Janice Liu

Discipline: Visual Arts
Homebase: Burnaby
Languages: English, Mandarin
Contact Me: Email , Web

Janice Liu is a children’s comic creator, illustrator, and educator. She is the artist of the bilingual comic Chicken Soup & Goji Berries ????, which is set for publication in May 2019 with Vancouver comics publisher Cloudscape Comics. Janice's solo comic shorts have appeared in Wayward Sisters: An Anthology of Monstrous Women, New Moon Girls, and Augur magazine. Her work is often about exploring her Chinese diasporic identity, and the relationship between the inner and outer world, through fantasy. Janice currently lives in Burnaby, where she is the owner-operator of Young Artists' Place. In her practice she uses cartooning to engage students in storytelling connected to their own experiences and interests. Janice has been teaching art for children and teens since 2013 and has delivered various art and comic workshops at schools and libraries, including Burnaby Public Library and the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto. She is also the Creative Writing & Illustration instructor at Place des Arts.

Testimonials

Janice used her skills as an artist to explain the making of comics and how this is accessible for all to create their own. Initially the year group got to see some of Janice's own comics that she had illustrated with a writer in Canada. This exposed the children to bilingual language (written in Chinese and English) which made it an accessible workshop for our children, especially the EAL children. Amanda Boby, Year 4 Learning Leader and Teacher, British School of Guangzhou

Project Examples

Comic Stories

A comic workshop that can be spread out over a number of sessions. I've delivered this workshop numerous times at Burnaby Public Library, with great success! Covers the whole process of creating a one-page comic story, from brainstorming to scriptwriting to artwork.

Portraiture / Caricature

Students learn about facial proportions, and techniques for drawing believable faces and capturing likeness. Can add an extra session to include adding colour with watercolours.

Browse Artists in the Classroom Directory