Australian Illustrators Gallery

Illustrator and Creator

Jess Racklyeft

I’m a children’s book lover, draw-er and reader based in Melbourne, who also creates work for card companies, picture books, original paintings, prints and all types of different client projects. I love watercolours, but getting more and more into combining digital work and tinker with oils, pencils and other bits and bobs I can get my mitts on.

I worked in publishing sales for many years and finally began my dream of working on the creative side of picture books after having kids. I’m a member of Style File, SCBWI and Illustrators Australia’s.

Award-Winning Designer and Illustrator

Briony Stewart

Briony Stewart is an award-winning author and illustrator from Western Australia. She has a double degree in Fine Art and Creative Writing and creates books for children from a studio behind a bookshop in Fremantle. When she’s not writing or drawing, Briony can be found programming projects and art activities for libraries and festivals and attempting to put food into, and pants onto her two young children.

Botanical Artist

Sarah Jane Lightfoot

Sarah Jane Lightfoot is a Melbourne based artist whose work is heavily influenced by the natural world. Her work has featured in publications and multiple group exhibitions. She has taught botanical illustration and watercolour workshops with Work-shop Melbourne, NGV, Creative spark and The Workshop Cafe. Down the Road, Little Bee is Sarah’s first picture book.

Author and Illustrator

Andrew Plant

Andrew is an Australian author and illustrator of over 70 children’s and educational books. He also designs and paints theatre sets and murals.

His first picture book as author/illustrator was Could a Tyrannosaurus Play Table Tennis? He has since illustrated several Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Books – Warambi, Puggle, Spark and Glitch. He also wrote and illustrated the CBCA Notable Book The Poppy. Recent releases as illustrator include Pippa, Tulip and Brutus, Float or Sink? and the soon to be released Good Night, Ivy Bright.

His latest picture book as both author and illustrator is Jump!

Multidisciplinary Artist

Camille Manley

Camille is a multidisciplinary artist, specialising in illustration, murals, visual art and design. Based on Yugambeh land, in the Gold Coast, Australia, Camille drinks too much coffee and spends more time at the beach than she should. Her practice focuses on illustration and painting following twelve years working in the creative industries across graphic design and branding. Goodnight, Toes is Camille’s first picture book.

Illustrator and Artist

Evie Barrow

Evie Barrow is an Australian artist and illustrator, living in Melbourne. In 2019 her first illustrated picture book was published, and since then she has illustrated another five picture books. Along with children’s book work, her illustrations have featured in frankie, Broadsheet and Flow.

Visual Thinker

Cheri Hughes

Cheri Hughes has always known she was an artist. Ever since she was a young girl, her best means of communication was through imagery. Cheri has a knack for drawing you in with her illustrations. She captivates her audience with plenty of emotion, playfulness, and magic. She brings life to characters you will love, and she will lead you into a world you won’t want to leave.

Cheri was born in an American Naval base in Japan. She grew up in both cultures, which has been an essential ingredient to her illustrations. She has been fortunate to experience different cultures worldwide and has settled herself down in Australia, where she enjoys beach life with her beach babies.

She works with publishers such as Penguin and Big Sky Publishing and collaborates with them on many children related projects. She has illustrated seven children’s books with Big Sky Publishing, focusing on children’s wellbeing, Australian culture, and environmental awareness. Cheri is a part of the Bluey phenomenon through Penguin, creating colouring books with children’s favourite characters from the kid’s show, Bluey. Recently she has worked with the Melbourne Convention Bureau in developing animated avatars for their travel conventions. These avatars invite visitors to see the best of Melbourne and the state of Victoria.

Author and Illustrator

Gabriel Evans

Gabriel Evans is a Western Australian children’s book author and illustrator. Working from a small studio near a river, he makes his illustrations using watercolour and pencil. Little One is his first picture book with Affirm Press. Gabriel is an avid tea drinker and sketchbook scribbler.

Artist of Texture and Imagination

Deb Hudson

Deb Hudson is a Victorian illustrator who lives in Melbourne with her husband, three kids, an energetic border collie and a bright yellow canary. She has recently illustrated the Zola series from award-winning author Melina Marchetta. She loves the simple things in life. Her work has been described as whimsical, carrying you off to fantastic places and worlds.

Award-Winning Designer and Illustrator

Astred Hicks

Astred Hicks is an Australian book designer and illustrator whose distinctive work for a number of Australian and International publishing houses covers fiction, non-fiction and educational, with a special emphasis on young adult, children’s and children’s non-fiction.

She has lectured in graphic design and was the lead author of the popular text for tertiary students, ‘Graphic design {Australian style manual}’. She is a previous Vice President of the Australian Book Designers Association (ABDA).

Astred has won a number of book design awards during her 15 year career in publishing. Recently her illustration and design has been shortlisted for the Best Designed Children’s Book award in the 2021 Australian Book Design Awards. In 2020 she won the Best Designed Children’s Non-Fiction Illustrated Book award in the Australian Book Design Awards, as well as being Highly Commended in two other categories. Her illustration work has been shortlisted for a number of awards including for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award 2020 and the Wildlife Society’s Environmental Award for Children’s Literature 2020.

Writer and Illustrator

Nicki Greenberg

Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. Her first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old. She later spent ten years disguised as a lawyer, while maintaining a not-so-secret Other Life as a comics artist and children’s book author. In 2008 Nicki’s innovative graphic adaptation of The Great Gatsby was selected as a White Raven at the Bologna Book Fair. She then went on to tackle Hamlet in a lavish 425-page ‘staging on the page’. Hamlet was joint winner of the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award.

Inspired by her own young children, Nicki now dedicates most of her ink to books for younger readers. Her favourite activity is making books, but when she does manage to tear herself away from the desk Nicki loves to crochet bizarre sea creatures.

Illustrator and Doll-Maker

Cheryl Orsini

Cheryl Orsini taught herself to draw as a little girl. She grew a little taller, studied Visual Communications at UTS and finally, when she could grow no more, she started illustrating children’s books, magazines and decorating a great many peg dolls! Her books include Lucy’s Book, Caravan, The Fairy Dancers and Pom Pom, Where Are You?. Her work also regularly appears in magazines and exhibitions.

Illustrator of "Frankie Goes to Kingergarten"

Marjory Gardner

Marjory Gardner is a freelance children’s book illustrator. Her work has appeared in trade and educational publications within Australia and Internationally. Marjory works traditionally, using felt pens, colour pencils, pen, brush and ink, and occasionally collage. She draws in rainbow colours, and loves to add detail and pattern to create her lively illustrations.

Energetic Visual Storyteller

Aśka

Aśka has illustrated many children’s books, makes comics and is a regular contributor to The School Magazine and other children’s publications.

She believes visual literacy is one of the most important skills in today’s world and she loves projects that explore new ways of communicating and presenting ideas with images.

In her past life, Aśka was a physicist, and she still finds time to share her love of science and explosions with kids big and small.

Illustrator and Graphic Designer

Max Hamilton

Max Hamilton is an award-winning illustrator, graphic designer and most enthusiastically a maker of children’s books. She enjoys noticing the little details in things, loves to get lost in the world of illustration and stories, and through her art aims to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our Australian fauna.

Max lives in Sydney with her partner, two young daughters and a couple of guinea pigs named Dumpling and Noodles.

Picture Book Illustrator

Amy Calautti

Amy has loved to draw from a young age and often made up games based around drawing to entertain her younger brother and cousins. Her artistic talent was noticed when she was accepted into fashion and textile design in high school, and pursued later at TAFE. When she became a mother, she fell in love with picture book illustration, and realised what her true potential could be. Amy has developed a few distinct styles and is always playing with new techniques to expand her repertoire. When Amy’s not doing her favourite thing (illustrating picture books), she’s planning a fun camping trip for her young family or 4WDing on a white sandy beach somewhere in Western Australia.

Children's Book and Wildlife Illustrator

Susannah Crispe

Susannah Crispe is an aspiring illustrator with her debut picture book, Where the Heart Is, being launched in June 2021, and another three picture books to be published over the next 18 months. A life fuelled by travel and a background in zoology show through in Susannah’s watercolour illustrations, which are filled with vibrancy, and a sense of whimsy and wanderlust.

Writer, Illustrator, Crafter

Jo Dabrowski

Jo’s writing career started in advertising in Melbourne and continued across agencies here and in London. Jo and her husband now run a small creative agency from home in Melbourne, where they live with their two boys. Jo loves any sort of crafty activity and is also an avid theatre fan. In another life, she would definitely have played Ado Annie in Oklahoma or at the very least would have been cast as a dancing hay bale in the chorus. Have You Seen My Friend? is her first book.

Illustrator and Book Designer

Cara King

Cara King is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Melbourne, Australia. Cara has been drawing for many years and has illustrated books through EK Books, Captain Honey Publishing, and various self-publishing projects. She works as a graphic designer for some of her week, and gets involved in watercolours and pencils whenever she can.

Illustrator and Educator

Andrew McLean

Andrew Mclean studied at Prahran Technical College and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He taught art to high school students before becoming a teacher of painting and drawing at Chisholm Institute in Caulfield, Victoria. He now works full-time as a painter and illustrator.

Illustrator and Art Therapist

Kirrili Lonergan

Kirrili Lonergan is a picture book illustrator and art therapist residing in Newcastle, NSW. She has a passion for visual storytelling and self-expression through art. She loves sharing her skills with children and relates warmly to their needs through her former years working as a paediatric nurse.

She is the illustrator for the Lessons of a LAC picture book series and the co-creator of the Lessons of a LAC anxiety management package. She was shortlisted for the Speech Pathology of Australia Awards in 2018.