Karen Mcrobbie

Karen enjoys working with a range of both traditional and digital media. She relishes opportunities to experiment and explore materials and techniques, and her illustrations often reveal her rigorous and purposeful approach, balancing innovation with execution. 

Storytelling is a key element in Karen’s work; it informs her narrative projects, editorials, set designs as well as her fine art illustrations and designs for the retail sector. She’s written and developed characters for her own narratives, creating picture books on a variety of themes that have included challenging topics such as depression and bullying, as well as comical children’s stories. 

Karen is passionate about figurative work and enjoys portraiture, creative characters and caricatures, utilising expressions and poses that enhance the narrative. She has a keen interest in illustrating natural history subjects, having been a nature lover since her childhood. Her botanical illustrations and illustrations of moths and butterflies are often portrayed with a dark aesthetic style, adorned with nostalgic embellishment. Detailed, richly textured subjects such as textiles, costumes and jewellery have also been a constant source of inspiration for Karen. 

Karen enjoys working as a volunteer, designing, and painting murals for a homeless project in Swansea called, The shoreline project. She has exhibited worn at, Y Lyle Celf, the Welsh National Eisteddfod, at The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and the Waterfront Museum in Swansea. She is also involved in the development of a Welsh language art website funded by the Welsh government, authoring content. 

Website: https://www.karencrobbie.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karen_mcrobbie/

Email: mcrobski@yahoo.co.uk