Sally J Collins
Originally from Wiltshire, England. Educated at Bath Secondary Art School with a burning ambition to be a fashion designer or illustrator, but then trained as a teacher at Manchester Polytechnic instead: finally gaining a silver medal in City & Guilds Fashion, whilst teaching in comprehensive schools in Nottingham and Hull, and just before becoming a mum and giving up the idea!
Sally has lived in Scotland for over 30 years and worked as an art tutor, banner project leader and freelance artist: illustrating for local councils, distilleries and other private companies; portrait commissions; exhibiting in Edinburgh and East Lothian galleries.
In 1998 she came to East Lothian from Aberdeenshire, with her husband, Peter, and their young family, and loves living in the countryside, next to the sea and the city.
Sally is now focused on her illustration work and has illustrated over 20 books for children during the last 10 years: “The History of Scotland for Children”; a series of Scottish Folk Tales; “King of the Copper Mountains”; “Greyfriars Bobby” and the popular “Hamish McHaggis” series.
She enjoys working very closely with authors to bring their stories to life, and then has fun taking the artwork in progress and finished books out to meet a variety of audiences…finding the smiles on faces is such a reward!
Sally uses technical pens and watercolour pencils for most of her illustrations, but she also uses pastels, acrylics, charcoal, gouache and mixed-media in her images ~ especially for book covers and other commissioned artwork.