Beth Krommes

From her web site I was born in 1956 and spent a happy childhood in Emmaus, Pennsylvania with my parents and four sisters. I received a BFA degree in painting from Syracuse University and a MAT in art education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I also had the good fortune to spend a year at St. Martin's School of Art in London. I have worked as a public school art teacher, a manager of a fine handcraft shop, and an art director for a computer magazine. I have now been working as a full-time freelance illustrator since 1989, focusing on children's book illustration for the last ten years. Although painting was my first love, I became interested in wood engraving in 1982. I was drawn to its small scale and fine line work. My first illustrations were wood engravings. I soon switched to scratchboard, which has the same look but is faster. In order to add color to my illustrations, I developed a technique of photocopying the scratchboard onto acid-free paper, mounting the paper onto a more stable board, and adding color with watercolor. My first children's book, Grandmother Winter, was published in 1999. I live in Peterborough, New Hampshire with my husband and two daughters, and continue to work as a fine artist while pursuing my career in children's book illustration. My mission is to create art that is joyful in spirit, universal in nature, and that is accessible and affordable to others.