PAULA WHITE is an artist, illustrator and printmaker who grew up and still lives in Lowestoft. Her family history is steeped in sea-faring, with one great grandfather a Lowestoft fishing skipper and another an adventurous Southwold sailor who rounded Cape Horn many times in the late 1800s.

 

After graduating in 2000 with a First Class Honours Degree in Design Crafts, Paula set up her own business as an artist and textile designer. In 2002 she began working in Further and Higher Education as a part-time lecturer, teaching drawing and printmaking for 14 years. More recently she secured a place on the Children’s Book Illustration MA at the Cambridge School of Art, graduating with distinction in 2018.

 

In 2019 her children’s book Bread, Buns and Biscuits was a finalist for The Templar Illustration Prize. These illustrations were chosen for the Snape Maltings Gallery winter exhibition, and litho prints inspired by Lowestoft’s fishing heritage were selected for the Norwich Print Fair.

 

Her evocative drawings of Lowestoft’s fishing heritage and its historic Beach Village led to the commission to produce a new cover and chapter illustrations for the revised edition of The Grit. Paula said, “It was Dean and Jack’s book that captured my interest many years ago. So I visited the site at dawn and dusk many times, sketching and absorbing the atmosphere. I talked with old residents, sketched the brilliant scale model at the Heritage Centre, worked from my drawings and old photographs. I wanted to keep the artwork honest and true, showing intimate detail but also creating atmosphere with loose brushwork, pattern and texture where needed. The limited colour palette adds to the nostalgia and evokes a real sense of place, bringing the sights, sounds and smells of the  Beach Village – and the past of many of our families – back to life.”