Julie Douglas
Julie Douglas is totally mad about drawing! She's been using coloured pencils for 25 years. She studied graphic design and illustration in Liverpool and at Norwich School of Art, and was an illustrator for 10 years, based in London. During that time she won the Rexel Cumberland Award for Best Use of Coloured Pencil on two occassions in the Association of Illustrators Images exhibitions, Images 11 and Images 13. She also won an award in New York for her illustrations on an American Express brochure. She was also visiting tutor at Liverpool, Rochester, Norwich and Maidstone art colleges.
After moving out of London to Sussex, she was asked to do a demonstration in a local amateur art show, and was asked SO many times if she held classes (the reply - 'er, no, sorry.... thanks for asking') that the organisers of the show practically begged her to do a course.. So Julie did her first term of classes in a rented hall, out of a sense of community spirit and obligation, but discovered something new and wonderful. She discovered that this group of women, all around her Mum's age, were keen, willing, full of self-doubt, hilarious, sad, mutually caring and.....she could TEACH them! And such a great antidote to the often solitary life of an illustrator.
That was 1992, and Julie has been gathering students and loyal followers ever since. Her teaching style is completely traditional, in that she believes everyone can draw, but that most people need to be taught. She has gradually developed her courses into series of exercises that really help people to learn. This has been so fascinating for Julie, the whole learning process, how people learn and why sometimes they DON'T learn, that she'd about to go back to college to do her MA in Art, Design and Education. Her teaching style has been variously described as 'astonishing, revolutionary, revelationary!', 'Julie is the ultimate motivator', 'full of goodness and humour', 'her enthusiasm is contagious'. One of her aims is to put what she's learnt about teaching into a book on drawing. But different to any you've seen so far...
Last year she was thrilled to have a drawing accepted to the CPSA show in Seattle, which was the first time she'd entered, and has had another piece accepted this year. Her favourite subjects are people and animals, and no matter how she tries not to, the more complicated it is, the more she wants to draw it.
Her hobbies are reading, singing, dog-walking (great for doing the singing), spending time with her teenage sons. And laughing.
She's hoping to remember to enter the UKCPS show this year, but needs reminding a lot....
