helen merrin

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I love MAKING images. 

 

I love earning the image.

 

I love a sawdust patina on my hands. I love sweet, boiled linseed in my nose. I love rolling a buttery kiss of ink. I love slicing card and chopping paper. I love sticking a thousand wooden shapes. I love the long way round. I love work.

 

I’ve a degree and an MA in Printmaking, a postgraduate diploma in Theatre Design and an MA in Children's Book Illustration. I’ve studied pattern cutting, tailoring, garment manufacture and feltmaking. I’ve designed for dance in Finland, carved snow in Russia and shown prints in London. I’ve spent almost three decades teaching in further, higher and postgraduate education with a full heart and heaps of gumption. 

 

I’m featured in An Engraver’s Globe (S.Brett), Making and Drawing (K.Cane) and Children's Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling (M.Salisbury + M.Styles). I’ve won awards from the Arts Council, the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, the Djanogly Award and NottDance. I have been Highly Commended at the Cheltenham Illustration Awards twice and shortlisted for The Pushkin Press Illustration Award. I am published by David Fickling Books, Edinburgh University Press and University of Bamberg Press.

 

I am having the time of my life.