Once upon a time she picked up a book of
fairy tales, a pen and a pot of ink…
Zoe’s love of reading fairy tales and her penchant for an old fashioned dip pen and pot of ink inspire her to create quirky hand drawn illustrations.
Brought up on a small Scottish Croft in rural Aberdeenshire, Zoe has a degree in illustration from Dundee University's renowned Duncan and Jordanstone College of Art. Being cursed with a problematic book obsession (she owns far too many books) lead her to a post grad in Publishing at the University of Plymouth. Following this Zoe worked as an illustrator and book designer at a London book publisher.
Zoe has worked for the last 15 years as an illustrator, and now resides in her studio in the picturesque and inspiring Isle of Wight. She is inspired by island life and endeavours to take the everyday and ordinary and turn it into something even more extraordinary and magical. She also writes her own children's books and you can find out more about these here. You can also subscribe to read installments of her first middlegrade novel here.
When not covered in black ink or with pen in hand, Zoe can most often be found out foraging in the fresh air to find materials to make her own inks and paints. She spends her summers swimming in the sea and is currently learning to freedive. She can often be seen down on the beach with her black lab ‘Wilson’, has her familiar ‘Whisper’ to keep her company in the studio and tootles around the island in her bright yellow Beetle ‘Olive’. You could say she tries to embrace island living and the natural world as much as she possibly can.
Zoe’s most recent clients include Ravensburger and Oxford University Press.