New Zealand Writers
FISHER, Lindy
The artwork is that of an exceptional artist, silently extending the text ... This picture book is a must-have for all schools and libraries.
Review of Paint What you See, (Magpies, July 2004)
Links - KAPAI: Kids read about Lindy here.
FISHER, Lindy (1955 – ) is a fine artist and graphic designer. Fisher has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland University. Fisher has worked for 25 years as an artist, and has been a successful illustrator of picture books for the past three years.
Fisher says she aims through her art to encourage her child readers to allow their imaginations to run wild with the story.
Fisher’s published illustrated books are: Paint What You See by Dot Meharry (2004), Nobody’s Dog by Jennifer Beck (2005), and A Present from the Past, by Jennifer Beck (2006).
Nobody’s Dog won Fisher and Jennifer Beck the Children’s Choice award at the New Zealand Post Book Awards in 2006. A reviewer in Talespinner commented that it was: ‘… stunningly illustrated by a consummate artist, who knows the scope of the multimedia techniques she uses and can play with format and point of view to elaborate the story’. Talespinner New Zealand, September 2005.
A Present from the Past, written by Jennifer Beck, was nominated as a finalist in the Picture Book Category at the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2007, and won an Honour Award in this category.
SH
Updated Information
Stefania's dancing slippers (Scholastic, 2007) is Fisher's new collaboration with Jennifer Beck, a story of the Polish orphans who sailed to Wellington in Spring 1944.
Writers in Schools
Lindy Fisher is available to visit primary schools as part of the Writers in Schools programme. She is happy to discuss using imagination, creating artwork for books, how to create a picture book, and the specifics of her own books. She is also available for workshops with small groups of intermediate and secondary school students.
General
Where do you live?
At home with my husband Stuart, 21-year-old daughter Jane and 14-year-old son Michael in Howick. I can walk through the bush to Mellons Bay beach where I think about picture making and come back to work in my little studio that has a door out to the garden.
What books do you read?
For relaxation – Historical Dramas
For Work – Biographies of artists and authors and their books
Who is your favourite writer?
The one I’m working with at the time.
How do you think up your ideas?
The words of the story spark off visual pictures in my mind, then my imagination mixes them with visual images from my memory that I’ve collected over many years.
What is the best thing about being an illustrator?
The wonderful feedback from readers enjoying what I’ve shared with them through my picture making.
Primary School Students
What sort of pets do you have?
A husband, a daughter, a son, a budgie and sometimes a rabbit and a fish and lots of skinny daddy long legs in the corners!!
What is your favourite colour?
Blue with a touch of pink or green or yellow or all at once!
What is your favourite food?
Drippy oranges
What is your favourite movie?
Fly Away Home and Whale Rider
What is your favourite game?
Scrabble and Sudoku
What is the most fun thing about being an illustrator?
Pleasing myself about when I work or not, and telling people my full-time job is ‘colouring in’.
How do you make books?
I don’t. I make artwork to be used in picture books.
Where do you go for your holidays?
To Coromandel beaches where we camp in our canvas caravan and to anywhere that has snow to ski.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
Filled the donuts for the café with plaster of paris, which set really hard, and replaced the jam on top.
Secondary School Students
How did you get started?
Put together a portfolio of my artwork and went round to local publishers and did a ‘show and tell’. They contacted me after that.
Who inspired you when you were getting started?
Shaun Tan, Ann Spudvilas, Ron Brooks, Ann Pignataro, Caroline Magerl, Jane Ray, Renoir, Matisse
What advice would you give an aspiring young illustrator?
Make images with all kinds of materials. Draw really carefully then forget to be neat and have fun with the colours.
Is it difficult to make a living illustrating in New Zealand?
I don’t know because I don’t try. I just enjoy what I’m doing.
What were you like as a teenager?
Perfectly delightful of course!!
Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself?
Machines,including computers,make me get upset because they don’t understand how I think, which is with colours and emotions!!
I’m an ordinary Mum who cleans up messes, runs a kid’s taxi service, cooks yummy meals out of nothing, sews trendy clothes out of scraps, washes, and knows everything about everything that’s important.
