The Eye Creative Preview

Clearly born to collage, surprisingly, Alice has only been illustrating full-time for just over a year. Before that she supported herself by working part-time and smashing out collage commissions for anyone who wanted them.

Since signing with The Jacky Winter Agency in October 2017 though (which has bases in Melbourne and New York – a pretty big deal in itself), Alice has worked with Quarto Publishing, Little Hare Books, Hardie Grant,

T2, Bravery Magazine, American Public Media, and ABC Radio National.

Plus, her ‘leafy collage’ design was recently blown up for ECO D in Hawthorn and is now plastered over their walls and windows nationwide, something which she got a huge buzz from.

It’s finishing her first picture book ‘A Stage Full of Shakespeare’ that’s been her biggest achievement though – a funny, olde-worlde plethora of Shakespearian characters and stories.

“Finishing the book was a really huge achievement for me. It was my first picture book and it was an honour to be asked to illustrate iconic scenes from some of Shakespeare’s bestknown plays.

“It was also a lot of illustrations! The book will be published in September so I’m really excited to see it out in the world!”

Alice’s work can flit from intricately delicate to simple and linear – her repeating pastoral patterns for a wallpaper design appear bold and neat, yet her illustrations and collages that include more characters, action scenes, and landscapes, express a fine tuning and the ability to retain a steady hand amidst a busy backdrop.

All this culminates in a portfolio of work that conveys to admirers and consumers that collage, like a lot of art, isn’t just one dimensional.

But how does she do it? For many illustrators, a blank canvas would be the obvious first choice, but for Alice, she begins by painting a hell of a lot of paper.

“I try and create different textures and a diverse range of patterns, tones and hues.

“I work surrounded by paper – I have piles of paper everywhere! I have a pile for green, yellow, red, and so forth, and I’ll pull out a sheet of paper as I go.

“Next, I plan the collage by sketching it out, either on paper or on an iPad. When I’m happy with the sketch I translate it into collage, tracing each shape and then cutting out the corresponding shape onto a coloured sheet of paper.”

If all that sounds like a huge task, then believe her when she says it really is!