Exclusively representing

Natalie Kilany

Natalie Kilany - International children's book illustrator. UK

With her sweet, naïve little characters and soft color schemes, Natalie Kilany creates gentle worlds that children and adults alike can escape to for fun and adventure. Her style is ideal for everything from children’s picture books to advertising and editorial.
Half-Egyptian and half-Indian, Natalie lives in the Wiltshire town of Marlborough in a Grade II listed cottage, which is surrounded by her rose garden. Her influences include old Disney flicks, Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake, The Moomins and Joan de Bethel sculpted cats. Natalie did her foundation course at Chelsea College of Art and Design, and followed it up with a BA in Visual Communication Design Illustration at Middlesex University.

Approach

Natalie’s motto is ‘live to draw’ and she believes that an artist should develop their craft every day. When she’s working on a picture book, she plans the layout using thumbnails, then works on full-size pencil sketches, which she transfers to watercolor paper where she applies watercolor paints, gouache and colored pencils. The artwork is scanned in, with some shading and tweaking done using the application Gimp.

Style

Natalie’s style is simple and contemporary. There’s a hint of whimsy and a sense of contentedness in many of her images. When it comes to characters she aims to give them a sweet look, but avoids being overtly cute.

Client list

Natalie’s clients include DDB London, Volkswagen, HarperCollins, Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability, Fritz and Franzi, Jung von Matt/Limmat AG, Harvard Graduate School of Education and Zumba.
Congratulations on the work you did for Mind the Gap. I was very happy with the illustrations.
Roger McGough, Harper Collins
Just downloading images now – they’re BEAUTIFUL!!!! Really great job Natalie and bang on time! Very pleased indeed.
Mark Reed, University of Aberdeen
We and the client are really happy with it! Thank you for the nice work.
Adrian Merz , Jung von Matt/Limmat AG
This looks just beautiful! Honestly, it's even better than we were imagining and we're all thrilled.
Paula Telch Cooney, Harvard Graduate School of Education
I love it – your artwork is wonderful and we’re very happy with this book. Thank you for all the work you did on it.
Sarah Thomas, Collins Education
Howdy
We are happy to help!