Kerry Dilks. Critical studies. Guest speaker.


www.kerrydilksillustration.com 



author and illustrator 

Kerry shared with us that she had shown creative sights from an early age and had a arty upbringing. Living in Iilkston, Derbyshire all her live and loving her location. Growing up she studied media studies at royal Holloway but did not enjoy it and felt as though the wrong path had been chosen. Kerry then chose a art foundation course and found this really enjoyable and welcoming. Kerry was being encouraged by a tutor there to take a look at illustration and she took a big interest in this. Finding inspiration in children's books and looking at artists such as Judith Kerr, Shirley Hughes, Raymond briggs. She then joined a illustration course at Derby university but left disappointed and continued to work on her own portfolio. Kerry used Gofundme to make money for her first self published book called `The greatest cake` and from then on has made 3 other books. Kerry is a children`s picture book illustration`s and her work unfolds themes of friendships, family, imagination, connection and creativity. She brought along some of her books she has created to show us of the type of illustration she creates. I was handed a book to take a look at and at first glance it is understandably quite colourful and radiates an old school pencil sketchbook style quite like the old familiar, nostalgic childhood sentimental vibes. They are like something my Grandmother would have read to me. Kerry spoke about her feelings throughout her journey developing the books, feeling she has learnt the importance of story telling for children, balancing text and illustration all together. Kerry shared some advice and directions on where to go if this was something we were interested in. For example, make good use of all free marketing tools online such as Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram or Pinterest. Etsy is also a good platform to sell work Kerrys says. Always tell the public what you are doing and when things will be released. Join local events to get the word of mouth out there. 


 

Kerrys style is not particularly interesting to me personally. Stick figures on a front page would not grab my attention. She uses watercolours, pencil, crayon and fine liner pens. Children's illustration is not for me.

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