Claire Barker is a local illustrator from West Buckland in North Devon. When she was nine years old her aunt gave her a beautifully illustrated copy of Shakespeare's Tales and she has not been able to stop making marks since.  Despite dipping her toes into various careers (poodle parlour assistant, teacher, Spitting Image puppeteer, childminder, ) nothing has ever matched up to the buzz she gets from drawing.

Claire combines traditional techniques (watercolour, pencil, dip pen and ink with computer technology to produce a range of funny, wild and occasionally dark images.

This year her work has been selected to appear in the prestigious Images 29 catalogue; the Association of Illustrator's annual showcase publication. Her inspirations are Shirley Hughes, Roald Dahl and Oscar Wilde. She creates images for books, cards, logos and privately commissioned pieces.