All items by Paynes Grey Art Shop - Illustrations

Illustrator and writer - offering a collection of whimsical gothic greeting cards, prints, postcards & illustrations.

Alison Rasmussen – Paynes Grey Illustration
I’m a self-taught illustrator who also loves to write. I create fantasy creatures and whimsical gothic art, and I am writing a ghost story where lots of my characters go to play. I’ve illustrated children’s stories and a zombie story, and now I am illustrating my own just for fun. In doing so it has opened up a wonderful world of opportunity as I am getting the chance to really bring them all to life. And for ghosts, that’s quite a big deal!
I work with traditional media - mainly graphite, soft pastels, and coloured pencil. As an illustrator I find a lot of inspiration in contemporary Asian illustration, anime, Halloween, and gothic/dark art.
I sometimes feel like my approach is that of some kind of patchworking Doctor Frankenstein artist, as I like to stitch multiple references together to make things believable and I never take anything from one place – a hand here, an arm there, maybe some random person’s leg. I truly feel I’ve made it mine that way. I really can't bear drawing without having something to observe as I work – I think the drawings I make benefit from that approach, and I enjoy working that way. If it’s not fun, then for me, it will most definitely go wrong!
I’m sort of a book collector. Most of my continuous learning and practice comes from my growing book library, and my biggest inspiration these days stems from my love of contemporary Asian art. I love the dark fairy tales of Brian Froud, the muted colours of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. I can absolutely promise there’s countless more but hopefully that will give a flavour of all the things that I Iook at in the hope that I can make something pretty, too.
I must confess, I am a person who doesn’t keep a sketchbook. Each time I get a new sketchbook it just ends up being turned into a supply of drawing paper for not so sketchy pieces. I’m either too much of a perfectionist or I know exactly what I want to draw as I’ve already done days of planning in my head. I write notes, though, and all of my ideas usually end up in a drawing or in the story I’m working on.

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