch out their most wonderful gift, IMAGINATION, and be CREATIVE!” says the author Aunyarat Watanbe.
The book has 18 hand-drawn maps of world-class cities on earth and just like Make Map Art book, the last map in Maaaps is empty for kids to draw on. From the peaceful island of Hawaii to the busy sidewalks of New York to the pyramids of Egypt to the creatures of Madagascar and beyond, these maps are full of fun, food, adventure and inspiration.
We are so inspired by Salli, Nate and Aunyarat’s travels, stories and adventures and very excited to be able to share their two great books with you! We’re giving away a copy of each book to 3 lucky winners. Winners will be contacted via email after December 9th, 2014. Best of luck!
