One philosophy underpins Hannah Lock’s practice – to never feel stagnant or unchangeable

The illustrator Hannah Lock has always been incessantly drawing. From a young age, she drew on anything she could get her hands on, in one form or another. “It wasn’t until high school that my art teacher just said ‘You should be an illustrator’,” Hannah says, “and I think that stuck with me.” Never deviating from the idea, she went on to study at Leeds Art College and Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge School of Art. “Cambridge School Art has a real emphasis on observational drawing being the backbone of an illustration practice,” she says, “so if I feel stuck, I go back to that”. This self-aware approach to illustration, character and scenes informs the philosophy underpinning Hannah’s practice – to never feel stagnant or unchangeable.

“I try to experiment where I can, with colour, texture, composition, mark-making, and occasionally materials,” she says, “just so my work still feels like it’s changing whilst still having an essence of me,” a creative fluidity that’s inspired by her primary influences like Tove Jansson, among others. “My favourite artists and illustrators are the ones that tend to experiment, and none of their work looks the same,” Hannah adds. “I love my top lad, Yorkshire boy David Hockney for this,” says Hannah, being a born-and-bred West Yorkshire woman herself.

A running theme throughout Hannah’s work is animals, particularly pets. “At the moment, my partner and I rent a place where we’re not allowed pets,” she says, “so I’ve got to get my joy of dogs and cats elsewhere.” This means that Hannah often ends up drawing them or scouting them out in coffee shops. Alongside her dog obsession, Hannah’s also spent a lot of time drawing cats, after watching the Electrical Life of Louis Wain, as well as making her way through Maud Lewis’s animal-heavy folk art. “Currently, I’m trying to draw horses better,” Hannah ends, “they have too many limbs.”