On Thursday
we were thrilled to announce Rachel Stubbs as the winner of this year’s
Sebastian Walker Award for Illustration! The ceremony in London was a lively
occasion and Rachel was delighted to receive her £500 prize, which came as a
complete surprise to her.
Rachel,
who has a BA in illustration from Falmouth and an MA from the Cambridge School of Art, was chosen as the winner because of the “grace of her line, her
keen sense of composition and the simple elegant stories that we saw in her
portfolio”, said our picture book publisher Deirdre McDermott.
”Every
year I look forward to seeing the contents of the portfolios we judge for this
prize – it’s incredibly exciting for Walker to be at the forefront of
discovering brand new illustration talent in the UK and to be a part of the
grassroots support for the artists just starting in the industry,” said
McDermott. “Picture books continue to be vital in the formative days of our
children’s lives and it’s a great honour to continue to build on the strong tradition
for quality publishing from Walker with new talent.”
She
added: “Rachel makes equally strong use of the space around her art – great
illustration is as much about what you leave out as what you put into the picture.
We also particularly admired Rachel’s limited palette and her use of hand drawn
typography.”
We
set up the Sebastian Walker Award for Illustration six years ago, in
partnership with Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge School of Art and their MA course in Children’s Book Illustration, to honour our founder Sebastian Walker. Previous
winners include Heidi Deedman, Becky Palmer and Simona Ciraolo. You can read
all about the award here.
Check
out Rachel Stubbs’ illustrations on her website: http://rachelceliastubbs.com/ and see artwork by the other
entries on the Cambridge MA website: www.cambridgemashow.com.
Look
out for a special feature on The Guardian’s online gallery next Wednesday featuring
a selection of the artwork from the show, including work by Rachel Stubbs!
