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A splash of inspiration Q&A with illustrator Karen hull
What is your background and how you first got into illustration/what was your big break?
Karen Hull is a talented artist and illustrator working from her home in the Sydney suburbs. With a keen eye for detail, her work possess a quirkiness and realism that is hard to miss. Karen works in a number of mediums both traditional and digital to achieve these results. She has won a number of competitions and is a published illustrator. Continue reading to find out a little more about Karen, her work process and how she got where she is today.
Originally, I was a Registered Nurse for 25 years and I took up art as a hobby about 5 years ago. From there, I started to win awards, got asked by people to do commissions and created my own website. As interest in my art grew, I found that I was spending more and more time on art and so with the encouragement of my husband, I decided to leave nursing and pursue art as a career – that was three and a half years ago. I love drawing anthropomorphised animals and many people said to me that my art would be great in children’s picture books and so I contacted Illustrator’s Australia and set up a portfolio. From this site, I have picked up quite a bit of illustration work over the last few years, including several commissions by the Coin Club of Australia to
draw commemorative coins, some advertising illustrations and then in September last year I was contacted by Hachette Australia and asked to illustrate a children’s picture book Let’s Count Kisses which was published and is now available in shops from May this year. Has your style of illustrating changed much since you first started out? If so, what was the catalyst for this? My style really hasn’t changed at all – it tends to be quite realistic with a touch of quirkiness. I would like to be much freer in my drawing and illustration work, but have probably come into this career a little late in life to make any radical changes to my style. What is your work process like for completing illustration work? The first step is to research the job and get a feel for what the client is after. As much as possible, I try to use my own reference photos. After studying all