Christine Pym is an illustrator, mainly of picture books. ‘Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense’ – Usborne Publishing earlier this year, and ‘The Tail of the Whale’ – Meadowside Books in 2008
Also ‘Chicken Licken’ – Oxford University Press in 2011.
She studied Illustration for Children’s Publishing at the North East Wales School of Art and Design and has been working professionally since she left in 2006.
Christine loves books, folk art, old things, wildlife watching and walks in the countryside. These are all inspirations for her work, especially birdlife.
This garden bird series are fab, I like their staring eyes and spindly little stick legs.
Christine lives at the Post Office and General Store which she helps run with her partner in a lovely, little village in Staffordshire. Working at the tiniest old writing desk, I’ve seen in a long time… somehow very Bagpuss !
I’m loving this peddling pooch and enthusiastic elephant.
Clients include Usborne Publishing, Oxford University Press, Meadowside Books, Djeco, Wilson and Frenchy, A-Productions, American Greetings and Roger la Borde. Did I mention that she also loves Bears and Foxes too ?
Even dancing bears will do !
More foxes Yay : )
I think this smiley fox in his bowler and scarf looks very dapper !
I tracked Christine down and asked her a few questions for the Fishink Blog readers.
Which other artists’ work makes you smile, gasp or indeed despair ?
Ha, there are so many! I love the work of Mark Hearld and Emily Sutton. Their illustrations have so much life and energy. I also like the work of Benjamin Chaud and Marc Boutavant too. ‘The day no one was angry’ which is illustrated by Marc Boutavant is the latest addition to my bookcase, it is such a beautiful book.
How do you choose to spend your work time, what’s considered a typical day for you ?
I have a few projects on the go at the moment so each day I’m either drawing or painting. I try my best to keep to a 9 to 5 day but my process takes a long time so it’s very rare that I stick to this! However, I am lucky to work above a shop so I have an unlimited supply of good coffee and cake that keeps me going just nicely!
Do you work on the computer or mostly with watercolours and pencils ?
I work with Watercolour and Gouache now. I love print and I’m currently experimenting with this too. I only use the computer to scan really, I find that myself and technology don’t get on all that well!
What gives you the most pleasure, subject wise ?
I love drawing animals, woodland ones especially.
Future projects and books to come , can you give us some tantalising tasters ?
Only just last week I received some very exciting news but unfortunately I can not say any more on that at the moment! I have a new book with Usborne which is due to be published in May 2015 and I have been working on some ‘non book’ projects too which has been really fun to do.
What do you most and least like about your chosen profession ?
I love the randomness of the projects. Everyday I am working on something different. The only thing I sometimes wish for is a little more time to fully research and source inspiration. Some projects are incredibly fast paced!
How did your lovely foxes and bears on bikes come to be ?
They are actually from a story I wrote myself a few years ago. They’re taking a break at the moment whilst I work on other projects but I am hoping to wheel them out again soon.
Any thoughts for people wanting to write books themselves?
Up to now I have only had my illustrations published but I have been writing in my spare time for a while. It is only recently that I’ve made progress with this and so my advice would be to stick at it! Don’t dwell on rejection, let it make you work harder. I found great advice and helpful tips on Michelle Robinson’s blog, I would highly recommend any aspiring authors to stop by there and take a look.
Many thanks Christine for your replies and information, great to hear there’s more (albeit secret) things afoot for 2015, we’ll await with baited breath : )
Good luck with everything until then and readers do let me know your thoughts on Christine’s work too. There’s still 2 days where you can help by voting for my blog, it takes a minute to do, please visit
here, Many thanks.
Like this:
Like Loading...
fishinkblog.com 
Reblogged this on Craig Cameron and commented:
wonderful illustrations!!