Rebecca Guthrie

Illustrator: class of 2023

Rebecca Guthrie is an illustrator/writer from England living in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work is bright, humorous, and always starts in the real world, in her sketchbook. A big part of her current practice is focused on finding a place for traditional mediums within digital illustration. She draws inspiration from the work of Alice Provensen, Richard Scarry, and Beatrice Alemagna

Rebecca was mentored by Alison Murray

“Alison has an intuitive understanding of how to make illustrations work in the context of picture books. During our time together she used this ability to point out the elements of my work that were less harmonious and make suggestions on how I could push my illustrations further. At the beginning of the mentorship, I was convinced that I only wanted to work in traditional mediums. Alison encouraged me to expand my work into a digital realm, by creating textures with ink and watercolour and then collaging them into spreads in Photoshop. Alongside this were rolling updates on her own work, and warm, intelligent conversations about topics like child psychology and mental health, and how these could be reflected within through the medium of picture books. Alison was an inspiring mentor, and I’m glad that we had the chance to work together over the course of the mentorship. ”