Pat Reynolds

Art was Pat's favourite subject at school and this led her to study Graphic Design at Swinburne College in Melbourne. She then worked in advertising for several years before travelling overseas, which included living and painting in Spain for eight years. Pat kept a sketch pad with her at all times, using these sketches as inspiration for a show in oils when she returned to Australia.

Upon returning to Melbourne, Pat worked for Primary Educational Publishers. They had lots of work, so that become her specialty. She mostly works with black line and coloured ink, but sometimes is asked to do illustrations using tissue collage as a medium. She has illustrated well over 200 Educational Readers, as well as school magazines and poetry anthologies.

Pat's sessions begin with talking about how she came to illustration as a career. Students seem to be fascinated about how adults end up doing what they do.

She tells them about what she was good at - and not so good at - at school. This is a great morale booster for the students who are struggling.

She also talks about how an illustrator works and shows the students her very first working drawings (which are very messy!) and tries to get them to forget about being too tidy. She wants them to see that it's O.K. to relax and make a bit of a mess.

Pat follows with a collage demonstration, and gets everyone to have a go as an exercise in loosening up. Once they have learnt how it's done, they can then create pictures in the classroom and at home.