Jackie Morris
Jackie Morris is an artist and writer. She is well known for her stunning watercolour artworks and loves to walk near her home by the sea, watching and dreaming of bears and whales.
She was born in 1961 in Birmingham and lived there until at the age of four when her family moved to Evesham.
She was inspired to draw from a very early age by her father who used to sketch and take her on outings in nature.
“I remember walking in the park by the river, bank voles and weeping willows and bright flashes of kingfishers. I loved the ferry at Hampton where the ferryman pulled you across the river to a land of fields and blackberries, where my dad would walk with me and show me how to find birds’ nests and tales of when he was a boy.”
She went to school at Prince Henry’s High School, where she was discouraged from drawing and dreaming. Later she went to college, first in Hereford, then to Exeter, where they told her that she would never make it as an illustrator.
Undaunted she escaped to Bath Academy, set in a beautiful stately home in Corsham. The Academy with its peacocks and lawns was a much better creative environment.
After graduation she found work in London as an illustrator for magazine and book publishers.
Over a seven year period she worked for The New Statesman, New Socialist, Independent, Guardian and Radio Times. She also designed cards and calendars for Greenpeace and Amnesty International and fell into children’s books by accident.
Jackie moved to Wales just before starting her first children’s book, Jo’s Storm, by Caroline Pitcher. She has illustrated many books over the years and has successfully authored a growing number herself. She says enjoys the company of animals to people but can be quite sociable on occasion.
She still lives in Pembrokeshire, Wales and works from her home studio.
“I would like a grandfather clock that chimes the hour and has a big key to wind it up. It would sit in my studio and when I have painted for six hours I would get up to make tea and wind back time, because what I need more than anything is more hours in the day.”
Jackie shares her house with Floss and Bella, two odd dogs, and Maurice, Pixie, Elmo, Martha and Max, cats of various colour but mostly ginger.
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Jackie Morris – How I became an illustrator
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