Interview: Naomi Bennet

Award Year
2025

Why did you choose to enter this work?
The world can feel like it's moving so quickly. This project felt like an escape into the natural world, and childhood, and the simple joys that are so important but so easily forgotten.

What’s your favourite thing about your shortlisted project?
Paige's patterned dress... Something about the little yellow squares can't help but make me grin!

What excites you most about being shortlisted?
Getting to be amongst a group of such talented creatives! I'm pinching myself as it's something I only could have dreamt of!

Where do you usually work?
I've made most of my work in the print studio at Cambridge School of Art - amongst the totally buzzing community, AMAZING technicians John and Damian, beautiful inky smells and awesome music!

How long did it take to complete your project?
I made most of it during the last 6 weeks of the final module of my MA in Children's Book Illustration, and then spent a couple of weeks later making some tweaks.

What is your dream commission?
The most wonderful thing I can imagine would be to write and illustrate children's folk tales - that would be totally magical.

What’s your favourite thing to draw?
Children in nature! There is nothing like a good tree.

What is your best tip for other illustrators?
I find a lot of comfort in remembering that the learning process is what keeps me most excited. I think the energy of that will come across in the work, even when I'm often not happy with it.

What are your plans for the future?
Keeping on making, drawing, printmaking, writing, going on walks, looking at the sky, thinking, painting, making little dummy books. And following the scent of my ideas.


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