FREYA BLACKWOOD

ILLUSTRATOR

Freya grew up in Orange in the central west of NSW. As a child she always had an interest in illustrating stories, and later when several other attempted occupations really didn't hit the spot, she realised illustration was what she'd been searching for all along.

Freya studied a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communications) at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she focused on film and animation. She made two short films of her own and worked for a few years in the film industry in Sydney.

She then began a graduate diploma in Production Design at the Australian Film Television and Radio School only to be wisked away to New Zealand to work for Weta Workshop as a prosthetic painter and applicator on the film adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

In New Zealand, with work on the film over and an opportunity for change, she tried her luck at illustration and began illustrating for educational publications. This work was discovered by Margrete Lamond at Scholastic and Freya was given her first picture book TWO SUMMERS, written by John Heffernan. TWO SUMMERS was a dream beginning for Freya's career and now several other books are in the pipeline...

Freya is available to talk to primary and secondary students about illustrating, be it smaller workshops or larger presentations.