Lizzy Stewart is a brand new illustrator to the Frances Lincoln Children’s Books list and we are delighted to be publishing her book There’s a Tiger in the Garden this April! Lizzy graduated from the Edinburgh College of art and has been working as a freelance illustrator ever since then. Today we are delighted to give you an exclusive interview with her about her work.
How did your career in illustration start?
I went to Edinburgh University to study Fine Art. I’d wanted to be a painter since I was ten. I was adamant that that’s what I’d be. But when I got there something happened to my work. I stopped wanting to paint giant canvases and started working in sketchbooks and on small scraps of paper. Everything I was enjoying making was small and drawn. Eventually I realised that illustration was what I should be doing and I changed courses and that was that. In retrospect I think I’d been an illustrator all along I just didn’t know, at the time, that illustration was even a thing!
Whilst studying I was fortunate to work with a couple of Edinburgh heroes- Analogue Books and Tracer Trails (a gig promoter). The work I made for the Analogue shop and for gig posters formed the backbone of my portfolio and meant I met people who would later become my clients. I also started blogging whilst I was at Uni which was something not many illustrations students did at the time. As a result I think my work got seen by lots of people before I’d graduated and that familiarity made it easier to get work once I became a freelancer.
Do you have a favourite part of the creative process?
Usually about twenty minutes into starting an illustration, for me, that’s the golden moment. You’ve stopped stressing about what its going to be but you’re not close enough to the end to be getting impatient. Usually by this point you’ve stopped thinking altogether and you’re completely lost in your work. It’s so great.
Can you tell us about the things that most inspire your work?
I don’t know… I get asked this a lot and there’s no answer really. I think, as a rule, creative people are greedy, we consume books and music and film in high volumes and that contributes to our work, of course it does. But its hard to pinpoint, at any given moment, where an influence has come from as it has usually merged with all the other stuff going on in your head. So a drawing might come from a song I’ve heard, something by Withered Hand or Karen Dalton perhaps, but it also comes from the mood I was in when I woke up that morning, the weather, who I’ve been speaking to that previous day.
Actually! Saying all that. I can pin-point one influence on the book. Charlie Chalk! I used to love the Charlie Chalk animations when I was young, they were bright and bold and a bit strange and all the plants and trees on the island were slightly odd. When I was painting a big jungle-filled page I suddenly thought of Charlie Chalk and realised that he’d probably been a quiet influence on the look of the garden.
What was your favourite part in creating your book – writing the story, completing the illustrations or something else entirely?
Probably the pictures. It has to be the pictures really doesn’t it? They were pretty much all really fun to draw and colour and I liked getting being able to hide small details in amongst the busy images. I also enjoyed making all the butterflies and dragonflies. They’re cut out of the bit of paper I wipe my brush on when I paint so they’re all bright and splashy!
What is on your drawing board at the moment?
Right now its my headphones and a coffee cup because I’ve folded my drawing board down and its serving as an extra desk. What should be on it is a comic I’m working on a for a magazine and some sketches for an activity book. But I’m procrastinating wildly this morning!
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
I don’t know! I think having the ‘There’s a tiger in the garden’ available in book shops will be pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to that. There’ve been a few good bits though. I did a poster for Daniel Kitson’s play ‘Tree’ that was blown up HUGE on the front side of the Old Vic Theatre, that was pretty cool. My parents like that a lot. Parents like it when work is made big, I think!
Author / Illustrator: Lizzy Stewart
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
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