Amelia’s Magazine | Meet Lorna Scobie: Featured Artist from That Which We Do Not Understand

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Lorna Scobie has contributed to Amelia’s Magazine for many years. She was one of my top picks at her graduate show in 2012, and since then she has designed for multiple clients, illustrated children’s books and won many awards for her wonderful animal illustrations. Black Cats was inspired by the superstitions associated with these creatures. ‘Whether they are the bearers of good or bad luck, black cats are subject to our superstitions from England to Japan. Here I have confronted this prejudice, and filled the viewers vision with silent black felines. Are they evil omens, or are they just like any other cat?

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What inspired the personalities of your black cats?
Cats have great personalites – they are all so individual. I love the confused face you see on kittens so much, and I think most of these black cats have that face! I hope I’ve managed to portray that black cats aren’t just black cats, and that each one is as funny, quirky and silly as other cats. It’s funny to think that some people see black cats as devilish!

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Apparently you don’t actually like cats yourself, so what drew you to these little furry beasties?
Although I don’t like the sneakiness of cats, I love drawing them. Cats have such great characters, they make it so obvious when they are miffed! I like the way they can contort their bodies when they lick themselves and it’s really fun to draw all their limbs. There’s just something about cats!

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What are your favourite animals, in real life, and why?
I love tigers – which is ironic as they are just big cats! The orange and black is so striking.

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You’ve contributed to Amelia’s Magazine for years, what keeps you coming back?
I love the variety of content in Amelia’s Magazine. Sometimes I find myself drawing the same sort of things everyday and so it’s really refreshing to take part in one of Amelia’s live briefs and try something new. I also have SO much respect for Amelia. When I was in my second year of university Amelia was kind enough to give us a talk about her career and since then I’ve been a huge fan of everything she has done. Hearing Amelia speak inspired me start my own blog and social media pages.

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What has been you favourite commercial client since you left university, and why?
I will always have a lot of love for Stella McCartney Kids as they were one of my first commercial clients, and it meant a lot to me that they trusted me despite it being fresh out of Uni. I really enjoyed the project – creating animal masks – as it was unusual and I was allowed a lot of creative freedom. I’m yet to have a bad experience with a client, perhaps I’m really lucky, but I think it’s because the majority of people out there are really lovely!

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What one top tip would you share with a new illustrator?
The best tip I’ve ever been given is that there is no rush! There’s so much pressure on new graduates to be instantly successful and it’s not fair to put that on yourself as it rarely happens. I firmly believe that if you are creating illustration that you like and if you work hard, you will get to where you want to be. It’s unlikely this will happen over night, so relax, don’t rush, it’s not a race!

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Have you got any exciting projects in the pipeline, and if so can you share a few details with us?
I feel like I’m constantly working on developing some picture books so hopefully some of these projects will come into fruition! I’ve also been working a lot with a big Paris fashion house recently, and lots of that illustration will be out in December.

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Find out more about Lorna Scobie‘s working process here and buy her lovely Black Cats print – complete with super shiny gold leaf on the cats’ eyes – on my Kickstarter campaign page here.

Categories ,#TWWDNU, ,animals, ,Black Cats, ,cats, ,Gold Leaf, ,illustration, ,illustrator, ,Kickstarter, ,Lorna Scobie, ,Stella McCartney Kids, ,That Which We Do Not Understand

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