 About Susan:
During my eleventh summer my family took a three month tour of Europe. My Father drove our VW camper through seventeen countries with his family as his co-pilots. Despite the constant rain, the trip was fabulous and magical. There were strange languages, new smells, mysterious foods, and old, old buildings. I was overwhelmed with the castles along the Rhine River in Germany and the woods of the Black Forest. Grimm's stories incarnated before my imagining eyes. After many dilettante units at several local junior colleges I finally enrolled in the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Between my first and second years I moved to Paris and lived there and in Belgium for one year. By luck and hard work, I was able to study with Remy Van Sluys, a Flemish impressionist painter, as well as take courses at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Belgium. I completed my BFA in San Francisco the following year. No two of my books are in the same style. Each story is unique to its setting and characters and so too, should be the illustrations. Illustrating books is a journey fraught with danger and excitement, disappointment (I never paint as well as I wish), joy (I'm often surprised at what I can paint) and release. The profession has my awe and long-standing love. It satisfies me to the bone. |
