Willow Dawson

Who is Willow Dawson?

Willow Dawson is a Canadian cartoonist and illustrator, whose works include The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea with author Helaine Becker, Hyena in Petticoats: The Story of Suffragette Nellie McClung, Lila and Ecco's Do-It-Yourself Comics Club, 100 Mile House, the graphic novel No Girls Allowed, with author Susan Hughes, and Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate, with author Emily Pohl-Weary. Her works have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.

Her black and white comics art style is wonderful: bold and full of thought. Dawson also creates painted stand alone illustrations which she turns into prints and sells on her Society6 site. The original art is created using acrylic ink and paint on recycled cardboard. Her illustrations convey a mood of whimsy and playful-uncanny. Her work typically exhibits flowing linework and favours a 50's colour palette.

She is a member of The RAID Studio, The Writers' Union of Canada, Illustration Mundo, and JacketFlap.

Dawson was born in 1975 and grew up in Vancouver, BC. She currently lives in a creaky-old-house-turned-music-school in downtown Toronto.