Ruth Palmer

Overview

Ruth Palmer lived and worked in London for many years, feeding imagery to the voracious packaging design, advertising and publishing industries. Today she lives and works from her home in the beautiful Devon countryside.
During her down time she enjoys Masterchef, gardening and growing her own vegetables.


Her creative influences are diverse but she particularly loves the late-Victorian artists; James Guthrie, John Lavery, EA Walton, Stanhope Forbes, Ken Howard and Elizabeth Forbes. She most admires representational paintings that capture light and atmosphere.
Of present day illustrators she likes the work of children’s illustrator Stacey Schuett with her fabulous sense of light and colour.

Training

Ruth went to Harrow School of Art to do a foundation year, followed by a three-year diploma in Illustration.

Approach

Ruth approaches each new job with the aim to fulfill the brief as closely as possible and can work in whichever medium is best for the job. She blocks out a composition instinctively, then plays about with traced sketches in Photoshop to get it right.

Styles

Working for many years in advertising and design, Ruth has learned to use a wide variety of media, and learned them well. She used a dip pen and watercolours for the Beatrix Potter books she illustrated, for instance, but will equally use Photoshop for other children’s titles. She often uses line and watercolour for educational briefs, gouache for some other publishing jobs, and acrylic for larger, more painterly projects. When possible, she loves to use alkyds – fast-drying oils which are delightful to use.


Light and colour come to the fore in many of her pieces, and often her work has a classical painterly feel to it. The hand of the artist is very much in evidence.

Client List

• Penguin
• Warne
• Telegraph magazine
• Quercus books
• Sky UK Ltd
• NFU Countryside
• Hachette
• Jersey Post
• Marks and Spencer
• Readers Digest
• KPM music house.