Joanne has always enjoyed drawing and painting, so after finishing A-Level art, she went on to do a Foundation Course in Illustration at Loughborough. The course encouraged her to find an individual style and allowed her to experiment with different types of illustration.
In her third year, inspired by such classics and The Very Hungry Caterpilla, she began working on an idea for a children's book competition. This is how Stripe was born.
Inspiration has also come from her family cats, Oscar, Psyche, Leo, and Prue, despite their fondness for sitting on freshly painted artwork!
