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Title : Meet The Illustrator: Cate James
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Meet The Illustrator: Cate James
Cate James, author/illustrator, Northern Beaches, Sydney
Describe your illustration style in ten words or fewer.
Contemporary, with a nod to books I grew up with.
What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Wacom tablet and iMac, light box, one million pencils and two sausage dogs
Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
Drawing and screen printing
Name three artists whose work inspires you.
Quentin Blake, Andy Warhol and Jon Klassen
Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
As a printmaker, I would have loved to see Warhol in action at The Factory. His screen prints are part of the reason I studied printmaking for my undergrad degree in Edinburgh. They are iconic and timeless. I was 15 when he died, so I just missed out!
Who or what inspired you to become an illustrator?
I decided to study for a Master's in Illustration ten years after graduating from my printmaking degree. In between, I travelled a lot and spent time in Sydney and worked in catering and events management, which I really didn’t enjoy at all. After moving into a new house, which had space for a studio, it all kind of fell into place and I started to create again. Illustration seemed like the right fit, so I applied to return to Edinburgh College of Art and the rest is history!
Share a photo of your creative workspace or part of the area where you work most often. Talk us through it.
My studio is at the back of my house, looking onto my jungle of a garden. I’m lucky to have enough space to have a drawing desk and a computer desk, and just about enough room for all the books I’ve collected. I used to be a bit of a hoarder, but having packed up my house in Scotland to emigrate to Sydney, that’ll never happen again!
Don’t try to draw like anyone else, or compare yourself to others, just do your own thing. There’ll always be other amazing artists whose work you’ll admire (and be jealous of), that never stops, but however you create is right for you.
Cate James has been a full-time illustrator since 2011. When she’s not drawing for children's books, she likes to find different ways to be an artist. She is a lecturer and technician at UNSW, volunteers at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Westmead, and visits schools to talk about books. Cate has illustrated over fifty books for publishers in Australia, the UK and the US, and was awarded the Penguin Random House Illustrators’ Showcase Award in 2019. Find out what Cate is up to via her Instagram page or check out all her books and get in touch through her website.
I still have too much stuff, but I wouldn’t be without it. I recently used pencils that I’d been saving-for-best since childhood and I’m now 54.
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
I have two favourite parts.
The first is the hardest part of the process – reading the manuscripts and drawing all the images that appear in my head. It’s amazing to look back at the worlds I’ve created for these characters.
What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?
Draw all the time, even if it’s scribbling while you’re watching TV. You never know when you might need some research drawings of the most random thing, and you might just have it in your sketchbook. It also creates and builds confidence in your own style.
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
I have two favourite parts.
The first is the hardest part of the process – reading the manuscripts and drawing all the images that appear in my head. It’s amazing to look back at the worlds I’ve created for these characters.
The second is the easiest part – colouring in the hours and hours of line work I’ve drawn for each book.
What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?
Draw all the time, even if it’s scribbling while you’re watching TV. You never know when you might need some research drawings of the most random thing, and you might just have it in your sketchbook. It also creates and builds confidence in your own style.
Cate James has been a full-time illustrator since 2011. When she’s not drawing for children's books, she likes to find different ways to be an artist. She is a lecturer and technician at UNSW, volunteers at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Westmead, and visits schools to talk about books. Cate has illustrated over fifty books for publishers in Australia, the UK and the US, and was awarded the Penguin Random House Illustrators’ Showcase Award in 2019. Find out what Cate is up to via her Instagram page or check out all her books and get in touch through her website.
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