Karen Allen Art

Ever child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Pablo Picasso

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, living under the shadow of the beautiful Table Mountain. My family and I left for Australia in the late 1970s. I can still distinctly remember as a child, driving home from the Melbourne airport, thinking how different the colour and the light was in this new flat land my father had brought us to.

Growing up, I always and only wanted to be an artist ... there was a flicker of being a veterinarian but only a flicker. I studied multidisciplinary fine arts at university and after graduating, worked as a commission-based artist for over a decade. When children came along, life took over and I stopped painting for seven years. I have worked in a variety of jobs, ranging from teaching to aged care.

Just after turning forty, I looked at her life (which was lovely, by the way) and said, ‘What happened to that girl who always and only wanted to be an artist?’

I decided to devote myself back to my art, and have never looked back.

Animals have always been a love of mine, but being in the presence of children I was reengaged with them and spent many a day at the Melbourne Zoo (thank goodness for Membership!)

One day I started drawing portraits of animals, experimenting with patterns as a background. In a spur of the moment I decided to put the pattern inside the animal, just to see. This started an obsession with patterning and sparked an idea for a book.

That book has just been released and is called "An A - Z of Creatures", it is a collection of Creatures large, small and legendary. It has taken two years to illustrate and nearly a year to get to print. I am very proud of it and so happy and excited to Launch it out into this big wide world of ours.

All my illustrations are drawn by hand, using fine liners and watercolours.

I live on Phillip Island, in Regional Victoria.

Right now I am working on illustrating for an Author and finishing off my third book in my Alphabet series book and continuing on my creative journey.