Children’s Book Illustrator

Although I have been printmaking and selling my fun animal and bird art in person as well as over the internet since around 2004 it has been a lifetime ambition of mine to become a children’s book illustrator and ultimately publish several of my own children’s books.

I love how books used to spark my imagination as a child. Children’s books used to captivate me and I am sure they are what inspired me to do what I love to do now. The books I read growing up used to bring characters to life and in my early career as a children’s TV animator at Cosgrove Hall Films that is exactly what I used to do with the characters that I created there too.

When I gave up that career to focus on bringing up a new family I found printmaking and started to build up the collection of animal art and bird art that I have now. As I developed that work I wanted to put as much character into the subjects of my work using many of the skills I developed in my early career.

Juggling self employment and a family as the children have been growing up has made it difficult to further my book illustration ideas as I would have liked to. Customers regularly ask me at shows and exhibitions ‘have you ever thought about doing a children’s book?’ or they say ‘your work is perfect for a children’s book’. My standard reply is ‘I would love to if I can find the time and the right opportunity’.

Now that the children are almost all grown up I want to start looking for that opportunity. I recently took a course about developing a children’s book idea. You can see some of the work I created on the course below.

All of the above work was created on an Ipad using Procreate. You might also like to take a look at my animal art prints portfolio and my baby’s room wall art for further examples of original prints that I have produced.

I am not sure at this point whether I will be published or I will self-publish. I have several great book ideas and hopefully one will be published in the near future. In the meantime if you like my work and you publish books and want to discuss my ideas or if you need an illustrator for a children’s book your are writing and want to collaborate then please contact me.