Graeme Compton

Graeme is a visual artist and illustrator. He was born in Narrabri, North-West NSW, Australia. He has loved drawing since childhood. He works from home and has a busy practice, completing commissions for portraiture and illustrations for children's books.

Graeme's subjects and styles are broad, from fierce dragons to happy humans, one-eyed chooks to piano-crunching pachyderms, rendered in graphite, ink, charcoal, acrylic or pixels. He has twice been a finalist for portraiture in the Mortimer Prize for Realism (2011-2012) and received the Grand Champion award for his work 'Egret on Tap' in the Gunnedah Art Exhibition 2013. From 2013 he began illustrating children's books and has produced numerous pictures for authors, filling twelve books by early 2017. Authors include Pat Clarke, Emma Martin, Fred Strassberg, Alec Trost, Cherelle Flemming, Cassidy Jackson-Carroll and Jacqui Warnock.

Graeme completes portraits in between illustrations. He is currently working on the sketches for an exhibition of his fantasy works, including dragons, phoenixes, demons and other beasties. His other major long-term project is a series of elephantised masters. Three of his larger works are featured in 'Who's Who in Visual Art - Masters of Realistic Imagery 2015-2016', compiled by editor Ulrich Goette Himmelblau. He continues to draw cartoons of elephants thumping pianos for the elucidation and inspiration of his music students.