Liz Duthie is an illustrator and visual artist. She is awaiting publication of her first creative non-fiction picture book, Wombat by Christopher Cheng for Walker Books' wonderful Nature Storybook Series, (due in April 2021). It will also be published by Candlewick Press in the US later in the year. She also recently completed The Cat Thief, by Pat Simmons, a picture book with Little Pink Dog Books, due out in July 2021.
Liz’s fine arts training has given her a hand-drawn, flexible style that expresses humour, emotion and movement, using traditional mediums. She has also honed her illustration skills and industry knowledge through CYA, SCWBI, Lilla Rogers Make Art That Sells online courses, and many other conferences and workshops, dedicated practice and reading literally hundreds of picture books to three sparky daughters.
WHAT CYA CONFERENCE DID FOR ME
After hawking my illustration folio to conferences for several years, increasingly desperate to be noticed by a publisher, I finally received the most fantastic opportunity through a portfolio review with Donna Rawlins at CYA 2018. Donna picked up on a drawing of a turtle in my folio and told me about Walker Books's beautiful Nature Storybook Series. She asked me to draw several more pictures of Australian animals for her to show her contacts at Walker. Soon after, I received the longed-for email from Linsay Knight, Head Publisher at Walker Books Australia, offering me the chance to illustrate Wombat, a beautifully crafted text by Christopher Cheng. Wombat will be published in Australia in April 2021, and later in the year by Walker's US arm, Candlewick Press. I could not have wished for a more wonderful first gig!
