Hazel and Friends: Catherine Rayner

About

Catherine's distinctive animals and birds are brought to life by her vivacious and lively style; her speciality is creating a character using only a few strokes of water colour, ink or pencil. Catherine's began story telling at a very young age. 'I grew up in Yorkshire and we were definitely a pet loving family, as I grew up surrounded by animals of all kinds,' she explains.
As well as charming gallery visitors with her silk-screen prints and paintings, Catherine has published around a dozen children's stories, to critical acclaim. She has secured no less than four nominations for the prestigious Kate Greenaway medal, winning the prize in 2009 for 'Harris Finds his Feet'. Her first book 'Augustus and His Smile' has been translated around the world in 32 different languages, and she has recently a released a newly illustrated version of 'Olga the Polga' by Michael Rosen, published by Oxford University Press.
'My love of animals and drawing meant I began drawing animals from a really young age. In fact, not long ago, my mum found some old jotters of mine; they were filled with illustrated stories I'd written about the sausage dog we had when I was little.'
Catherine is a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art, where she trained as an illustrator. Much of this time she spent watching and sketching the tigers at Edinburgh Zoo, eventually completing her first book 'Augustus and His Smile' which won her 'Best New Illustrator Award' in the Book Trust Early Years award in 2006, and one of four of her nominations for the Kate Greenaway prize.

'Often I decide that I'd like to explore a particular animal.' She explains. 'It's all such a blur at the beginning of a book. It feels like the characters then build their own stories as I am drawing them. I watch their personalities develop.'