David Miller

I always wanted to be an artist. No wait, actually there was a week when I thought it would be good to be an astronaut and walk on the moon.

I studied art at Swinburne in Melbourne. My first employer, one of Australia’s leading designers of the time, introduced me to paper sculpture. (Paper has always fascinated me and I have always loved making things out of it.) Later I worked as an Art Director in advertising agencies before starting my own design and illustration studio.

Now, after working as an art director and illustrator, then for twenty years as an author and illustrator of children’s books, I have returned to my first passion, painting.

In 1995 I wrote and illustrated a book called You Can Make Paper Sculptures. I was then asked to illustrate Mem Fox’s book Boo to a Goose.

The publisher of this book said they would like me to write and illustrate another book. So What’s For Lunch? then Carousel were published. Since then I have written and illustrated more picture books, including Snap Went Chester by Tania Cox, a CBC shortlist book.

Refugees is a CBC Honour book which I both wrote and illustrated. The name says it all, except that it is about wild ducks. Big and Me is a book for children about a child living with a parent who suffers from mental illness.

The illustrations for all these books were three-dimensional paper sculptures constructed using coloured paper, hot glue and core board. In some I have added to the colour with oil-soluble oil pastels, some with coloured pencils and some with paint. All have been exhibited in solo exhibitions in galleries and libraries around Australia.

My last book (and I think it will be the last) is the story of a young yellow-bellied glider taking its first flight. I illustrated this book using water-soluble pencils. It won an award from the Royal Zoological Society of NSW. First Flight was published in 2014 and since then I have painted in oils.

In 2017 I had a solo exhibition of my paintings in the Memo in Healesville, then later that year I participated in the Yarra Valley Open Studios.