Genny Haines

I’ve always loved drawing and painting. I can still remember the smell of the water based paints my mum used to put out for my sisters and me to paint with around the kitchen table. She’d tell us some fabulous stories and we’d doodle and paint for hours, it seemed. We had a huge bookcase in the hallway full of great treasures, hidden worlds I would disappear into. At school I remember thinking how great it would be to draw for a living (probably during maths or science).

I studied graphic design in South Africa in my early 20s and then moved to Switzerland where I worked as a graphic designer in a small, very successful, advertising company. After leaving Switzerland for the UK in 1996 I became a full time freelance illustrator working for magazines,greeting cards and children’s book publishers.

I have illustrated many books including Margaret Wang’s Five Little Puppies, Sally Doherty’s Stretchy Sharks,  Martin Kelly’s I'm Building a Robot, Richard Powell’s My Dinosaurs, Stephen Griffiths’ Bunny's Big White Teeth and Elliott's Shoelaces, and Rachel Elliott’s Beep Beep! and Quack, quack!. My own illustrated stories include many novelty books for Robert Frederick ranging from princess and fairy stories to historical adventures for the very young.

Clients I have worked for include: Caterpillar Books, Emma Treehouse, Cowley-Robinson, Scholastic, Oxford University Press, Robert Frederick Ltd, Tormont Canada, Piggy Toes Press USA, Smartink USA, The Funtastics Music Group, Carlton Cards, NSPCC, Girlguides UK, Practical parenting and Ravensburger.