EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 13 © 2015 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

90 Out There: Tor Upson RIGHT: Tor's life-long love of mermaids is evident in her website logo and the illustration on the facing page below. Romance, mystique and strong characterisation are recurring elements in many of Tor's paintings and drawings, as these recent examples demonstrate. “Hi, call me ‘Tor’. I live in a bit of a dream world really. I’ve sailed the seven seas, talked to dragons and swum with mermaids. I’ve fought the best of the King’s knights, been rescued by them and slept for a hundred years. The other stuff I do just isn’t important.” So says Victoria Upson as she reflects on the passions and enthusiasms that have informed her art with its strong, romantic, noir-tinged allure. Her influences range fromArthur Rackham toWalt Disney and those deliciously monochrome films of the late 1930s-50s. Tor was always passionate about drawing. Mermaids peopled her playgroup artworks and a trip to a theatre production of Sleeping Beauty at the age of three was the inspiration for her first “masterpiece”. From this age on, her family encouraged her to develop her talent. School saw her balancing her curricular obligations with as much drawing as she could squeeze in, be it art competitions, school leaflets, concerts and sports days—if there was an opportunity for sharing her art with an audience, she took it. Her choice of GCSE subjects prevented her continuing her art studies within school, but undeterred she took her Art GCSE outside of school and gained an A*. Worcester Arts Council recognized her art, when one of their employees saw her sketchbook during theatre rehearsals and offered