All work : Laura Wall [Biography]

Laura Wall

My name is Laura Wall and I am an artist and illustrator living beside the sea in Devon with my partner Dave and rather mischievous dog Roxy. If I’m not painting or writing stories about Geese then you can normally find me bimbling along the beach and rock pools of Teignmouth or perusing the picture book section in book shops.

I was delighted this year to win Best Up and Coming Artist 2013 awarded by the Fine Art Trade Guide. It was quite and honour to win such a prestigious and national award as it is voted for by galleries and the trade. It was lovely to have recognition for my work. I have been a professional artist now for nearly six years and I’m mostly known down here in the Southwest for my murals and art series ‘Love at the Seaside‘ The seaside themes originated around the coast of Devon and Cornwall and is a story about a romantic couple and their dogs. However this series has now travelled to other parts of Britain and has taken the ferry to France! The style is quirky and people look out for characters that have sneaked into the paintings. If you look closely you will see Goose in some of them!
Goose is a character who was born about five years ago and whose main purpose was to get me a good grade in my final year at university. Required to write and illustrate a children’s book for my dissertation I was some what worried as to how to approach this. As a very detailed illustrator I got over zealous and complicated with my ideas and only when I saw my mentor declared that I really didn’t know how to approach such a task. It was his words that stay with me now and that was simply to ‘draw the first thing that comes into your head, don’t over think it and see what happens’. The first thing that came into my head was a Goose. A rather silly one with a big nose. I’m not sure what I watched or ate that day but now five years on Goose is reaching production with a six part book series and merchandise to boot!


It took some time for me to show my dissertation of ‘Goose’ to publishers, I think I needed to be in the right place in my life – by the time I showed this to Award Publications at the London Book Fair I had given up my day job to be an illustrator and painter and so I was more confident than when I was a graduate fresh out of University – it was important to me that Goose was noticed – I was and still am very passionate about Goose and I think it came across.

Thinking about it now I would definitely say the style of Goose is influenced by characters that I was inspired by as a child such as Snoopy and Charlie Brown – I would draw sketch book’s full of Snoopy’s – I loved him! Tom and Jerry were another favourite along with Dr Suess and stories by Shirley Hughes. I think even Mum in ‘Goose’ is influenced by my own – I remember I could always hear her shoes before I saw her which I thought were magnificent and always brightly coloured.

Goose was released as a series of four books in June 2012, titles include ‘Goose’, ‘Goose Goes to School’, ‘Happy Birthday Goose’ and my personal favourite ‘Goose Goes to the Zoo’ – which made the finals for the People’s Book Prize 2013. A further two books were added to the list in 2013 called Goose on the Farm and Goose Goes Shopping, encouraging the series to reach 30 countries in the first year. Baby board books have also been commissioned and will be out in August 2014. As well as the books fine art prints have been made by Haddon Fine Art, cards, gift wrap, calendars and children’s party invitations are also in production by Cards For Art’s Sake – in fact the Goose cards came runner up this year to Hallmark in Gift of the Year! To top things off American publisher Harper Collins have taken on Goose and plan to release him as one of their leading titles in 2015, there is a plan for an American book tour in the Spring which I am looking very forward to!