Ekaterina (Katya) Tabakh was born in Moscow, Russia. She grew up in an artistic family that taught her painting, drawing and art composition, which inspired her to go to art school. After graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School with MA in Theatrical Set Design, Katya decided to pursue a different artistic direction by starting a career in drawn animation.

She has been employed as an animator in the US and Russia. Throughout the years, Katya has worked under many different art directors with very different artistic visions, which taught her to be flexible and adaptable with her style while still maintaining her own creative voice.

Lately, Katya has become fascinated with the art of book illustration. She specializes in children’s book illustration for all ages, from little kids to young adult readers. Her debut books were published in collaboration with a Japanese publisher in 2006.

Katya moved to the US in the 1990s and lives with her family in the lovely city of San Francisco.

Katya is the First-Place Winner of the SCBWI 2017 Tomie dePaola Illustration Award, as well as a SCBWI 2018 Bologna Illustration Gallery finalist.

Katya Tabakh is currently seeking agent representation as an author/illustrator.

Please feel free to drop her a line!