Episode 11: Realism, Imagination and Illustrating for Children with Maddie Egremont
Illustrator Maddie Egremont shares about illustrating for different audiences, getting her works out to the world and staying true to her style.
Maddie Egremont is a UK born, Sydney based freelance artist and illustrator. Maddie started to use art as a form of self-expression and a medium to communicate with her autistic brother. Her urban inspired works are often vibrant and colourful.
Friendly Floatees
In 1992, a cargo ship container was washed overboard during a storm, dumping 28,000 rubber ducks and other bath toys into the Pacific Ocean. These bath toys were scattered across the ocean. Some washed up on the Alaskan coast while others were found in Australia and Europe. Some even found their way to the Arctic ice and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean years after.
The illustration was commissioned for EYEYAH!’s Sea Issue, and featured as an artwork and installation at The Sea Show.
“I really loved the playful nature of the brief and how it was a really fun and interesting scene to illustrate.”
Once Upon a Pancake
Once Upon a Pancake is a series of illustrated books that start off with an introduction and leave the rest of the story to the imagination of their young readers.
“Children’s imagination is wonderful, it can go off on so many different tangents, which you wouldn't even have thought of yourself.”
Find out more about the series here.
Approach to Illustrations Aimed at Children
Maddie’s vibrant and colourful style naturally appeals to children. When Maddie showed her portfolio to agents re. illustrating for children, she was told the faces on her “characters were too scary. “
Upon reflection, Maddie believes that, “kids can handle a lot more than adults sometimes give them credit for. Also when thinking of more classic illustrations, characters often were drawn with a much darker edge and I remember loving and being inspired by these as a child. Different art styles, character types and narratives I hope would inspire and help fuel kids' own creativity and spark interest to create for themselves.”
“But this is an interesting question to address as an illustrator, if you're asked to adapt your style from agents or clients, do you do so? Do you change how your artwork looks for different age groups and should that be a thing? Hmmm, it's tricky, I'd have to admit that from feedback I've had over the years sometimes I do (my faces aren't as scary as they use to be) and sometimes I'm not so flexible. With the different age groups, I love artwork that can appeal to all both adults and kids and agree we shouldn't be so sensitive to what we think kids can handle, I think overall not dumbing down to children is important.”
Giving Children the Freedom to Develop their Style
“My brother is autistic and also enjoys drawing. As a kid, he loved to draw churches (he was interested in the buildings) and he was really good at it. By around 7, his drawings had perspective, wonderful detail and he drew them all from memory, it was very impressive! However, when attending a new school, my parents started to notice that he wasn't drawing churches as much and they asked the school about this. They were told that he had been drawing graveyards and they were steering him away from this as they found it disturbing. Over time he lost this skill and to this day doesn't draw churches anymore. To me, this definitely was so wrong and awful that he wasn't encouraged with his drawings and instead his natural talent was stifled. I think it's so important, especially for kids and their creativity to be encouraged and not limited by adults, creativity should be celebrated not suppressed.”
Recommendations
Maddie enjoys watching animations from Cartoon Saloon.
Here are some of the animated films she recommends:
Jim Hanson’s television characters were a big part of Maddie’s Childhood, and some of these shows are still ongoing.
Maddie also enjoys reading Neil Gaiman’s books and also recommends checking out the work of Broken Fingaz.
More from Maddie Egremont
