Jill Calder
Illustrator: mentor in 2023
Jill Calder is an award winning illustrator with a passion for colour, ink, paper and pixels. Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1991, Jill’s work has taken her around the world, most recently to Pakistan and Sri Lanka with the British Council’s Drawing Words exhibition of British picture book illustrators. Her book illustrations include Robert the Bruce, King of Scots by James Robertson, What is Poetry? by Michael Rosen and The Sea by Miranda Krestovnikoff. Jill is currently working on two beautiful picture books due to be published in 2025.
“I absolutely loved working with Aline! She immediately presented me with several story ideas from her sketchbooks, showing me her love of Brazilian folk art and risograph print techniques. So, we set about choosing the best story to develop and transform into a complete dummy book. We also worked on how best to present all her other ideas to editors and agents, which she did very successfully on a solo trip to Bologna Book Fair in April. Aline has a great visual instinct and natural storytelling abilities so, for me, it was just a question of gently nudging her into the fun fast lane of creating beautiful, funny and thought provoking children’s books! It was a genuine pleasure to help her bring ‘Catch of The Day’ to life and I have every confidence we’ll be seeing her picturebooks in bookshops and libraries around the world very soon! Muito obrigado Aline!”
