EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 9 © 2014 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

4 picture, of course, was a complete fantasy, a remote hope that, one-day it might just happen—it never did. Up until the age of fifteen, birds were my obsession. I even had my own bird club at school and gave a lecture to the entire assembly using my own paintings pinned onto a blackboard to illustrate the talk. At home, my bedroom gradually became more like a natural history museum with stuffed birds in glass cases everywhere along with various wings and feathers from the local butcher’s shop. From the age of fourteen onwards I began to take ABOVE: ‘Fungus Gigantica’, a personal painting by the artist from 1990. RIGHT: ‘Citadel of the Autarch’, one of a series of book covers for Gene Wolf, published by Arrow Books 1983.