Talking to Talltape’s first artist Charlotte Bampfylde

Here are Memories of Growing Up, we support emerging British artists, who design the Talltapes especially for us. We speak to Charlotte Bampfylde, the first artist we collaborated with, who designed the Tree of life and Wild Animals Talltapes:

Charlotte Bampfylde – artist

How did you get into illustration? Did you go to art school or was it hobby turned into a career?
It’s a hobby of mine, I have been doing illustrations all my life and larger pictures, although my large is still quite small! I meant to go to art school, but became a secretary instead part time and painted houses and estate agents brochures, advertisements and cartoons the other days, whatever came along, all word of mouth. I also illustrated a friends party games books Are You There Moriarty and Play it Again Moriarty {Debrett) in my twenties and a few charity cook books. In those days it was hard to find a publisher for books I was asked by authors to illustrate – they liked their own illustrators!

What medium do you like to use? Paint, gauche, oils, pencils…
I love painting in oil the most, or pen and watercolour or sometimes pastel.

How did you get involved with Talltape at Memories of Growing Up?
I met Camilla Warren through fundraising for the lovely charity The Lullaby Trust – the Talltape was her idea and she asked me to draw for her. The inspiration behind the best selling tree of life was that a tree is very tall and goes upwards and is full of life, just like children.

Do you think social media apps like Instagram is important in promoting illustrators like yourself?
I am not on Instagram, but I can see it would be very good for illustrators these days, it’s a great way to reach a new audience.

Which artist or illustrators do you admire most?
My favourite illustrators are E.H.Shepard, Beatrice Potter and Quentin Blake, but I admire many more…

If you weren’t an illustrator what would you be?
I have been very lucky to be able to illustrate and paint, as I really enjoy it. Otherwise I expect I would have been a secretary, which I wasn’t really very good at, although I enjoyed the office chat!

Shop our Tree of life Talltape here.