Review: Hatch

Did you know that once upon a time, a long, long time ago, nearly all animals laid eggs? Many still do, taking advantage of being able to accommodate more babies in each breeding cycle and being able to move around and leave them. How convenient.

Monotremes, birds, reptiles, molluscs, crustaceans and amphibians – all produce babies by laying eggs. 

Heidi Cooper-Smith’s latest picture book release, Hatch is a gorgeous foray into just how and where these (Australian) animals facilitate this egg laying / hatching phenomena.

Meet the Illustrator: Muza Ulasowski

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Realistic, colourful, detailed, whimsical...

What items are an essential part of your creative space? My Wacom Cintiq 27HD plus stylus and Artrage 5 programme (for my digital illustrations). Lots of light, my acrylic paints and my pencils (for my traditional artwork).

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? Digital art for my children’s book illustrations; acrylics for landscape/animal portraits. I'm currently playing around with pencils.

Announcement: Meet Katrin Dreiling

One of KBR's most popular features is our Meet the Illustrator interviews.

For the past year or more, Heidi Cooper-Smith has brought us a kaleidoscope of illuminating illustrators' insights but is now handing her paintbrushes over to the equally radiant, Katrin Dreiling.

Katrin's illustrative style has been described as quirky, fun, mischievous, original and very European. We just think it's oodles of fun, like Katrin!

Katrin was awarded the Harper Collins Illustrators Showcase Award 2019 at the biannual SCBWI conference in Sydney. 

We first met Katrin a couple of years ago in her own Meet The Illustrator interview. Today, as she prepares to take over the reins of Coordinator from Heidi, we divulge a bit more of the delightful Katrin. Welcome!

Meet the Illustrator: Manuela Adreani

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Delicate, honest and gentle.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? I only need a pencil to draw my ideas and a sheet of A4 paper, very basic items. What is essential for me, is to see what I will draw clearly in my mind and, only then, can shape it on the paper.

What items are an essential part of your creative space? I love pencils and watercolour.  Unfortunately, I don’t use them much, because I use mainly digital painting to realise the books, due to very short deadlines.

Meet the Illustrator: Jenni Goodman

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Soft, sweet, semi-realistic, light and happy!

What items are an essential part of your creative space? A mechanical pencil, good quality sharpeners and erasers, and my possibly (actually, definitely) overboard collection of Prismacolor pencils! I enjoy having my computer there so I can zoom in on reference photos and listen to audio books and music. My dog at my feet gives me lovely company through the quiet days, and there is a large window on my right which gives fantastic light.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? I love to create using coloured pencils. Usually I will use watercolour paints to fill in the background and then add the details with pencils over the top.

Meet the Illustrator: Kerry Ide

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Fun and colourful, sometimes quirky, hidden meanings, cheeky characters.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?  Traditional tools: sketch book, mechanical pencil, inks, brushes and watercolour paper. Digital tools: my Wacom tablet, stylus, scanner, computer with Photoshop and my iPad for reference images. Time and space - something I need to allow my creativity to flow but I don’t always get.

Meet the Illustrator: Liz Duthie

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Intuitive, loose and scribbly, with line being the strongest element.

What items are an essential part of your creative space? Time alone, an unoccupied mind, art books, my light box and my computer, which I mainly use for research or for playing music or podcasts - I listen to a lot of Conversations on the ABC with Richard Fidler.

Meet the Illustrator: Tom Parker

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Fantasy, animal-inspired oddities. (I think that’s enough!)

What items are an essential part of your creative space? 2B pencil starts EVERYTHING I do. Ink pens, scanner, a Mac (with Photoshop) and Ugee digital pad. But mostly the 2B pencil!

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? Currently, yes. I draw everything in detailed pencil, scan it and colour it digitally with a mix of layers of acrylic or watercolour backgrounds and textures. So it’s a real mix of things and no single medium, but it’s how I’ve done a lot of my work recently.

Meet the Illustrator: Sandy Flett

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. 
Sketchy
Squiggly
Sometimes Satirical
Cartoony and Colourful

What items are an essential part of your creative space? Multiple cups of tea. There must be at least a couple of cups gone cold on my desk, with the teabag still in the cup. Podcasts to listen to. Often, weirdly, True Crime podcasts. Artworks that I’m especially pleased with. And a massive pile of books by some of my favourite children’s authors and illustrators.

Meet the Illustrator: Melissa Bailey

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.  A little bit of humour. A lot of cute.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?  Light. Enough room so I can spread out and get comfortable. The supplies needed to complete the artwork.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?  Watercolour. Sometimes watercolour combined with coloured pencils.

Meet the Illustrator: Danny Snell

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Striving to be fresh and free but occasionally falling short.

What items are an essential part of your creative space? My old drawing desk, pencils, paints and brushes. And even though you can google any artist these days I still enjoy flicking through my small library of books.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? I feel most comfortable using acrylics. And often I’ll try and throw some pencil and collage into the mix too.

Name three artists whose work inspires you. From the world of children’s book illustrators I can’t go past Ezra Jack Keats, and our own Ron Brooks. And one of my favourite painters is Cezanne.

Meet the Illustrator: Mandy Foot

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. That’s hard! Whimsical characters with a story of their own.

What items are an essential part of your creative space? Daylight lamp, a good paintbrush with a nice pointy tip (I have lots of worn out ones but they also have their uses), lots of paints and an assortment of drawing pencils. If I get a creative or drawing block, I generally just change pencils and that seems to fix it.

Meet the Illustrator: Chris Saunders

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.  Storytelling; using imagination, detail and atmosphere combined with exaggerated physics.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?  My most essential workspace items are my computer, drawing tablet, diary and something to sketch with.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?  I’m fascinated with the progression of computer generated imagery and the idea of simulation eventually becoming indistinguishable from reality.

Meet the Illustrator: Christian Bocquee

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Imaginative visual storytelling

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
My growing pile of sketchbooks is an indispensable part of my process. Their uses are too many to list here but, for one, they are a safe place to explore ideas and make mistakes. I record and keep track of ideas in them. What begins as a tiny thread can often grow into a larger project.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
Watercolour. It’s the interplay of control and chaos with this medium that I love. In my opinion, my best pieces always have an element of serendipity.

Meet the Illustrator: Patricia Ward

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Whimsical, contrasting, equal parts darkness and light, reflective, loose, detailed.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
My glass desk. My ink wells. My numbered drawers, my trolley on wheels and my stereo.

Meet the Illustrator: Margaret Dewar

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Cartooning, children’s illustration, drawing and digital, varied.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Pens and pencils, computer or iPad.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
Pencil art, digitally coloured.

Name three artists whose work inspires you.
Escher, May Gibbs, Dr. Seuss.

Meet the Illustrator: Irene Tan

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Quirky
Whimsical
Surface Pattern Design
Textured
Colourful
Joyful

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
My ink felt pens, sketchbooks, papers, iPad Mini and MacBook Pro. I also use my A4 size wall calendar a lot as well as my to-do-list notebook, so I am on track and focused. Silence and some sort of isolation from the world and social media plays an important role during my creative time. Lots of coffee!

Meet the Illustrator: Prue Pittock

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Naive with a subtle sense of humour.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
I like to have something to listen to - usually the radio is playing in the background. All the tools I need are just an arm's length away.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I like working with ink and watercolour, but just recently I have used gouache and pencils.

Name three artists whose work inspires you.
I love EH Shepard, Margaret Bloy Graham and Shaun Tan.

Meet the Illustrator: Ester de Boer

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Intricate, detailed, eccentric, dark, humorous, imaginative and cheeky.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Something to listen to (usually audiobooks) as I work, orderly space (is my dream, but yet to be achieved), lots of spare paper to scribble ideas on, a trained monkey to bring me never-ending hot Milos and snacks, a big range of media options (and space to experiment in) and no distractions/ interruptions (monkey excepted).

Meet the Illustrator - Katrina Fisher

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less. Detailed, gentle, engaging and realistic.

What items are an essential part of your creative space? A good supply of paper, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, pencil sharpener, Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, my light box, iPad, plenty of books (picture books, reference books, art books) and a hot cup of tea!

Do you have a favourite artistic medium? Coloured pencil is one of my favourites for its diversity, sharpness and vibrant colour. I have been working a lot with watercolour and combining the two together. I feel they complement each other beautifully. I also enjoy working with graphite.