Meet our volunteer illustrator Merve

Hi Merve! So tell me a little bit about how you became an illustrator. 

My story really starts when I was five. I’ve always loved drawing, and as a toddler, I used to draw on everything in our home in Turkey. Once, I secretly drew a huge caterpillar under the carpet—my family was surprised when they found it!

Later on, I studied education and worked in the field for several years. But I never let go of my passion for drawing, illustration, and design. I began my career as a 2D animator, then spent nearly ten years at the Turkish Ministry of Education, first as a teacher, then as an educational specialist. Even there, I took on creative roles, including leading the design team. During the pandemic, I created and presented a drawing program for the Ministry’s national TV channel, a platform with the potential to reach millions of children.

Outside of work, I started writing small stories. After my son Yaman was born, picture books became a big part of our lives, and I thought, “I can do this!”. My first book, inspired by him, grew into a three-book series, The Adventures of Yaman, published in Turkey. 

That’s amazing!

Yeah! He really loves those books, too. In addition to my own books, I’ve also illustrated works by other authors and contributed illustrations to children’s magazines.

Anyway, although I was doing some professional work as an illustrator, I knew I wanted to fully change my career. Initially, I embarked on a PhD in graphic design in Turkey. In Turkey, there isn’t a direct path to studying illustration. You usually study graphic design or a similar program, which includes some illustration as part of the curriculum.

After I started that qualification, I found out about the Cambridge School of Art’s MA Children’s Book Illustration programme - and I knew it would be a better fit. So I paused my PhD studies and relocated to the UK with my family. I recently completed the master’s with distinction, which has been a hugely rewarding and transformative experience for me as an illustrator.

Did you start volunteering soon after coming to the UK?

When I came to the UK, I discovered that lots of people in my community were volunteering. Drawing on my established skills as an illustrator, I wanted to use volunteering to contribute meaningfully, while further developing my professional experience.

I found Reach quite early on in my volunteering journey - I thought it looked like a very professional and trustworthy platform. It was through Reach that I found a wonderful role with Settle Stories, who use storytelling as a way of building bridges between different communities. I illustrated a story about Little Red Hen, which was turned into a video. It was a really lovely experience. Volunteering gave me the opportunity to apply my existing illustration experience in a UK context, and helped me start building a professional network around my work.

And then you took on this role for us. Can you talk us through your process; how do you find the right style and content for an illustration? 

Before illustrating, I always research. I’m looking for ideas - for example, if I’m looking to draw a director character, I’m looking to see what those professionals look like in real life, what props and tools you see them using, what kind of personalities they might have…

As I research, I make a lot of early illustrations in my sketchbooks, by hand. It means at the point that I get to drawing digitally, I’ve already got a very strong idea on paper. 

The drawing itself I do with a stylus on an iPad. But when I came to my course in Cambridge, there was much more of an emphasis on traditional tools - pens, pencils, paints etc. So it’s been fun to combine these two approaches; the digital and the traditional. I always used to make my work really neat and clean and, you know, more digital. But now I'm always looking for textures, messiness and movement…

How do you make your drawing look so life-like?

Using real models!

For example, one of your illustrations was themed ‘taking a break’. So I went away and researched what people look like when they’re relaxing. I tried to find some photographs of someone with their legs up on a desk, but I couldn’t find one! So I took one of my own legs... 

Those kinds of observational drawings are super important. My figures are often stretched or given bigger proportions, but at the same time, there has to be a proper model behind them, So I’ll start out referencing the real life figure, and then distort them in whatever way I want to make them more stylised or abstract. 

And finally, what are you looking to do next as a volunteer?

I’m always open to new things, because if something makes me feel excited I’m happy to give my time to it. I think there’s sometimes a commonly-held belief that as an artist you should only have one real style, but that’s not for me. One week I’ll be doing drawing and painting, the next I’ll be on my iPad - that kind of variety feeds me. 

And I love storytelling. So anything that allows me to do more of that is great!

Merve produced all of the illustrations for the main Reach website. You can see more examples of her work on her website.