Arty Shrew - Roz Paterson
Roz is a primarily an illustrator. Her love-affair with illustration began at an early age through exposure to the stunning fantasy worlds created by artists such as Arthur Rackham, Heath Robinson, Aubrey Beardsley and Maxfield Parish, to name but a few. More recent influences include Patrick Woodroffe and Brian Froud (of The Dark Crystal and The Labarinth), and the many other astonishingly talented artists who work in the field of concept art. Roz incorporates these influences into a range of design disciplines that encompasses creating sets for theatres, themes for events, magazine layouts, exhibitions, web ‘front end’ skins and sandblasted and stained glass, as well as corporate identity and brand development. Key skills include a vivid imagination, idea development, project direction, and making vibrant images to achieve business outcomes. She can also work on any scale from small and personal to large and dramatic.

After gaining a Diploma in Art and Design from Edinburgh College of Art, majoring in Glass Design, Roz moved to New Zealand in 1979. She quickly decided that the isolation of working in a glass engraving studio wasn’t for her. As a consequence, she became half of a partnership called Caterpillar Capers, going on to produce a series of eleven early reading books for children, published by Ashton Scholastic and Price Milburn. These books sold well not only in New Zealand, but also in the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, and were a perfect vehicle for Roz’s whimsical illustrative style, one of the key ingredients in the books’ success.

Roz gained her teaching qualifications from Auckland Teacher Training College in 1987 and she worked as an art and design teacher on and off (mostly on!) for over 17 years whilst bringing up her 2 children. Her first post was at Dannevirke High School, where she rapidly progressed to Head of Department, then held the same position at William Colenso College in Napier and Taita College near Wellington. She was also briefly a part-time life drawing tutor at the Eastern Institute of Technology Hawke’s Bay before moving to Wellington.

During her teaching years, Roz continued her free-lance design business including a short stint as a copy artist for a weekly newspaper, designing and painting sets for local theatre groups and a variety of corporate work for clients such as Hinton Enterprises (Hot Plate Wizard), Raymond’s BBQ Gourmet, Southmark Foods, Opera Hawke’s Bay, book retailer Beattie and Forbes and Air Hawke’s Bay.

In 2005 she designed ten large-scale graphic panels for Hawke’s Bay – A Feast for All Seasons, a permanent exhibition at the Eastern Institute of Technology's Food and Wine Centre of Innovation. In addition to the panels, exhibition materials included a commemorative book of the same name, tri-fold brochures about the exhibition, and exhibition signage.

Recently she moved back into the realms of glass design in 2006 by creating the images used in the redevelopment of Hastings Opera House by Shand Shelton Architects. These included very large sandblasted glass walls and stained glass windows. The Opera House re-opened in November 2007 to much fanfare and critical acclaim.

Roz decided to give up teaching at the end of 2006 in order to concentrate on further developing her own business including our electronic publishing venture shrewonline.com.

• Shrew Magazine Feb - June 2003
• The Pond
• The Hungry Dog
• The Wind and the Sun
• Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
• Budgie's Dream
• The Hare and the Tortoise
• The Lion and the Mouse
• Little Miss Muffett
• Rhymes to Remember
• More Rhymes to Remember
• Hawke's Bay - a feast for all Seasons

See Patrick Woodroffe's amazing work.

See Brian Froud's amazing work.
Another Fantastic, but dark illustrator is H.R. Geiger.
He is responsible for all the Alien graphics and for any of you old enough to remember Emerson Lake and Palmer, The brain Salad Surgery album cover.

There is a huge amount of information on all these illustrators if you care to "Google" any of them.
It is well worth the effort.

One of mine click on the image below to visit my portfolio.