Interview by Rachel Moffat

We recently sat down with Lisa Hunt and spoke all about her passion for illustration, creative process, inspirations and advice. Read our conversation below.

From an early age Lisa developed a love for drawing and would stay up at night as late as possible scribbling in her sketchbooks. Fast forward to the present day, and she still stays up at night as late as possible scribbling in her sketchbooks. When not at her desk, Lisa can usually be found in the local coffee shop happily eating carrot cake, or sat on the staircase at home waggling a bit of string at an over-excitable ginger cat.

Lisa’s Agent Lucie Luddington commented:

“Lisa is an absolute dream to work with professional, prompt, fun and with flair she covers all bases. She brings anyone she works with joy.”

What are your first memories of art?

Like many other ‘only children’, pencil and paper soon became my best friends. My parents were always making sure I wasn’t bored, so if we were not out and about doing things together I would be sitting in front of the TV with a jumbo drawing pad and a box of crayons. Also, my dad is very good at drawing so I was lucky to have my own art teacher at home. Every Christmas I would get lots of drawing sets and a box of those Crayola crayons with the special gold, silver and bronze colours and the sharpener in the back. Life made, right there!

Where are you from and how does that affect your work?

I’m from Bridlington, a seaside town on the East Yorkshire coast. I have many lovely childhood memories of growing up there. It’s these magical memories and funny experiences that influence a lot of my personal work.

How do you translate your ideas to the page?

The first thing I do is plan out how much time I have for each stage of the project. Then I’ll start making very small roughs in my sketchbook. I’m also joined at the hip to my iPad, so I use that for a lot of my initial thoughts and ideas too. I like to do this while I’m watching TV. In that way I’m not putting too much pressure on myself and I seem to work better. (Those childhood habits are deep rooted!) Once I’m happy with my ideas, I’ll collect all my sketches and pull them together on the computer using Photoshop. Sketching is my favourite part. Once the sketches have been approved, I’ll usually play around with colours for a bit. This has always been the stage that takes the most time for me. When I was just starting out, I would finish one page completely and then move on to the next. I learnt quite quickly that it’s best to work in stages, lay base colours down and then, once happy with how it’s looking, go back around and work on the details and shading.

What is an average day in the studio like for you at the moment?

I’m naturally a night owl and more creative and focused at night, so I start my work a little later in the day. I work from a cosy room with my desk next to a window overlooking the garden (good for keeping an eye on our cat). I usually work from lunch time until 6pm, have dinner and catch up on programmes with my other half, then work again from 10pm until 2am. If deadlines are looming or I’m juggling lots of projects at once, I work until early morning. I see a lot of sunrises!

To an aspiring artist, what’s one piece of advice you would give?

Keep developing your work and never give up. Keep setting yourself deadlines too, as this will be helpful for when the projects start to come in.

What’s your dream project?

I have a few! I think I’d love to illustrate something about funny monsters or witches. I’ve been drawing a lot of animals recently though, which I’ve loved, so maybe, right now, anything involving an octopus or a monkey. A naughty one!

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To work with Lisa, get in contact with her agent Lucie Luddington here.