Aki Fukuoka is a freelance illustrator living in New Zealand. Aki has illustrated over 60 children’s books including some award winning and best selling series such as “Billie B Brown” and “Lily the Littlest Angel”. Outside her innocent children’s picture books Aki works on more edgy and darker illustrations and paintings for her commission pieces and gallery shows. You can check out her Facebook fan page where she does regular updates and give-aways. Alternatively, check out her website or blog.

Adam Rex is from Phoenix, Arizona and now lives in Tuscon. He studied at the University of Arizona, where he received his BFA Qualification. He has since gone on to write and illustrate some excellent children’s books such as ‘Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich’, a collection of stories about monsters.

Anca Sandu is a Romanian illustrator with several styles and skill sets. Firstly, she has a good eye for typography; you can see lovely experimental work on her website. She is also a keen fashion illustrator, but probably her best strength is children’s book illustration. Her first book was published by Random House and is titled ‘Churchill’s Tale of Tails’.

A while back I bought a children’s book illustrated by Jeremy Holmes called ‘There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly’. It’s a great children’s book, full of textures and patterns and a clever ending (that I won’t spoil). So today, when I stumbled on Jeremy Holmes’ website I was delighted to find more of his work.

Visit the ‘Everyday Love’ website to find the artwork of Nidhi Chanani. She is incredibly productive and sells prints, greetings cards, magnets, books and more. It’s no wonder her artwork is so popular; the refreshingly bright and warm illustrations are simply a joy to look at.

Nidji was born in Calcutta, India and later moved to San Francisco, USA. Here are some interesting honours from her About Page:

“In April of 2012 she was honored at the White House as a Champion of Change. Her media appearances include CNN-Anderson Cooper and BBC Radio. Her work has been featured on Fab, Daily Candy, and Scoutmob. She has worked with Hasbro, Paramount Pictures, ABC, Boom Studios and a variety of other clients. Her work is sold in retail shops across the country including the American Museum of Natural History, the Cartoon Art Museum, and Urban Bazaar.”

Dutch illustrator Marloes de Vries started out working as a graphic designer and art director. In 2010 however, she took the brave decision to start working as an illustrator and has never looked back. She has illustrated books, magazines and all sorts of other things as well as exhibiting in both the UK and the Netherlands. Here’s a nice excerpt from her about page:

“I Absolutely Love…

Bicycles and riding them, pancakes, handwritten letters, collecting picture books, graphic novels, walking on flip flops, mittens, reading books, baking cookies and pies, travelling, record players, cracking eggs, coffee with caramel syrup, chocolate mousse, old photographs.”

I like the picture this simple list paints of Marloes. Nice touch.

Londoner Kirstie is a children’s book illustrator, with two books published to date (‘So You Wanna Be A Rock Star’ written by acclaimed author Audrey Vernick and ‘The Monster Who Lost His Mean’, written by Tiffany Strelitz Haber). Her influences include Charles Harper, M. Sasek, Mary Blair and the brilliant Eric Carle. Kirstie uses a lot of anthropomorphism in her work, nice simple shapes and marks and really warm colours to create a really friendly feel.

See more work on her website, or alternatively her blog.