This week's guest is Sarah McMenemy, illustrator to The Busiest Street in Town. Sarah began drawing houses as a teenager around her community when the word spread about her talent! The Busiest Street in Town is a beautiful story of friends making a difference in their neighborhood.
I can remember drawing as a small child. My mother was very good at drawing and I used to try to copy her drawings and was usually quite frustrated with the results. But I kept going!
I find drawing very exciting, I am most often inspired by beautiful architecture, people's faces, or nature.
The illustrators from the Festival of Britain era were my early influences, Edward Ardizzone, John Minton, John Piper. I absorbed their wonderful line work through old children's books and looking at the dust covers of novels on visits to the library with my Grandmother. These days I still love work from that time but I admire the work of contemporary illustrators like Emma Chichester-Clark.
I work with mixed media, gouache paint, black ink and coloured paper collage on watercolour paper.
My favourite colours are prussian blue and venetian red.
The busiest street I've been on is Oxford Street in London.
If I could plant a garden in my neighbourhood it would have plenty of trees in it, silver birches, maples, oaks, robinias. It would also have a wide variety of flowers, it would look like a cottage garden and would be alive with bees, butterflies, birds and squirrels.
My favourite type of cookie is homemade shortbread. Rub 100g of butter into 175g of flour until it becomes breadcrumbs, then add 50g brown sugar. Press the dough into into an 18cm tin and bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 150c.
I have a best friend called Ella. We love to dance together. I dont think we've ever played Parcheesi, I'm afraid.
Teach Well: Check out the post about the author, here.
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