Edwin Fotheringham

Edwin Fotheringham is an award-winning freelance illustrator of a wide variety of works including album covers, illustrations in top national magazines, and artwork for children’s books. Ed, as he prefers to be called, grew up in Sydney, Australia, and moved to the U.S. to attend art school at the University of Washington. He continues to live in Seattle, Washington where he also teaches illustration at Cornish College of the Arts. Ed and Barbara have been successful book collaborators for many years, creating one stellar biography after another. On his website, he says he continues to “enjoy solving visual problems with blotty lines.”

Barbara's Process

Watch the Interview Video to learn about the author’s and illustrator’s research and composing processes:

Ed’s Research Process: Bringing a sense of whimsy and uniqueness to historic illustrations [7:00]
- Representing the interior of the White House [9:10]
- Deciding how to represent historic information in visually interesting ways [13:04]
Drawing upon non-print artifacts and resources in the research process [16:00]
- The FDR Library’s Digital Collection and its photographs of Eleanor Roosevelt [16:40]
- Traveling to do research [17:48]
- Following a feeling to create a visual metaphor [21:30-27:30]
Creating a flash draft (a quick draft) to get a sense of the whole [22:50]
The role of an editor and art director in the creative process [28:10]
Visual motifs [40:55]
Digital art making with an iPad [44:04]

Ed's Books