Letraset - Creative Opportunities - Design Contributor

Freelance Illustrator - Claire Murray


Profile: I am a freelance illustrator living in Edinburgh, Scotland. My style is quite bold and colourful and I use Letraset pens almost exclusively. I am involved in children’s illustration, although I am currently working on a website about baking so I have been drawing a lot of cakes and other yummy things. I did my Standard Grade and Higher Art courses at school, then a 4 year degree at Edinburgh College of Art specialising in Illustration where I graduated in 2006. I have always enjoyed drawing- I hated colouring in books because they meant you couldn’t draw for yourself! It did take a while at college to figure out which discipline suited me best. I considered furniture making and graphic design before I realised that Illustration was the right fit.
	In my last year at the Edinburgh College of Art, a friend of mine was using ProMarkers in her Fine Art course for life drawing and I loved the bold look they gave and immediately went and bought a handful from the college shop. I use both the ProMarkers and the Tria pens for my work as they are so clean and precise; I hate faffing about with paints and charcoals and anything messy like that, so getting such amazing colours just by pulling off a pen cap is wonderful. I also like the way that you can achieve large areas of solid colour without the ‘colouring in’ lines you get with water based pens- in fact the colour can be so even, that a tutor once asked me if I had used Photoshop to colour an image! They also don’t scrub away the paper when you go over and over the same area like felt-tips can, and they blend wonderfully. They also last ages, the colours are brilliant and they are refillable, so good for the environment. I can’t imagine using anything else.
Top Tips: A good bit of advice is to always remember to put the cap back on, and don’t lend them to your friends as they will fall in love with them, and you will never see them again! I would also invest in a full range of greys as they are handy for shading over other colours to add depth and contrast (in the drawing of the Purple bag I used warm greys for the sides.). The blender pen is also handy, you can use it like an eraser if you make a mistake or use it as a base (like a water wash before using watercolours) for other colours to bleed out from. Experimenting with different papers is vital for getting the right ‘look’. I got frustrated the first time I used ProMarkers for illustrating with as they bled and looked really messy on my sketch book paper, but I bought proper paper and the difference was amazing- my drawings looked so professional! However, I also used rougher pastel coloured paper for my life drawing classes, as bright white smooth paper made the nudes too stark. Claire Murray 2008 http://clairemurray.co.uk