Kate Pankhurst
Kate illustrates children’s books from her studio in Leeds, where she lives with her partner and two house rabbits.
She has a particular passion for finding peculiar looking people/animals to draw and is pleased that this has lead to a very exciting career as an illustrator – the best bit about her job is making children (and grown ups) laugh when they see a funny detail in an illustration. Graduating from the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, in 2002, Kate was the highest placed undergraduate in the Macmillan Prize for Picture Book Illustration. She returned to Preston to study an MA in Children’s Book Illustration and over the past 10 years has worked on over 40 children’s books with lots of exciting authors and publishers.
An important part of Kate’s practice involves working with children and young people to help them develop their creative abilities, this gives her lots of inspiration for her own illustrations. Kate has enjoyed working with a whole host of wonderful authors on books including, Danny Baker Record Breaker series (Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize nominee 2010) by Steve Hartley My Naughty Little Puppy series by Holly Webb, Make Friends, Break Friends by Julia Jarman, and Big Red Balloon by Anne Fine. When she's not drawing kate enjoys running, cycling and the occasional bit of knitting.
