Book Illustration

Why?

So what?

And now what?

Illustration, to me, is so much more than simply 'drawing something': it is the creation of a narrative, using elements and their placement to add to a story. I have a passion for this process for several reasons:

1) Growing up as an autistic child in an often chaotic environment, I found solace creating stories and imagery to escape the overwhelm of sensory input that I experienced on a daily basis. I found that creating characters, with unique personalities, and sketching them over and over was cathartic and gave me the escapism that I needed.
2) The process of representing a character visually is one dimension of the process, enjoyable and liberating in itself. But then inserting that character (or characters) into a narrative makes the process, two dimensional. It is the job of the illustrator to combine these to create a visual story; a composition, and that is what makes up the third dimension.
3) I have many younger siblings, and have at times acted as a carer to them. Oftentimes, bringing the characters in their bedtime stories to life by illustrating was not only a sure fire way to calm them and hopefully get them to stop touching me, but also a way that I could bond with them and express my love for them in a way that was tolerable to me (no germ-infested hand-holding or bacterial takeover inducing hugs)


So, this all sounds very involved, but essentially what I am saying is that I enjoy drawing, and it allows me to communicate on my terms.