Penny Dann initially attended Amersham College in Buckinghamshire on a two year foundation course after being considered too young to go to college. She finally enrolled at the Brighton College of Art for a degree in Visual Communication. Her first two years there were spent life drawing, printmaking and drawing and painting landscape. She kept what she regarded as her 'doodles' in the back of a sketchbook (done mostly at night when she couldn't sleep!).
It was much later that a tutor spotted them and suggested that she pursue that particular avenue, as being more personal than the other work that she had been doing. She had originally dismissed this personal and natural approach, as it appeared to her to come too easily. Penny had been under the false impression that it was neccessary to be an angst-ridden artist in order to succeed. It was in her third and final year at college that Penny made her first book One for the Pot working in this style for her third year set project.
A self researched collection of writing and facts about tea-drinking it was a formative piece of work in her then fledgeling career. Raymond Briggs, the hugely successful children's book author and illustrator had become Penny's personal tutor and helped by introducing her to his publisher at Hamish Hamilton, who in turn agreed to publish the book.
Penny joined The Artworks in 1985 after leaving college, having originally met Allan Manham when he gave a talk to the students. Her very first job was a series black and white pen drawings for Funny Folk, an anthology of humourous poetry for Faber and Faber. Poetry remains to this day one of her favourite illustration subjects, but it can present problems when the poem is of a serious nature, as she is naturally more at home when conveying humour. Her more recent work has moved away from the original line and wash approach to working in liquid watercolour and aquarelle pencil, gouache and, most recently, experimenting with acrylic.
She has even experimented with making a three-dimensional character in fabric as a soft toy, which was published by Running Press as a child's first book. The catalyst for the publication of this innovative book was from a meeting in Allan Manham's office with Buz Teacher, the President and Publisher at Running Press.
Constantly distracted during the meeting by the sight of the prototype personal project, sitting smugly on a shelf, Buz eventually had to ask "What is that?" He was competely entranced, a deal was worked out and Book Buddy, a child's first book/soft toy was born.
Penny has become very interested in developing pop-up books. She went through a steep learning curve after receiving her first two pop up commissions at the same time. One of these was The Secret Fairy Handbook for Orchard Books which has since proved a runaway success and become a best-seller.
Having proved so popular, it has subsequently developed into a series of books, with ever more elaborate paper engineering. Penny is currently developing more merchandising around the fairy characters, along with an interactive web site.
Development in technique comes along in a natural way with each new text. She gets a feel for the look a character might need. Obviously deadlines are a limiting factor, but Penny realises the importance of an artist not staying ossified in their approach but to constantly push the boundaries. She is now experimenting with Photoshop as yet another of the many strings to her bow. A natural book illustrator, Penny hugely enjoys working on book projects but appreciates the change of pace and variety when she occasionally works for clients from outside the publishing sphere.
She notes that as a freelance illustrator you never know what you may end up drawing next which can lead to a very disparate selection of reference books lined up on the studio shelves.
Just recently completed is a commission for the East Japan Railway Company, which for a a specialist in fairies, comes as bit of a change of gear. Penny's target age group is from the very young up to 10 years old, but in a new title that she has just illustrated there is the possibility of appealing to all ages. Moonthief is a sweet love story by the poet and writer Roger McGough, told in a touching and lyrical way and illustrated by Penny in a manner that might take some of her most ardent fans somewhat by surprise.
She spent the years between 1994-2000 as somewhat of a nomad, wandering around and working from wherever she happened to be, with periods in Australia and America. As this was before the now common use of email, it was a challenge liasing clients, with the difference in time zones between the hemispheres presenting a constant confusion. Working out time zones did prove confusing! Fortunately she had already established good working relationships with clients and convinced by her reliability and efficiency, were happy to continue working in this way. She is now re-established in Brighton, with a suitably Secret Fairyish garden for inspiration, but has not entirely rid herself of her wanderlust and passion for exporation. Where next?.... South America perhaps???
Partial list of Clients, Publishers and Books
Gourmet Magazine
HarperCollins Beryl's Box
Kingfisher What are Friends For?
Dorling Kindersley Bon Appetit Bertie
Orion Publishing The Animals Bedtime Storybook
Random House Brutus the Wonder Poodle
Child's World Dr.Snickerdoodle
Orchard Books Little Mouse Twitchy Whiskers
Walker Books Tiny Teddy's Treasury
Harper Collins Treasury of Poetry
Penguin Books No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock
GunzeJapanese Pyjama Company