GAYE CHAPMAN
Gaye Chapman is an artist of international standing, but generations of children in Australia know her best for her many, many years (sixteen and counting!) of illustrating for NSW School Magazine. Gaye has exhibited widely throughout Australia and overseas, and has many major collections, awards, prizes and exhibitions to her name including the Sulman, Blake, Fleurieu, Kedumba and Waterhouse Natural History art prizes.

Born in Gilgandra, and growing up at Mendooran, Gaye's bush childhood remains the inspiration for both her art work and children's illustration. 2004 saw the publication of Gaye's first children's picture book, Heart of the Tiger (with Glenda Millard). Talking about her work for this book Gaye commented, 'as a girl I dreamed of a life full of travel, art and adventure. I have sailed in an Indonesian fishing boat around the Arafura Sea, jumped out of airplanes, designed posters for the National Theatre in London, hitch-hiked through the Sumatra, motor-biked across Java, lived with a hill-tribe in Morocco and been artist-in-residence in a rainforest. I use any materials at all to make a picture, including real objects like mud, feathers and grass. I then cut out my finished paintings and paste them down again in new ways. I am very proud to have illustrated Heart of the Tiger, it is about the things I care for most: old age, childhood and hope for the future of our green planet.'

In 2005 Gaye’s second picture, Breakfast with Buddha (with Vashti Farrer) was released, followed by another collaboration with Glenda Millard, Kaito’s Cloth. Gaye also collaborated with Colin Thompson and 13 other illustrators to create the 2008 CBCA shortlisted picture book, Dust.

Gaye’s most recent publication is Little Blue (2008). Although Gaye has written for radio, television, advertising and also presented as a performance poet, this is the first time she has written a picture book. Writing her own story, she found the relationship between it and the illustrations was clearer to her. This isn’t to say the writing came easily. She made many drafts before she was satisfied she ‘could say the most with the least words’. After this she turned to the illustrations, which she wanted to carry the greater part of the storytelling.

Gaye hopes that Little Blue can spirit children away for a while. She remembers losing herself in beautiful books as a child, ‘my eyes wandering through the pictures in my childhood books for hours, noting every detail.’ She loves it when after giving a school talk, children come up to talk to her and obviously know the illustrations intimately. ‘It’s always a lovely warm surprise that my own little studio world has sprouted through the door and gone on into someone else’s world.’

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