Handmade Stop-Motion, Sculpture and Illustration: Willa Prawer's Creative Process
Willa Prawer has been making art since she was three years old. Her work is colorful, whimsical and very hands-on, built around characters, small worlds and stories that feel playful and alive. This page explains how she approaches the main forms in her portfolio: stop-motion animation, 3D sculpture, illustration and picture-book making.
Stop-motion animation
Stop-motion is animation made one photograph at a time. For her film Birthday Blues, Willa spent months building a miniature bedroom set by hand, loosely based on her own room. She sawed a wood-plank floor, sewed bedding, pillows and drapes, made the main character’s outfit, added string lighting and tiny wall details, and designed a miniature scrapbook of family memories. She then shot roughly 1,000 photographs, moving the character a fraction at a time, and set the story to original music written by her brother, Cole. The film received a Silver Key from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her second film, Skin and Bones, is a personal story about recovery that was also recognized by Scholastic.
3D sculpture and papier-mâché
Willa’s 3D work includes papier-mâché cats, painted gourds, mosaic animal sculptures, hand-painted ceramic furniture and a castle nearly five feet tall. She often starts with a cardboard skeleton, builds up form with papier-mâché, then paints and adds mixed-media details until the piece feels like it belongs in its own world.
Illustration and children’s books
Her illustrations move between pen and ink, colored pencil, watercolor and digital media. The children’s book Pesto Wants to Be Big began as doodles in a ninth-grade math class, grew into an independent study, and became a book she wrote, illustrated, designed and published herself. It’s a story about self-acceptance and loving who you are.
What connects all of this work is the process: patience, problem-solving, and figuring out how to make something imagined feel real. Explore the full portfolio.