When he was eight years old, Tim lost an eye in an accident. During his recovery, his father gave him oil paints, a couple of brushes, and a small canvas. He painted a clown with colors straight from the tube. Tim's first work was promptly framed, and his love of painting was born.
Tim earned a degree in graphic design from Wichita State University and also studied painting and drawing for a semester in Rome. Following school, Tim worked as an associate art director of an advertising design studio in Wichita, Kansas.
Then for seventeen years Tim served as a community minister with an inner-city Christian mission organization in Wichita, Los Angeles, and Newark. To help meet the need for children's books that accurately depict urban culture, he created the picture book Psalm Twenty-Three, in which he applied the psalmist David's pastoral words to a normal day of two city children.
Tim has illustrated a number of children's books, two of which, The Fear Not Angel and Psalm Twenty-Three were Gold-Medallion Award finalists. Psalm Twenty-Three and Silent Night were also honored with ABA "Pick of the Lists" awards. Tim serves as a graphic artist for World Impact Urban Ministry Institute and lives in Wichita, Kansas.
Visit his website at
www.timladwig.com.
Read an interview with Tim Ladwig