Amber Anderson is a 24-year-old illustrator living and working around London. She is the author of ‘The Little Book of Colouring’ series, which focus on achieving mindfulness through the soothing act of shading and creating. We caught up with her to find out what inspires her beautiful work…

My home life background was fairly uncreative, with no-one in my close family being a particularly strong influence in terms of being artistic themselves – it was a very natural passion that I (luckily) came across independently through being given lots of pens and paper at a very young age! Drawing has always been something I’ve had a motivation to practice and improve upon, which led me to follow artistic subjects all the way to studying Illustration as a degree at Camberwell College of Arts. I graduated back in 2013, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be working full time in the illustration industry ever since. Being my full time job, I spend a lot of time creating designs for other people – which I love – meaning that more often than not I follow a set brief on what I need to draw. I’ve always found fulfilling someone’s visual expectations really rewarding, it’s my favourite way of working.

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The Little Book of Colouring range was a particularly great challenge for me. It was one of the first times I’ve had to work in a way where I had to give full consideration to how the viewer is going to interact with the illustrations. Every line was important, making sure that the structure, perspective and content of the illustrations made sense to the person colouring it. My workspace is also a great influence on my way of working. I’m lucky enough to have a great studio space just on the outskirts of London, it’s a great little escape from busy city life! My desk is more often than not as hectic as my work schedule, with every tool, pen, brush and tablet right to hand, as well as my much loved bookcases crammed with all of my favourite art reference and inspiration books.

Amber’s workspace - complete with pet rabbit!

Although I do like to experiment with different materials and styles as often as I can, my favourite and most comfortable way of working is with my trusty fineliner ink pens. I usually have an idea in my head of how the final illustration will look in terms of composition and structure – I’ll produce a loose, rough sketch to have a base to work from, but more often than not I won’t spend long on that process, and will freehand most of the design with ink.

Almost every project I work on challenges me to use a slightly different illustrative style to the one before. To keep myself grounded on the illustrative style, I’m most happy with I always try to return to the Circus Elephant illustration of mine for reference; I’ve always felt content at the clarity of the lines, style of detail and line thickness. I’ve realised that it’s a great way of working to produce work that can work over a variety of contexts, from board games, murals, colouring books and more!

“To keep myself grounded on the illustrative style I’m most happy with I always try to return to the Circus Elephant illustration”

Check out Amber’s site for more of her stunning work here!