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Stephen Axelsen
Illustrator/Artist
I was born in Sydney, Australia 9th March, 1953. I had a model boyhood,
doing homework and marching up and down, boot polishing, winning badges and being elected to things. I drew a bit, but not very well. Later I grew a LOT of hair and I finished a degree in Social Sciences. Meanwhile my drawing was all self taught, mostly on folder dividers and often during class. After university I fell into illustrating almost by accident, and improved my drawing skills while making actual books for publication.
The first book was published in 1975 and I’m still hard at it. These days I live
with my family in the far north east corner of NSW, very close to the beach.
Mostly I illustrate and write humour and fantasy, but I’m just as happy
doing spooky and nasty things as well.
When I’m not drawing or thinking about writing I enjoy gardening, building garden walls and almost finishing them, controlling the local cane toad population and reading, mostly children's books. I also take the black dog, Waldo, for night walks on the beach. Often I wonder where he is.
I am an admirer of the English it seems, since most of my booky heroes come from there - writers such as Roald Dahl (a Welshman) and Terry Prachett, and illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Ronald Searle and Quentin Blake.
