Hi there! I'm Sarah (aka eyepicturedthis) and I'm an Illustrator and Animator based in Brisbane, Australia. My time is usually spent creating art, watering my ferns, and taking my corgi (Peach) everywhere I go.
My Story
Even though I knew since I was young that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, I never felt like it was a realistic dream. Throughout high school I enjoyed art as a subject, but wasn't told there were options out there other than being a fine artist.
After high school I wanted to do something creative at university and see where it took me, but after being rejected to study the broad "Creative Industries" degree and a false start studying Multimedia Design at another university, I stopped creating any art for a few years. During this time, I worked in a printing office job where I spent my time scanning and printing documents for people like lawyers and corporate companies. My goal was always to return to study, even though I felt a bit lost at this point.
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Eventually, I found my way to product design at Queensland College of Art (Griffith University), where I graduated with first-class honours in mid-2017. During this degree I found I had a lot of fun problem solving through design, but my passion really was in communicating the ideas and stories through illustration and animation. After graduating I worked in a commercial graphic design studio for 2 years, where I spent my time creating repetitive ads for products I didn’t care about, and it left me feeling creatively constrained. I wanted more!
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Leaving that job and going freelance was daunting, but I took the leap and started freelancing doing very small design jobs. Again, I wasn’t doing the work I wanted to do even though I technically got to choose the jobs I took on… and I still felt creatively stuck!
During 2019 I was offered a job doing freelance work for The Buchan Group on Luminescent Longreach, a project for the Qantas Museum, as a visual development artist/illustrator/animator (all the jobs!). This was such an exciting experience with a wonderful team of talented people. It let my creativity really explode as I took rough storyboards and turned them into colourful animated sequences. This is when I finally started finding my confidence as an artist and connecting with my art style.
In 2020 I had lined up another museum job to work on with the same team, but of course things changed that year, and I was left at home with nothing to do (like a lot of us). I decided then to take advantage of this quiet time to work on my own art and pursue the self-made career that I wanted. That’s when I shared my first paper piece on Instagram! Ever since then I’ve been working with paper full time creating art and videos that have been enjoyed by people all over the world (ahh!). I love being able to spread happiness with my work and I hope to continue doing this well into the future :)
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Below are some beautiful happy people who received a commission made by me. I love these photos!
In April 2024, my debut picture book titled "Grow Big, Little Seed - A story about rainbow babies", written by Bec Nanayakkara, was published by Hardie Grant under their Bright Light collection. "Bright Light is an exuberant, groundbreaking collection of books for children, united by a vision to change the world – one conversation at a time." Illustrating a book on the delicate topic of loss was a profound challenge, but having known many who have experienced such loss, I felt a deep commitment to helping share this important story.
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You can purchase a signed copy via my online shop, or find it in all good bookstores.
Below is my old illustration/animation/motion graphics reel from 2020