Catalogue - February 2026 - Flipbook - Page 44
MEET ARTIST ELISE HURST
Award-winning illustrator Elise Hurst brings magical worlds into being through her intriguing characters,
curious scenes, and delightful detail work. With fine pens and splashes of watercolor, Elise invites
readers to tap into their own imaginations and fully immerse themselves in the storytelling experience.
Discover Elise’s illustrations in:
• The Storyteller’s Almanac
• The Storyteller’s Handbook
• Trying
• Noticing
• Caring
HERE ARE SOME WORDS FROM ELISE …
I began, as artists have for millennia, drawing and painting landscapes, still life, figure studies and portraits. I fell in love with illustration, and the possibilities
of art began to open up.
I collected my artworks into a small sketchbook. They were a strange blend of everything I had come to love – portraits within landscapes, animals and realism,
history and surrealism. To my delight, I discovered worlds were emerging. This first collection grew to fill several sketchbooks.
In 2018 I began to collaborate with author and publisher Kobi Yamada. I showed him my ideas for a collection of illustrations to inspire storytelling and he
understood immediately. Through conversations, the right framework emerged, and “The Storyteller’s Handbook” was born.
In The Storyteller’s Handbook, the artworks are created as complete worlds with incomplete narratives, involving the reader in the storytelling. My aim is to
offer worlds, moments and seeds to help readers recognise and grow the stories they carry within themselves.
We are now proud and delighted to introduce The Storyteller’s Almanac, the follow-up to The Storyteller’s Handbook.
The worlds I have created in both books give me such joy – not just for the scenes I get to play in, nor for the characters I bring to life – but for the connections
and the stories that I hope will come. I hope people will laugh, and daydream, and perhaps write and draw and begin to build worlds of their own. I hope that I
can continue to create work like this, to give people a door and watch them step through.
Elise xxxx
44 COMPENDIUM KIDS
