An interview (and *ahem* art critique) with illustrator Lisbeth Zwerger

Last week I had the honour of meeting, for the second time, one of the world’s most acclaimed artists, Lisbeth Zwerger. I don’t have much of a memory of our first meeting as I was about five and only really interested in the fact that she gave me a present – a copy of The Nutcracker… that she had illustrated! The perks of having an illustrator as a friend of the family!

Lisbeth has been illustrating the Classics, like Grimm & Andersen fairy tales, for over 30 years and has won multiple awards including the coveted Hans Christian Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award and is currently nominated for the prestigious Astrid Lingren Award - it’s like the Oscar of the childrens’ literature scene.

She’s in Perth on a whirlwind holiday after attending the opening of her latest exhibition in Taiwan where she shook hands with hundreds of devoted fans and signed all their books, no doubt getting a serious case of “autograph-signers-cramp”. And if you’re going to suffer from that, best you do it in a Louis Vuitton store, no? Makes the pain go away much quicker.

I had the opportunity for a tongue-in-cheek interview with Lisbeth, and considering she’s famous and used to actual reporters interviewing her, I was most impressed that she agreed… particularly since it actually just turned in to a bit of a chat since my interview skills are null and void.

Clockwise from top: Image from The Little Mermaid, Lisbeth trying not to laugh at my art, signing the giveaway book,
a selection of Lisbeth's books, the giveaway book, the Louis Vuitton store signing, signature inside the book,

We laughed about how her favourite thing to draw when she was little was princesses so it was only fitting she go on to illustrate books with princesses, goblins and giants and whatnot. Shows extreme dedication to all things magical, I think!

I asked her advice about keeping Tricky’s “works of art” since I will have them coming out of my ears soon. With a sage nod she suggested relying heavily on the grandparents and their fridge. Clever woman indeed! Sadly not many of her early drawings survived, I suppose because every parent thinks their child is super talented but you don’t actually envision them becoming an uber famous artist! Plus eBay didn’t exist then.

On words of wisdom for up and coming illustrators, she had this recommendation: “Believe in yourself but stay self critical”.

But it was time to get on to the serious business of getting my own “illustration” (and I use that term really loosely) critiqued, after a suggestion from Blundermum. I handed my art work over and, bless her, she tried her hardest not to laugh.

I'm gonna put this on eBay "as critiqued by Lisbeth Zwerger"!

Lisbeth described my work as bold and purposeful, with no hesitation in the strokes, and abstract, yet understandable. I think I’m going to use that as my new tag line, it’s the best thing anyone has ever said about me!

Lisbeth is currently working on “Leonce and Lena” to help celebrate author Georg Buechner’s 200th birthday (happy birthday, dude), and her works are available for purchase at www.minedition.com, www.amazon.com or childscapes.com/bookpages/zwerger.html or through your favourite book shop. Signed prints are available through www.minedition.com and www.illustrationcupboard.com.

Lisbeth has kindly donated a signed copy of her award winning book “Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales” for one lucky reader to win.

To enter, use the form below to tell me your favourite story when you were growing up or the one you love reading to your children now.


*For full terms and conditions please see here
*This is not sponsored in any way, Lisbeth is a friend of the family and on hearing from my aunty that I had a blog, decided that it might be fun to be on it!

How to make your own crayon shapes

I've been getting in to the whole arts and crafts thing a lot more lately as Tricks has shown he's quite a crafty little bugger. By that I mean he likes to scribble with crayons, make splodges with paint and stick things with glue. General toddler stuff here, as much as his grandparents think otherwise, he ain't no prodigy.

He has fun, does all that fine motor whatsits at the same time and I get some time in the day that isn't filled with car, truck and train noises. Win, win!

When I was mid-giant clean out and desperate for another form of procrastination project, I found a stack of left over crayons I'd used for an earlier crayon art project and decided to get busy and create Lego Crayons!

Tricky loves them but right now he prefers to play with them rather than draw and gets a bit cranky that they don't stack like normal Lego blocks.

I used Crayola crayons for this lot and cheaper crayons for a second batch I made and the difference was huge. It became really obvious that the cheaper variety had a lot of clear wax which all rose to the top leaving the pigmented wax at the bottom. The resulting ombre colour effect looked cool but the consistency was terrible.

These would be great as a stocking filler for that C-word day in December and even better as a goodie bag after a Lego themed party.

And before you ask, the moulds were from eBay.

Are you arty farty?

How to completely suck at being a craft blogger

1. Find craft rather annoying
I don't do craft. Which is strange because I've always been slightly quirky and creative (read: weird). I see things and somehow know how they're put together and can recreate them... if I could be bothered. Most of the time, I have no inclination to flex my creative muscles. I see crafty things and I immediately think it's a boring, energy sapping, messy, waste of time (do not get me started on scrapbooking, I just don't understand it). Time I could spend doing much more productive things like faffing around on Twitter for example.

2. Be confused by Pinterest
I also don't do Pinterest (unless I'm trying to keep tattoo ideas in one place) and have no idea what it means to follow someone on Pinterest or how on earth I have so many followers and how people say they could get lost for hours 'pinning'. I can't even link you to my page here because I HAVE NO IDEA which page is mine.

3. Don't own any craft supplies
Because I reserve the right to completely contradict myself, the other day I looked at Pinterest, saw an image and thought I MUST DO THAT! I was so inspired by the simplicity that I was just itching to give it a whirl so I ran out and bought some high quality supplies from the Reject Shop because if I screwed it up I didn't want to be out of pocket by much.

3. Burn yourself terribly and scream so loudly the neigbours hear
I'm now the proud owner of a glue gun and some serious welts to match - who knew that what goes in the chamber leaks out when you turn it upside down, hey? Gravity, you are a bitch! Also, when you spill melted wax all over yourself there is NOTHING you can do other than wait for it to cool down. On the upside, I can now go on a crime spree without fear of repercussions because I no longer have fingerprints.

4. Forget to take photos so there is no step by step instructions
I did have my camera next to me, I promise. But having hands dripping in melted wax meant there was bugger all chance of me picking it up.

So what the hell did I make??? Well I got these:

Ran them through this:

And got this:

 And this:

So, how do you make your own drippy, waxy, fingerprint destroying rainbow canvas? Easy: a) unwrap crayons, b) shove crayon in glue chamber, c) push through with your thumb and then the nearest pokey-thing you can grab such as a chopstick, d) burn the shit out of your hand, e) splatter wax on your kitchen bench, f) marvel at how freaking cool the finished product looks and how awesome you are, g) go and pin your own images!

Are you crafty? Or is the only craft you're interested in a movie with a whiney Neve Campbell?