Chesterfield artist on juggling family and art as she brings 50-metre mural to life at the Royal Hospital

The 50-metre mural was commissioned by the Chesterfield Royal Charity - but the talented Chesterfield artist and illustrator has also worked with Waitrose, Chatsworth House, and Innocent Smoothies as well as producing stunning illustrations for many books.

Growing up in Bolsover she found a passion for art an early age, “I’ve always been drawing, always found it enjoyable and I was drawn to it,” she said.

Sally continued through school going into sixth form, but found herself being pulled into the world of art.

“I went on to do A-Levels but then I just thought, this isn’t quite right for me. I knew someone on an art course, she told me to come and have a look, so I went and I was like, this is a bit more me, you just got this buzz and I felt like I was home.”

Sally completed her GNVQ with a distinction, and then went on to university to study a degree in Graphic Design. “I think because I was young, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, I knew I liked drawing but I knew I wasn’t a fine artist, I’m quite a straight forward person so I couldn’t blag it and I ended up concentrating on illustration.”

After finishing her degree with a 2:1, she worked at the college as a print technician and did some freelance work. She moved back to Chesterfield where she worked as tutor at Chesterfield College in Art and Design.

Concentrating on building a family with her husband and having four children, she continued to teach but was looking to work on projects and to build her portfolio.

“What changed was when my youngest Gabriel was getting to school age, and I saw a competition at Penguin, where they asked illustrators to submit for a mentoring programme. I’d not really got my portfolio up-to-date as I’d been busy having children, so I entered it thinking it won’t come to anything, but I quite like a project, and no one was more surprised than me when I won it!”

Following the mentoring scheme with Penguin, her illustrations were included in the ‘The Penguin Book of Big Dreams’, an anniversary book which celebrated the 80th birthday of Puffin books. The book was published in 2020 and included other famous artists such as Sir Quentin Blake, Beatrix Potter, Shirley Hughes.

Sally was hoping to launch her illustration career, however the coronavirus pandemic hit. “I thought right okay I’ve done, I was going to send this book out to everyone, but then everything was shut down. It was a bit anti-climatic, but I just carried on, got a few commissions, worked with a local lady on her book, and worked on my website.”

In Christmas 2020 she was excited to receive a phone call to commission a piece of work, “I got approached by Innocent Smoothies, and they said we need an illustrator with your style, we want to commission a book about Santa coming during lockdown. It was lovely, we did it in two or three weeks, it was a really, really tight deadline so I worked day and night. Santa had a hazmat suit so he could still come in the houses, it was for an advert where Santa read this book that I had illustrated, and it went viral.”

She also did some pieces of art for Chatsworth, where she drew elves in different parts of the gardens as part of a trail experience.

On her latest piece at Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Sally said: “With the hospital one, two of my sons have quite severe allergies, I went to an appointment in The Den during lockdown, and because of covid there was nothing in there, and I remember thinking this is awful. So, I said to them, I’ll paint your windows for free, and I got a bit carried away and did massive paintings everywhere, it took me a week or two and then they were like ‘we have this really long corridor, we’ve been looking for an artist to do it, can you do it?’”

This was Sally’s biggest piece yet, taking six weeks to complete and Jenny Reaney, a Play Specialist Team Leader at Chesterfield Royal Hospital, had this to say, “The design by Sally is incredible and we’re delighted with the outcome. It really improves and enhances the area; I’ve already seen some patients stop to look and follow the illustrations down the whole 50m corridor!”

You can find more of Sally’s incredible artwork on her website www.sallyandersonillustration.com, where she welcomes new commissions along with a selection of greeting cards that you can purchase for that special day.