Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Many-layered photographic montage, often using silhouettes and natural elements.
What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Practically speaking, a camera, lightbox, computer with a Wacom tablet, and a very organised digital filing system. Also coffee, then herbal tea (always, with a different flavour every cup I make), a window to stare out of, and the floor-to-ceiling very full bookshelves that surround me on two sides like a looming papery hug. And my dog, who makes sure I go out into the bush every day to look for interesting leaves and mushrooms.
Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I’ve always been a photographer, and photography is what I use exclusively for my illustrations. Though occasionally a few hand drawn elements are creeping in, especially in my upcoming junior fiction book Leaf Letters.
Name three artists whose work inspires you.
My early photographic work was deeply inspired by Modernist photographers like Tina Modotti, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. That attention to light and form still informs a lot of my illustration work now.
Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
Ooh, the very beginnings of photography would be so much fun. I could hang out with Anna Atkins and make cyanotypes of seaweed with her, or experience the magic of coating glass sheets in silver and watching images appear on them! Imagine how magical it must have felt seeing reality transposed like that for the first time! To be painting with light and silver and glass - it must have felt like magic.
Who or what inspired you to become an illustrator?
I spent my childhood surrounded by art and books, so it’s not a great leap to find myself making them now. I was an exhibiting photographer for a long time, before I met Kate Forsyth and we discovered that we’d been working on the same project separately: I was looking for fairy tales with active female characters to create artworks around, and she was doing exactly the same, but retelling them. We couldn’t not create a book together! And when I look back at the artworks I was creating, I was already an illustrator. Just one without a writer.
Can you share a photo of your creative work space or part of the area where you work most often? Talk us through it.
My creative space doesn’t look very exciting from the outside. A computer with a Wacom tablet, requisite tea, and a wall of books. But it’s comfy, warm, and all the creative stuff happens on screen and in my head.
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
It’s always the beginning of a project when ideas are still fizzing and bubbling in my head. Then when they work out just how I imagined — or even better, when they surprise me — it’s extraordinarily satisfying. To have created some new and good is the most incredible feeling in the world.
What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?
Network. And yes I know. We’re introverts. The last thing we want to do is talk to people and try and convince them how brilliant we are. I will do anything to avoid being invited to a wedding or a birthday party. But almost every opportunity that has landed in front of me has been through making connections with other people in the industry. And it’s not about ‘who you know’. It’s about being part of a community, supporting and cheering on your peers, showing yourself to be a friendly and reliable person to work with, and having a trusted network of people to share successes and frustrations and advice with. Generally, be a good citizen in the industry.
Lorena Carrington is an illustrator and writer whose many books have been published in Australia and internationally. She is known in Australia for her illustration work in the field of fairy tales and picture books, and she also writes for children. She received the 2020 Australian Fairy Tale Society award, and was granted a May Gibbs Creative Time Fellowship in 2023. Her picture book Satin, with Sophie Masson, is a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book for 2024.
Her most recent book is the junior fiction novel Leaf Letters.
For more information, please visit Lorena's website or follow her on instagram.
I’ve always been a photographer, and photography is what I use exclusively for my illustrations. Though occasionally a few hand drawn elements are creeping in, especially in my upcoming junior fiction book Leaf Letters.
Name three artists whose work inspires you.
My early photographic work was deeply inspired by Modernist photographers like Tina Modotti, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. That attention to light and form still informs a lot of my illustration work now.
For my fairy tale work, it’s no surprise that I’m very much influenced by the Golden Age Fairy Tale illustrators. Arthur Rackham would be an obvious name to throw out, given his use of sillhouettes, but I also adore the work of Virginia Frances Sterrett. Her rich colour palette and graphic yet dreamlike style is wonderful.
And our styles are miles away from each other, but I loved Bill Peet as a kid, and I still do. His books have so much heart and poignancy, and a lovely gentle sense of humour too.
Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
Ooh, the very beginnings of photography would be so much fun. I could hang out with Anna Atkins and make cyanotypes of seaweed with her, or experience the magic of coating glass sheets in silver and watching images appear on them! Imagine how magical it must have felt seeing reality transposed like that for the first time! To be painting with light and silver and glass - it must have felt like magic.
Who or what inspired you to become an illustrator?
I spent my childhood surrounded by art and books, so it’s not a great leap to find myself making them now. I was an exhibiting photographer for a long time, before I met Kate Forsyth and we discovered that we’d been working on the same project separately: I was looking for fairy tales with active female characters to create artworks around, and she was doing exactly the same, but retelling them. We couldn’t not create a book together! And when I look back at the artworks I was creating, I was already an illustrator. Just one without a writer.
Can you share a photo of your creative work space or part of the area where you work most often? Talk us through it.
My creative space doesn’t look very exciting from the outside. A computer with a Wacom tablet, requisite tea, and a wall of books. But it’s comfy, warm, and all the creative stuff happens on screen and in my head.
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
It’s always the beginning of a project when ideas are still fizzing and bubbling in my head. Then when they work out just how I imagined — or even better, when they surprise me — it’s extraordinarily satisfying. To have created some new and good is the most incredible feeling in the world.
The opposite end of that scale is the final stage. The fiddly details, dealing with colour profiles, worrying about things you’ve missed. My very least favourite part is the wait between approving a final file to send to print, and seeing the print copy. It’s excruciating!
What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?
Network. And yes I know. We’re introverts. The last thing we want to do is talk to people and try and convince them how brilliant we are. I will do anything to avoid being invited to a wedding or a birthday party. But almost every opportunity that has landed in front of me has been through making connections with other people in the industry. And it’s not about ‘who you know’. It’s about being part of a community, supporting and cheering on your peers, showing yourself to be a friendly and reliable person to work with, and having a trusted network of people to share successes and frustrations and advice with. Generally, be a good citizen in the industry.
And of course, practice your craft. A lot. Experiment and play. And never be afraid to try new things, because if they don’t work out, no one else ever needs to see them!
Lorena Carrington is an illustrator and writer whose many books have been published in Australia and internationally. She is known in Australia for her illustration work in the field of fairy tales and picture books, and she also writes for children. She received the 2020 Australian Fairy Tale Society award, and was granted a May Gibbs Creative Time Fellowship in 2023. Her picture book Satin, with Sophie Masson, is a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book for 2024.
Her most recent book is the junior fiction novel Leaf Letters.
For more information, please visit Lorena's website or follow her on instagram.
